Do I Need Innovation or Should I go Back to Basics? 

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Chances are, the answer to this question is going to be obvious, most likely, half of the readers will say Innovation while the other half will definitely think that Back to Basics is it. The right thing for most, is to keep a balance between both positions as you can only innovate if the basic principles are in place and strong enough to sustain it.

 

The world is moving fast in the direction of technology and the evolution of what can be achieved through new developments and inventions is hard to catch up with. Truth is, innovation is not only technology. The definition of innovation is “A change effected by innovating; a change in customs; something new and contrary to established customs, manners, or rites” in essence, innovation equals change.

 

On the other hand basics refers to the fundamentals and essentials, those things that constitute the foundation of something, only when you have this you can then innovate as it is the basics that will allow you to successfully innovate.

 

This is a topic of much discussion and sometimes heated argument, if you are introducing a new line of business, product, service or offering you are then innovating in the market and you can come in with a whole new set of ideas and concepts that in turn will become your basics, on the other hand if you have an established business, product, service or offering then you start from your basics to innovate from there.

 

The confusion between these two concepts creates major issues in organizations that believe their future lays on adopting what is in the newest wave of technology and fall in despair when things are not going the way they thought it would after major investments don’t deliver. Most of the time a factor for failure is the gap that gets created between where their basics are and what is being expected as a result of pushing ‘new’ things into an environment that has not been prepared for it.

 

Today the world moves with heavy human involvement and interaction. According to PeW Research Center advanced economies report 87% of internet users while developing economies are only at 54%, more interesting though, is that according to this same report, an average of 68% of adults in advanced economies own a smartphone vs. a 37% from emerging economies.

 

These numbers help us put things into perspective, if you consider that cell phones have been around for decades now as well as internet, for reasons of infrastructure, politics but most importantly culture; Have made it difficult for these technologies to enter into major markets at the speed communications corporations would like to. It is exactly what happens in an organization when a change of any type is being introduced; people resist change, politics get in the way and the organizational culture shields itself from what is different.

 

The number one reason why organizations fail in reaching and sustaining improvements through innovation is because they have failed at taking care of the basics to support the change.

 

One critical flaw over the years has been that important, sometimes multimillion dollar capital investments are assessed, scrutinized and approved by executives and boards but when it comes to preparing the workforce to successfully manage change and evolution for innovation, investments are minimal or even worse completely neglected.

 

One of the largest copper producers in South America was struggling with the poor performance of their maintenance group as the expected down times for their hauling fleet were growing and lagging behind the performance of the production team, when a detailed assessment was made, it was disclosed that after having made a major upgrade to their MRO training was provided only to a few individuals that were meant to train the rest of the teams, when they came back to the operation they did it to their original full time job with no plan to cross pollinate on their coworkers, hence, entire modules were not being utilized and the decay in the use of the system was so severe to the point that it was only being used as a reporting tool that most viewed as a burden.

 

Another common problem with change and innovation is that it happens too often and with limited or no communication to the organization whatsoever, new executive positions that last only for a few months, different reports and indicators that are requested and never utilized, creation of intermediate processes that become rework and never goes away; All of these with time and repetition make the organization immune to change as there is loss of credibility and the perception that any change will be temporary and applying any effort would be a waste.

 

Maintaining a mindset of innovation is a critical success factor for every organization as much as keeping the basics is, if this is not done and balance is not maintained, then gaps and cracks are created generating inefficiencies, high costs and even a potential loss on market share.

 

If you are not sure if the fundamentals of your organization are ready to support and sustain change and innovation make sure you seek out for external professional help so you can assess where you stand and find ways to accelerate the adoption of change in a successful manner. 

 

It is not uncommon that as management rotates around, assumptions are made that the basic fundamentals are there and working, after all, those are the basics of the business. Don’t fall into that trap and if you are taking over an executive C-level role have your due diligence done on where the basics of the business are before you embark into any major innovation effort.

 

By: Cristopher Del Angel, CEO at To The Top Management Consulting