A perfectly natural comment appeared on innovationexcellence recently. Here’s the quote:
“Incremental innovation leads to an innovative culture.”
But the longer I thought about it, the more uneasy I became. Then I substituted the word improvement for the phrase “incremental innovation” and the word transformation for innovation. Suddenly, I saw what was bugging me, and I was left with this question:
Is a company that is very good at improving its current business likely to be good at transforming itself into another kind of business when the time comes?
Is the “lets do things better” guy (the improver) likely to jump on the “lets do something different” (innovation) bandwagon? Or put another way: Is the person who just spent years polishing the current business model to a brilliant shine likely to love the person who tries to throw that model into the trash bin of history? Seriously, I’m asking.
On the other hand, improvement and innovation are subsets of the general class: Change. So if a company is good at changes that lead to improvement, perhaps it is also more limber when it has to engage in paradigm-shifting innovation.
Well I’ll admit, I’m scratching my head. But at least now I’m clear about the question.