A642.2.3.RB – Organizing for Innovation

According to Reives and Deimler (2011), a leader or a company has to be attuned to the different signals of the transformation of their external environment, assessing the change, and acting on those change to either reinvent or refine the current model of their business or transforming the industry’s landscape. Beslin and Reddin’s (2004) article titled “How Leaders Can Communicate To Build Trust” indicates an essential element of the leadership of a particular organization in winning the trust of its stakeholders was open communication. Trust cannot be given but must be earned. Leaders of today must strive to build trust with their stakeholders rather than just talking about having trust. Leaders cannot afford to take trust for granted since both the internal workforce and the external public are increasingly pessimistic (Beslin & Reddin, 2004).

Leading innovation is becoming to be paramount that it gives organizations stronger position from competitors, it generates consumers’ favor or appetite apropos to the organizations’ offering, and innovation magnifies organizations’ capacity to impact the global

market. Although innovation is geared towards increasing efficiency and reducing the cost for the customers, we also have to keep in mind that innovation is a result of the creativity of the human minds. Incentivising employees for their creative work in not enough to boost advancement in technology and employee morale, retention, and development. Open communication that is built on trust and acknowledging the employee’s creativity and contribution is of utmost importance to continually promote and encourage innovative and creative thinking within the organization.

In my current organization, innovative pursuits in the workplace have always been encouraged internally and externally. Employees are encouraged to be creative in collaboration with outside sources to improve the quality of life of our employees, stakeholders, and community as a whole. For example, Adventist Health System implemented a Wellness Program in collaboration with WebMD. Every year, all employees and their spouses who are covered with our health coverage are given a wellness incentive of $528 for employees and $475 for spouses who earned 100 wellness points in a calendar year. 87% of the total population staff and spouses of Adventist Health System participate in the Wellness Program annually. We have an environment of healthy people, and the total annual medical cost expenses for the entire AHS is reducing.

Florida Hospital Memorial Medical Center empowers its workforce to submit creative, innovative, and cost reduction projects through its “Bright Ideas” program. The workforce and the leadership team are encouraged and engaged in adopting a behavior of producing or involvement giving them stakes in the decision making or leading initiative that has a direct effect on their jobs or positions in the organization. Employees all through the years have saved the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars through their innovative thinking on cost saving programs. Employees receive 10% of the total annual savings due to the result of the implementation of the employees cost saving initiatives or “bright ideas.”

All 52 hospitals of Adventist Health System have initiatives within the community promoting healthy leaving. For example, Florida Hospital in a joint effort with Healthy Central Florida (HCF) and the Winter Park Health Foundation, awarded a $25,000 grant to residents of Winter Park, Maitland, and Eatonville, Florida for innovative ideas like fleet farming and other projects that are focused on improving access to healthy food. Fleet Farming is just one of the winning 13 projects created and developed by local organizations that will receive grants from HCF ranging from $650 to $5,000 to initiate and implement their ideas.

A unique idea that was submitted for the subsidy was utilizing private yards, and businesses for small urban farms tended by fleet farmers who travels from urban farm to farm via bicycle. Crops that will be harvested by farmers will be available to local homeowners and the community at a reduced price. The Fleet Farming Project is expected to the gardening partner for many future projects within the community. The other winning projects included a greenhouse repair project that will start producing healthy foods in Eatonville, Florida; a mobile green market in Winter Park, Florida that is focused to on low-income families and seniors; and a pilot program cooking in crockpots encouraging healthy eating with more vegetables.

The culture of producing, co-ownership, empowerment, and involvement has translated to increased productivity in our organization. Employees who feel vested in our organization cultivate the strong work ethics within their peers, they have become more self-sufficient, and are getting confidence in navigating their responsibilities, with minimal interference and depending lesser from their supervisors for direction in accomplishing tasks. The culture of producing and empowerment also fosters team cohesion within our organization.

The usefulness of innovation is highly critical to business to compete equally in the market. The new paradigm of management is to be innovative and nurture a culture of creativity and change. Continuous improvement and development of the quality of digital media and other advanced technological devices such as cloud-based storage, online learning, computing, etc. are critical for organizations to manage occurrence of sustainable growth. The paradigm of business challenges has shifted from the speed of business to the speed of interruption that is triggering industries’ rethinking and redefining a new sense of their brands in the marketplace.

According to Bornhofen (n.d.), a multitude of research suggested that rate of innovation failures range from 60% to 90% hinging on the type of product or industry. Bornhofen further wrote that based on the study with the involvement of the Harvard Business School, 9 out of 10 attempts to innovate resulted in failure. Wulfen (2013) identified some innovation that has failed:

New Coke (1985). Coca-Cola reformulated the old Coke to New Coke which led to an adverse reaction from the public. The consumers did not accept the change until Coca-Cola reintroduced the original Coke formula and re-branded it to Coca-Cola Classic which resulted in an excellent success.

The Newton of Apple (1993). In 1993, Apple introduced a handheld device that was expected to change the public’s personal computing called MessagePad. It was overly priced from $700 to $1000 plus very cumbersome to use.

The Zune of Microsoft (2006). In 2006, Microsoft released The Zune as a response to Apple’s iPod. Although The Zune had more features i.e. sharing music from one player to another, a feature that iPod did not have, it never made to the market.

Pushing for more creativity, developing breakthroughs, and cultivating a culture of innovation and experimentation offers a lot of value to any organizations. According to Mckeown (2014), leading innovation and change are all about expanding possibilities and inspiring people to see and desire for better future. The most efficient and creative way to inspire and motivate people is to let them do the things that they love to do. Innovators and creative individuals are consistently acting and thinking differently. Organizations must be able to understand, model, and reinforce the innovator’s DNA to their workforce to successfully develop, nurture, and spark creativity (Dyer, Gregersen, and Christensen, 2009).

In an era of instability and risk, new technologies and globalization combined subdued the industry or business environment. For companies to adapt to the era of volatility, they need to attuned to the signals from the external environment, decoding them and quickly reinventing its business mod and reshaping the landscape of information within their industry. When multiple and complex signals are available to all participants, adaptive companies must trust on the system of sophisticated POS ensuring acquisition of correct and relevant information (Reeves & Deimler, 2011). Companies need to be sustainable and revitalized to stay ahead and be competitive in the market.

References:

Anthony, S., Duncan, D., & Siren, P. (2015). The 6 Most Common Innovation Mistakes

Companies Make. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/06/the-6-most-common-innovation-mistakes-companies-make

Beslin, R. & and Reddin, C. (2004). How Leaders Can Communicate To Build Trust. Ivy

Business Journal Improving the Practice of Management, November/December Issues. Retrieved from http://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/how-leaders-can-communicate-to-build-trust/

Bornhofen R. (n.d.). Why Innovation Fails. Retrieved from

https://www.innovationglobalnetwork.com/pov/974/Why_Innovation_Fails.html

Dyer, J., Gregersen, H., & Christensen, C. (2009). The Innovator’s DNA. Retrieved from

https://hbr.org/2009/12/the-innovators-dna

Mckeown, M. (2014). The innovation book: How to manage ideas and execution for

outstanding results (1st ed.). FT Press.

Reeves, M., & Deimler, M. (2011). Adaptability: The New Competitive Advantage.