…Business is not a sporting event. Victory for one company doesn’t mean defeat for everyone else.
- James Surowiecki

Playing Games With Innovation
Let’s be blunt, innovation has become the latest political football in many organizations and the competition around owning it has become fierce, if not ugly. For those organizations who do not know how to address their current poor market performance, the concept of innovation is one that is being firmly embraced. It’s hot. There is widespread media attention. So many senior leaders have grabbed it with both hands. But, like the dog who doesn’t know what to do with the car once he catches it, these organizations struggle to define what innovation means to them and what it might deliver in terms of improving their fortune.

Due to its popularity and high visibility in the marketplace, the ownership of innovation has become a part of many organizations’ power struggles. Not necessarily innovations themselves. Mostly the levers and resources that may (or may not) drive innovation outcomes. Whoever controls the conversation about the concept also ends up controlling, if not outright budgetary and expense authority, a certain amount of power that comes with the imprimatur of being responsible for the “new and sexy.” Innovation has become something to be batted about and the result is a poorer focus on outcomes.

It’s Not Bi-partisan – It’s A-political
Those who understand innovation also understand that breakthrough products can transform business. True innovations are greater than the desire to improve existing business practices; innovation can drive positive transitions into the future. They enable an organization to achieve a growth trajectory beyond its present state. They unleash huge revenue and profit potential. Because of this inherent capacity for disruption they also often foster competing objectives among an organization’s leaders. Each leader might view innovation from their unique perspective and lose sight of the overall value the business might derive. The result is a breakdown in cross-organizational support due to a reinforcement of functional silos. Within innovation resides the potential for enormous power. Is it any wonder there is a struggle to control it?

Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine…
- The Sydney Seagulls in “Finding Nemo” (Pixar)

Much like the Sydney Seagulls in the Pixar animated classic, Finding Nemo, everyone has declared innovation, “Mine!” The battle for control over innovation is not unique to any single organization. Within that struggle, and just as pedestrian, is that fact that many senior leaders are hard-pressed to define what they are wrestling over. There are no organized parties around innovation. In fact, the factionalism that occurs is often driven by territorial concerns rather than growth outcomes. The turf battles over the control of innovation-focused resources and the portfolio of innovation initiatives is also hampered by other political matters. One of which would be, the “tyranny of the urgent over the important.” The objective of which is not necessarily to be focused on creating value, but to be focused on the appearance of making a contribution.

The Politics of Survival
This is the politics of self-preservation; which is completely at counter-purposes to the risk required for true innovation. For the sake of political expediency, innovation is often sacrificed as the organization’s attention turns to other, seemingly more important, concerns. In publicly-traded firms, the omnipresent attention of the “market” drives concerns into 30 day-defined horizons. Or, for the longer-minded, that might be stretched out to the end of each quarter. Where the demands of the business require control and systematic delivery of results, in order to meet the market’s demands for consistency and reliability, innovation is quite another animal altogether. It requires an acknowledged risk and the commitment of resources with the desire to deliver a future unknown benefit.

Fortunately, there are a few individuals in some organizations who have come to understand that by neutralizing organizational politics they might better facilitate first a breakthrough idea’s acceptance into development, and then develop that concept into a viable product. They start with a thorough understanding of the social network that exists within the organization. With this in mind they can knit together a coalition of supporters who can provide cover and guidance that exists separately from the organization structure as it is defined in purely functional terms. This gives them the ability to dodge the leadership seagulls. If innovators became more aware of the political actions that contribute to successful project acceptance and became more capable of motivating and taking such actions, perhaps more break-through products would be developed. Politics may make for strange bedfellows, but unless organization politics are either neutralized or circumvented the likelihood of innovations making their way to market may be severely impeded.

How do you navigate the seagulls of your organization to bring your innovations to life?