Innovation is the key to strategy

Sultan A. Alshaali is an expert executive in driving growth, with 18 years of experience in both the public and private sectors, and nonprofit NGOs leveraging organisational strengths and available resources.

• The problem: The common perceptual bias is to assume innovation is measurable or quantifiable within explicit measures or standards.

• Why it matters: By creating various barriers to innovative thinking, the creative approach becomes weak and twisted into an idea funnel identical to the sales funnel.

• The solution: Let innovation flow naturally through imaginative thinking and experimentation, embrace traditions, tolerate and learn from failed experiments.

'Innovate or Die' - Jack V. Matson 1981

Words are defined primarily by a brief description in the dictionary, a straightforward statement that explains the meaning with an example or two. We occasionally check for synonyms in the thesaurus to better apprehend and relate the word to our definition.

Words’ antonyms create a more detailed picture and correlate to the definition from another perspective; it is always unpredictable and compelling to understand what different people think when asked, "What is the opposite of any word?"

For example, many people shared the same response when I asked about the opposite of the word ‘fast’. So, of course, your first instinct is to say ‘slow’.

What about the one person that said ‘steady’? Introducing the grey scale to a black-or-white question challenges what you usually presume and sense when you hear the term ‘opposite’.

Some words perceived as antonyms of ‘innovation’ would benefit from being refined. Words such as ‘habit’, ‘old’, ‘custom’ and ‘tradition’ are uncomplicated examples. In addition, innovators must use other tricky words such as ‘stagnation’, ‘old-hat’, and ‘rut’ more accurately. Nonetheless, with their current perception, these words establish a particular perspective when portraying innovation, and contribute to restricting the growth of ideas not meeting the innovation criteria[1] in their early stages.

We often consider some ideas to be innovative, new and fresh if they stand out amongst long-standing, underdeveloped environments. These innovative developments become a significant force within organisations, or even individuals when they evolve to replace the old with new introspections, initiatives, ideas, and concepts, etc. This approach is familiar and recognised in research and development, and it is the closest to the core purpose of many organisations today. Therefore, we conduct research through study, analysis and thorough investigation to develop and obtain new, unique solutions through products and services.

Specific innovation frameworks have been established over the years, aiding many to acquire the right mindset, and utilise specific tools and techniques. They are levelling the battlegrounds between large organisations with advanced research and development departments and large budgets, and small organisations, or even individuals.

Remember that the information age we live in entitles us to generate ideas and concepts faster than in the past. For example, researchers a decade ago had to spend hours accumulating the facts but now it takes us minutes to assemble data thanks to technology, the internet and social connectivity. 

When I say innovation is the strategy, I mean that the process of strategic planning and execution is the ongoing innovation.

Today, like in the past, the most common illustration of strategy is the chessboard. You see it in various iterations, represented by one or many of the playing pieces.

Anyone that plays chess understands the tremendous contemplation needed to win the game; planning and utilising various tactics to achieve the main objective. Moreover, multiple players have astonished their opponents with new strategies and combinations of tactics that resulted in quick and startling wins.

First, however, check out this new innovative chess board. A board that changes the traditional one-on-one game to a three-person game. Now let us see how innovative master chess players are.

When I say innovation is the strategy, I mean that the process of strategic planning and execution is the ongoing innovation. We should not put innovation as a task on a checklist that can be ticked–done–when we complete an activity or achieve a particular goal. Instead, we should embrace it as a culture, instil it and enable it to grow organically among your team and organisation. Creating a habit, like many others, elevates performance and aids the organisation in accomplishing its goals.

For these and many additional reasons, I do not use the words ‘tradition’, ‘habit’ and ‘custom’ as the contrary of innovation, because if we are intrinsically and consistently innovative, then it evolves as part of us, our habits, customs and traditions.

What do you think? Can we be “traditionally innovative”?

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