By Adriana Girdler CET, PMP
Does your work place vision statement incorporate the word ‘innovation’ yet the company is far from being innovative. In fact, most ideas are the same old ideas that have been recycled year after year? If you said yes to the above you are caught in the ‘innovation’ trap that lots of companies are currently in today.
Organization’s love the buzz word ‘innovation’. What does it truly mean? By definition it means to invent or introduce something new. Most companies however say they are innovative but still execute the same tactics, plans and/or ideas and never truly invent or introduce something new.
Why is this? I haven’t come across a company whose desire is to do the same old same old. What I come across are companies that are reacting and as a result are ‘fire fighting’ daily issues while giving lip service to innovation. When you are fire fighting you can’t invent or introduce something new! It’s truly impossible. Employees are trying to ‘get by’ and are ‘reacting’ and as a result don’t have the ‘time’ in their day to devote themselves to being creative.
So where does the process come in and how is it an ultimate partnership?
A good efficient process stops the firefighting by simplifying ways of working and ensuring that each process steps makes sense. Everyone knows how to perform the daily tasks so it doesn’t matter who does it. It frees up time for staff to spend time on being creativity and thinking of innovative ideas. As a result, by eliminating fire fighting on daily ways of working, employees will be less stressed, confident that task are being completed properly and can focus their energies on the creative process of being innovative. This is why it’s the ultimate partnership. Like yin and yang, the sun and the moon, both are unique but one can’t not be without the other. They complement each other and are in balance.
As a result, to be truly innovative, you need to have an efficient internal process for your daily ways of working. Why, it gives you the ‘time’ needed to be creative so that you can be innovative. Now that is a win/win solution!
Adriana Girdler is the Chief Efficiency Officer of CornerStone Dynamics Inc and an expert in business efficiency, helping leading corporations streamline internal processes to work smarter and improve productivity. For more information, please visit www.cornerstonedynamics.com.
© 2011 CornerStone Dynamics Inc. All rights reserved. No part of these segments may be reproduced without the prior written consent of the author.
