Chapter 12. MODELS FOR IMPLEMENTING INCREMENTAL AND RADICAL INNOVATION

"In my view, the word innovation has become overused, clichéd, and meaningless.... I detest the mechanism that spits (such fads) up because they are so much easier to talk about than to do."

Andy Grove (MacGregor, 2007, p 54)

The term innovation has been used so frequently in so many contexts it risks losing meaning. Nonetheless, success in creating value from novel ideas is arguably among the most formidable challenges faced by organizations and nations today. Technological innovation, which channels research and development (R&D) to the marketplace, has increasingly become the lifeblood of economic development as well as the hope for solutions to the world's pressing social problems related to energy, food, health, water, and the environment (Silberglitt, 2006). Since Edison spawned the modern commercial R&D lab in the early twentieth century, leaders within many industries have viewed science and technology as a key input to success. More recently, however, science and technology have been elevated to strategic importance for top managers in companies, and not only for those that are traditionally R&D intensive, but across all industries (Burgleman, Christensen, and Wheelwright, 2009). Simultaneously, government, private not-for-profit, and university laboratories worldwide that have in the past been dedicated mainly to performing research, are focusing more on applying science and technology to useful—and sometimes even commercial—ends.

R&D-based innovation demands an environment in which creativity is allowed to flourish, yet is channeled in ways that fulfill social and economic needs. What strategic choices, processes, structures, and skills are central to achieving this constant balancing act? There is no one recipe to follow, but innovation is too important to be left to serendipity; it needs to become, as Carlson and Wilmot (2006, p 13) suggest, "part of the DNA of the entire enterprise." This chapter focuses on the manners in which innovation—incremental and radical—can be thoughtfully managed within organizations. It addresses the broad strategic objectives related to innovation, processes to shepherd the generation and development of novel ideas, and leadership approaches that balance creativity and value capture. An assessment tool useful in diagnosing an organization's strengths and weaknesses in innovation, which readers can apply to their own organization to improve its capacity for sustainable and measurable innovation, is provided in the chapter summary.