“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Expecting extraordinary results while deploying the same ordinary innovation strategies is really the embodiment of this ubiquitous Einstein truism. Organizations are being dealt an increasingly difficult set of challenges, the global financial meltdown being just the latest, and are expected by their stakeholders to not only deliver what I call the minimum (an unbroken flow of ever-increasing results), but also respond with the game changers that will separate their organization from the rest of the pack. It can be argued that organizations are pretty close to running flat out – in every category of the resources mix. But nowhere is that growing strain felt more acutely than on the rank-and-file side of the deliverables equation. This circumstance is particularly important in the innovation realm, as many companies aren’t so much in a fight to get more good ideas (although in this aspect, more is always better)…their principle conundrum is the ability to select, develop, augment, validate, decide and implement the ones they already have – in an effective and efficient manner that doesn’t break stride in the delivery of the minimum.

Now we all pretty much know that collaboration is a big part of the answer – how that lever is pulled within the process, however, is the source of much consternation. hand-wringing and delay inducing over-analysis.

The central debate, and that which holds the promise of the greatest return, demands a different approach to collaboration than the one companies are most accustomed (read: comfortable) with.

There is an extraordinary collaboration strategy that is sitting in the lap of management called Open Innovation and Distributed Tasking. The internal and external leveraging of self-organizing and self-motivated people, collaborative birds-of-a-feather that get something special they need out of the innovation process – and the innovation process gets something extra it needs out of them; a symbiotic relationship if there ever was one.

The early adopters to this approach have seen the light and have jumped in – interestingly enough, in the case of our clients, they are market leaders in their segments and now I fully understand what keeps them there (in certain cases for over 100 years!!). They don’t always have all the answers neatly fettered-out in front of them, but they see enough benefit to instinctively move on an opportunity.

Indecision carries its own set of costs, so for the Open innovation fence sitters out there who aren’t yet decided, it may be time for a leap of faith. Otherwise, even the minimum may soon become unattainable despite their best ordinary maximum.