Every organization and leader wants to create an innovative culture, yet it remains a mystery. Why is something so universally adored, that involves fun and experimentation, so hard to create?
In this article, we have tried to decode the phenomenon of an innovative culture with our experience and learning at Techment.
The Central Paradox of Innovative Cultures
The research on the subject captures the essence of innovative cultures as:
Sometimes, even organizations who have all these qualities fail at being innovative; and that is the irony!
Decoding the Irony
A company has a culture of no tolerance for incompetence, indiscipline, encourages blisteringly candid feedback, and strict accountability. Is it an innovative one? Let’s explore more.
Professor Gary P. Pisano, Harvard Business School, raises some interesting points in his research on innovative cultures. He points out the counterintuitiveness of bringing together these seemingly opposite cultural qualities, which makes innovative cultures so difficult to create.
Reconciling the Opposites
On the other hand, Amazon ranks employees on a forced curve, where the bottom part of the distribution gets culled. The unacceptability of incompetence finds its root in the experimentative culture of an innovative company that often takes a leap of faith, and the failure must not be simply due to bad management or imperfect analysis. With competent people, failure comes with valuable learning, the cherished outcome. Judging if a fiasco was due to bad judgment or was a genuine one is also very challenging, and harsh policies may make people reluctant to take a risk.
A manager can be entrusted with a new project, he is free to collaborate with resources within and outside the organization, but ultimately he must be responsible for the outcome. Innovation demands accountability and better decision-making.
Flat structure helps leaders stay close to the action and interact at the root level. Leaders must use this opportunity to communicate their vision and give context to things they are doing.
Reasons Behind the Success of Techment’s Innovative Culture
As a young company, Techment had a tough challenge of building a culture and developing values that take deeper roots as the organization grows. One thing that favored us was our compact size and flat structure. It is relatively easy to be innovative, establish accountability and share candid feedback as personal rapport is still strong.
For us, the challenge is to recreate the innovative culture in tandem with our growth and carry forward the innovation momentum. A few things we have been successful culturally are:
a) Acceptance to Experimentation and Failures
b) Upskilling to Strengthen Competence
c) Transparent Accountability
d) Recognition of Innovative Ideas
e) Family like Togetherness: Provides Psychological Safety and acceptance to candid Feedbacks
f) Mentoring for Greater Trust
For many organizations like us, which are growing rapidly, the leadership imperative is to create a culture that moves a little ahead of the organization and with a vision, and not vice-versa.
Leading a Sustainable Innovative Culture
It is challenging to lead an innovative culture as it involves a combination of seemingly contradictory behaviors and is thus highly challenging to walk the innovation tightrope. In essence, it is a balancing act, and here is how I summarize it:
The key to creating lasting innovative culture is to manage these contradictions.
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