Culturing Innovation

Richard Joseph
Caribbean Business Services Limited

“Their’s not to reason why, Their’s but to do or die” (Alfred, Lord Tennyson – The Charge of the Light Brigade). For many years future leaders in Trinidad and Tobago learnt this poem in school, and took from it the elements of a management style that is still with us today. Especially in the public service and small privately owned businesses, we have a management culture that requires obedience above understanding, and discourages challenge and inquiry. In today’s world however we are exhorted to innovate in order to improve our competitiveness, and, being aware of our steadily dropping ranking in the world competitiveness, it is obvious that we cannot continue business as usual.

Changing to a culture of innovation will require taking chances in the way that we manage people, especially in the ways in which we deal with authority, control, responsibility and respect for fellow workers. Innovation has its best chance of arising where there exist several associated cultures: engaged employees, challenge and enquiry and responsibility.

Engaged employees are committed and dedicated, and develop those attributes when they are treated in a positive manner. Employees become dedicated when they believe that they are respected and listened to; that their opinions count; that their recommendations would be considered; that their concerns would be heard. These expectations do not relate to all aspects of the organization, but to the areas in which they are involved and which have an impact on them.

Dedicated employees are trusted with responsibilities, no matter how small. Having a responsibility encourages them to believe that they have a contribution to make to the survival and success of the organization. They know that if they do not perform something would not happen that would compromise an objective. Their input or contribution would be missed.

Committed employees do not live in fear of making mistakes, because mistakes represent new opportunities to learn and get better at what they are doing. They are able to readily admit to mistakes without fear of consequence so that they could be rectified as soon as possible and potential negative impact minimized.

Commitment and dedication in employees is reinforced through giving recognition for achievements and work satisfactorily done. Recognition is best appreciated when conveyed as soon as it has been earned, and has the additional effect of re-enforcing the behavior that gave rise to it.

All of the above contribute to the employee developing a positive feeling of self worth in relation to their job and contribution. Of course, as we say in Trinidad “goat cyah make sheep,” and an insecure manager cannot develop the engaged employees necessary to support a culture of innovation.

In order to support a culture of innovation, it is also necessary to have a culture of challenge and enquiry. Many Trinidadians are not comfortable with a culture of challenge. When their views or the way that they do things is challenged, they see the challenge as a threat, as an attempt to expose them or make them “look bad”. They do not see challenges as opportunities to re-evaluate what is being done in the context of a view from a different angle or in light of new information. Rather than listen, they close up and fight off the challenger.

A culture of challenge and enquiry is always open to the idea that things could be done better, and that suggestions for improvement could come from unlikely sources. It continually tests and probes. It does not take anything for granted and even activities that have successfully stood the test of time are re-evaluated to determine whether they could be better carried out.

A culture of responsibility takes ownership of everything related to accomplishing the objectives of the organization. It is grounded in a clear understanding of the customer’s needs, and the solutions that it is offering to meet those needs. It does not seek to assign blame for lack of performance to problems beyond its control; it confronts those problems and seeks ways to resolve them until they are resolved. It is tenacious and is not deterred by an initial lack of success.

We are not without areas of innovation, the steelband and our arts bear extensive testimony to our capacity to innovate. It is in the areas of economic development and performance, both at the level of the firm and the government administration that we are challenged. Even in these areas it is not a complete wasteland as I have seen many examples of small process innovations over the years that indicate that we have the capacity to innovate in business and government administration as well. To get the larger innovations however, we need to reshape our organizations into fertile fields that encourage these existing seeds to grow and flower.