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Organizational Environment: Does it Prevent or Promote Innovation?
By Jonathan
Halls IN THIS ARTICLE:
Innovative organizations exist when employees have the freedom to be creative and develop new ideas, products, services and ways of doing work. If you’re planning to lead innovation in your workplace, look at the organizational environment. It will either inspire creativity. Or inhibit it. As a leader you have an opportunity to create an environment where innovation can flourish. Of course it’s never easy. As you build an innovative organization, here are a few areas to look at.
Policies versus Vision Policies can severely inhibit creativity. Especially in large bureaucratic organizations. Large bureaucratic organizations are known as boring, bland places. A lot of government departments and big old organizations suffer from this. Policies and red tape destroy the creative soul. They bind staff into certain ways of working, offering little room to be fresh and innovative.
It’s all a shame. Used wisely, policies should boost creativity. In practice they don’t. Policies aren’t always bad Generally, policies aren’t bad to start with. They ensure consistency. This is important in large organizations with large numbers of staff and multiple locations. Policies also speed up routine work, freeing your mind to focus on more interesting tasks. And they are important to ensure legal and financial compliance. However, because formal policies often take a long time to enact in larger organizations, they tend to live on long after their ‘use by’ date. And given most managers see policies as quite formal – especially junior managers – they are reluctant to withdraw or ignore them. So policies are followed religiously even when they’re no longer relevant or helpful. Organizations that follow rules and don’t change their policies quickly becomes antiquated, inflexible and dead. Questioning the rules and policies is essential for a healthy innovative organization. And the fewer policies or rules you have, the more flexible your organization. Vision and rules Achieving this raises two questions. First, how do I know if a policy or rule needs to be withdrawn? And secondly, how do members of my staff work without rules and policy manuals? The answer to those questions lies in how you use your vision. Innovative organizations are more focused on their vision than their rules. And innovative organizations generally have very focused visions. They’re clearly written and quickly identify what that organization is trying to do. Question one: Vision/Rule disconnect The problem with stodgy old, bureaucratic organizations is that they often have significant disconnects between policies and vision. The CEO stands up one day and declares, “We need flexible working conditions so staff have the right work/life balance.” But she never rescinds the HR policies that require all staff to be at their desks by 9am. So managers – who are busily watching their own job security – refuse flexible working conditions. A common example of the ‘vision/rules disconnect’ in organizations that aspire to become innovative concerns the question of failure and success.
Bosses declare to their staff, “mistakes are fine because they lead to creativity,” However, they never change policy to enact this. And when someone does make a mistake, policy almost always prevails. Unless there’s a brave manager. So the answer to our first question is that policy needs to be constantly reviewed in line with your vision. If you want to be a creative organization, make sure your policy reflects it. If not, stodgy old rules will almost always prevail. When a policy clearly belongs to the past and contradicts your vision, pull it out. Or re-write it. Policies are important for mundane issues and compliance. They help consistency across the organization. However the fewer you have, the more flexible your organization. Question two: work without the policy manuals Some employees find it very difficult to work without policy manuals. This is sometimes the result of working for years in an organization that has not encouraged employees to think. Policies tend to focus on the minutiae rather than the big picture. However organizations don’t exist for minutiae but their vision. However, policy ends up carrying more weight than the vision itself. For example, the US Defense Department deploys thousands of civilians abroad every year. Their policies that cover their deployment and conditions of living are written to ensure employees experience a reasonable standard of welfare when overseas. Because of their inflexibility and the inability of a rule or policy to cater for every circumstance, they very often create un-unpleasant experiences. So while their purpose is to look after staff, managers end up looking after rules. The answer is to place more emphasis on the vision rather than rules. Of course rules are important. Especially in life and death matters such as combat. And this is how you can spur on innovation in your workplace. First you reduce the number of rules by examining each policy to ensure it’s consistent with your vision. And then you throw out any rules undermine your vision. Second, get your employees to focus on the vision by. Give them the leeway to make their own decisions based on it being the efficient and effective way to achieve the vision. Furthermore, allow them some discretion.
So give your employees some discretion to bend the rule to achieve the vision. They should be able to explain how breaking it achieves the vision. Obviously this license shouldn’t be given where it undermines ethics or puts the organization at legal risk. Often employees will do better when not handcuffed to rule books, but freed to seriously achieve your vision. Structure One of the symptoms of organizations bound by thick policy manuals is heavily hierarchal structures. Hierarchy tends to quash innovation and the creative spirit. There are many reasons for this. One reason is that the relationships are either of subservience or dominance rather than collegiality. Another is they breed empires faster than rabbits. This leads to rivalry between departments and divisions as bosses try to outdo each other. It also closes down the channels of collaboration that could lead to new ideas. Another reason hierarchy stifles innovation is that it takes forever for ideas or initial expressions of interest to be approved. When someone discovers a great idea it gets passed through numerous managers before it reaches the person who can make a decision. And of course, any questions the decision-maker has, have to be passed down through the same managers. When you review your organization’s structure, aim for a flat structure where people are free to talk to each other across boundaries. There was considerable criticism when flat structures became trendy. People accused senior managers of passing more decision-making responsibility down to junior staff. While this may still be valid in some organizations, it opens up innovation. More conversations that lead to collaboration. So, do what you can to build a flatter structure. Getting this right is hard work Working through your vision is hard work. And then reviewing all your policy under the lens of your vision isn’t easy either. But it’s worth it. It gives your people the freedom to work outside the box and further your organization’s innovation. If you need help working on your vision, reviewing your policies or thinking through these concepts, talk to Talkshow as we can help with coaching, consulting, workshops and motivational talks.
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The mere act of questioning policy - asking if it is still
appropriate - is often seen as treason. Questioning if a policy
still achieves what it was originally designed for, is regarded
suspiciously.
An important principle in innovation and creativity theory is
the path to success is littered with little failures. Think of
Edison and his light bulb. More than a thousand failures. But
he got there and changed the world.
You may find that in your review of policy miss one that should
really be thrown out. It clearly contradicts your vision and
makes it difficult to achieve.
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