Being in the business of developing Innovation Management software and observing how companies cope with long-entrenched operating models gives us a somewhat unique bird-cat seat as to how change and transformation occurs; and also how it doesn’t. You see, for all the hoopla that innovation initiatives generate, the inertia of complacency is well fed by fear of change. It is not for a lack of genuine desire that these programs meet resistance – it is a result of work models that are no longer well-suited for the times.

Today we are asking our internal people to do more than ever, better, faster…but much like with anything in life, there are limitations; and many organizations are close to reaching these limits on a human/tasking level. To use a metaphor, if someone is juggling chainsaws while balancing on one leg, it’s usually a bad idea to ask them to start hopping – small missteps can cascade to disastrous outcomes. Yet more is exactly what we insist on when we demand innovation delivered now – creativity, development, collaboration, validation, testing, cost justification, implementation, execution and ROI – breakthrough ideas with unlimited upside. Oh…and do this while hitting next quarter’s regular growth targets at the same time!!

This need-for-speed mania has also created a collateral and unintended consequence: people have little discretionary time to think far beyond the immediacy of their current emergency; which has stalled the development of new workflow and tasking models intended to accelerate innovation execution while alleviating task congestion. For those of you who have read my past blogs, you know where I’m going next. There is a huge lever out there called distributed labor and the kicker is that you can get subject-matter expertise and speed-of-execution as part of the package – if you dare. There are legions of people who are ready to pick-up innovation tasks and deliver the goods on a pay-for-performance basis. One that only rewards the various constituents when the value of an idea turns into the results of an implemented innovation; yes Virginia, you can dictate the rules of the game.

I’ve heard the arguments of the business-as-usual naysayers who profess that all is well and we just need to press-on; albeit a little harder. But if you look at the overall innovation effort expended and measure real success against it, the answer in many cases is a steady average of diminishing returns verses resources spent. Beyond the obvious, the beauty of this new (dare we call it management innovation) approach is that the risk mitigation card remains firmly in your hand - because you can control the “openness” of these work models and how information is generated, exchanged and managed. That means you can be cautious and start small; once you have a proof of concept, you can ramp-up the roles along with the responsibilities and responsiveness targets. Imagine increasing the equivalent of your top 10% FTEs output without so much as one hire. If that little voice inside your head is telling you this sounds right, maybe it’s time to trust that instinct instead of enduring the Status Quo, and try leading change with the most powerful tool there is: management innovation leadership.