By Sylvia Carr, 27 September 2004 13:15
NEWS
Innovation in IT is key to running a successful businesses - though the UK lags behind other countries in encouraging it.
Speaking during a panel discussion at today's silicon.com CIO Forum, Allan Timpany, CEO of Vanco, said: "[IT innovation] is about more than just making sure there are successful projects. It's about growth and driving growth in your business."
Innovation can come from the top down - say, when a CEO dictates a business strategy that necessitates technological change.
According to Timpany, this is essential: "[Innovation] has to be led by the most senior levels of business."
CIOs working with bosses who don't see IT as a key to success have "got to galvanise and inspire them to take advantage of the opportunities" innovative IT offers, he added.
Advancements can also come from the bottom up - when IT workers improve a process they've observed first hand, for example.
One advantage of this approach, said Frank Coyle, IT director, John Menzies Distribution, is that the projects can be implemented quickly "because the groundwork has been done".
But this doesn't mean slacking off on regular duties. "The best innovations, the most successful ones, come from people doing their day jobs well and the innovations come as something extra," he added.
UK businesses, however, are too often seen as lacking when it comes to innovation.
This is partly due to a risk-averse culture, the panel agreed.
Coyle said: "In the UK, especially in IT, we have a culture of constant cost justification and ROI. Our culture has gone too far that way... it gives us a culture that's averse to risk."
JP Rangaswami, global CIO, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, also pointed to a lack of consumerism in the UK as opposed to the US: "In the UK... there's an acceptance culture. But if innovation is going to take place, it needs to be customer-driven."
Corporate culture also contributes to encouraging or dampening enthusiasm and new ideas from workers. In the UK, there's less support for these than there should be, according to John Menzies' Coyle.
Coyle said: "I don't know anywhere where there isn't an attempt to stamp out individualism - in the UK there isn't anywhere that doesn't have some aspect of this."
So what can be done to encourage innovation?
First, argued Rangaswami, corporate leaders must get involved: "The role of leadership is to enable innovation to take place... For [this idea] to get traction an entire organisation must believe in it."
Hiring can also play a role, with Coyle suggesting that hiring individuals from small dot-com companies can bring ideas into a larger organisation.
To encourage innovation, you must also allow for failures. Rangaswami said: "You must learn to celebrate failures gloriously - as long as learning has taken place."
It's not hopeless in the UK, though, with mentions for innovative UK businesses such as Lastminute.com and Betfair.com as well as giants such as Vodafone.
Vanco's Timpany said: "There's a lot to be proud of in UK. But what can we do to make it even better?... We're already growing faster than the rest of Europe. With more passionate adoption of IT, we really can take off as a country - we've just got to have the pride and ambition to do that."
Comments
There are 4 comments. Join the discussion
1. Paul Wood
I liked Frank Coyle's suggestion that 'hiring individuals from small (dot-com) companies can bring ideas into a larger organisation'. Sadly, most large organisations in the UK have no visibility of the capability and innovation available to them from small business and even put barriers in place to block their approaches (e.g. preferred supplier lists).
2. Ben Simonton
Leadership creates a highly innovative culture, at least it can if the correct strategy is used. I know only because in 34 years of managing people I proved it. Let me explain how a superior leadership strategy works, the opposite of one that causes people to "leave your brain at the door" as they enter the workplace.
A superior leadership strategy inspires people to do more, dream more and learn more. We all know that people are our most important asset and that the best ones are self-motivated self-starters. Unfortunately, only 5% or so are naturally that way. A superior leadership strategy is capable of making the vast majority of employees self-motivated self-starters who are highly committed, highly innovative and highly productive, up to 300% more so than if poorly motivated. So let's look at this strategy.
Values are the centerpiece of this strategy because employees respect actions which reflect high standards of all the good values like industry, fairness, forthrightness, compassion, honesty, etc while they disrespect actions reflecting low or negative standards. Actions (thru the boss' support functions such as training, discipline, tools, direction, information, technical advice, etc) reflecting high standards strongly influence employees toward emulating those standards, but the same emulation occurs for actions reflecting low standards. This is called following. Fortunately, self-motivated self-starters don't follow and thus their performance does not go up and down because of following the latest leadership. For this reason, the strategy is designed to create these people.
Listening is the most important leadership skill of this strategy because people cannot be motivated or committed to something if they can't "put in their own two cents", when they want and how they want, or if they can't understand and be in on the decision process for things which affect them. Of such things is TRUST built.
So what should bosses do?? It starts with providing employees regular opportunities, one-on-one and in groups, to express their complaints, suggestions and questions. These must be answered fully and in a timely fashion, no hipshooting please. All of the boss' actions in so doing must meet the highest standards of common values like honesty, respect, fairness, forthrightness, industriousness, admission of error, knowledge, quality, and the like. As the boss corrects the complaints, the boss' leadership toward higher standards improves because people generally only complain about things which reflect low standards, your leadership. Turning these low standards into high standards constitutes superior leadership.
These actions will have many effects on employees. As their complaints are respectfully addressed, they will begin to believe that their bosses care about them. They will start to believe that they are valued team members. They will learn how to fix things using the highest standards for all values. They will learn how best to treat their customers, each other and their work. They will start to use their own brains and actions to solve workplace problems, to innovate and to work more effectively, all because the boss is showing such high regard and respect for them. Productivity will rise and keep rising. Creativity, motivation and commitment will do likewise, but only so long as their complaints, suggestions and questions continue to be addressed regularly, respectfully and completely. Why even make a complaint or a suggestion if no action will be taken? Why not just "leave your brain at the door"?
There is much more to a superior leadership strategy (including how specifically to create self-motivated self-starters) because there are many other ways in which employees react to the leadership messages present in the workplace. Each of these ways must be taken into consideration in effecting a superior leadership strategy.
Ben Simonton
Simonton Associates
http://www.bensimonton.com
3. Ruprecht
Ben, that little link on the bottom of the page says 'post your comment' not 'submit you sales pitch here'...now bugger off and leave the forums free for comment, not drivel.
;o)
4. Simon Gall
There is no lack of innovation or invention from the UK. In fact, per capita Brits have created more than any other country (including Japan, USA & Finland & Israel).
Let's just say the funding and support structure is poor.
My past is one of troubleshooting early-stage companies on behalf of investors and CEO's. I now co-founded and run four companies in Hi-tech / Tech. The financial sector must realise that the UK needs more positive financiers for our brilliant land of Brit brains.If you look into Hansard 1996 , you'll see that £5bn was lost in tax revenue for the years 185 to 1995 due to inventions and inventors having their work developed overseas. MADNESS!