Abstract
As the Information Age has given rise to the Intelligence Age, institutions of all kinds are challenged to adopt a culture of constant innovation. Innovation is the broad term and includes the concepts of invention, ingenuity, and improvisation. Organizations go through a process of inquiry, instigation, insight, initiation, imagination and inspiration, and inlightenment to ultimately achieve innovation. However, the road to full innovation offers many options like creating an incubator or being iterative, instantaneous, incomplete, or infectious in approach to innovating. To begin the innovative process, organizations must be willing to look at all aspects of their operations, make long-term commitments to funding, accept the possibility of some failure, and look seriously at their missions, value systems and value propositions. Organizations that are insular, inflexible, in-bred, insincere about innovating, insecure in their ability to deliver, and operate independently are more likely to disappear or diminish in their influence because their environment and culture will not sustain innovation.
Introduction
The end of the 20th century was often called the ‘information age’ because of the wide-ranging influence of the Internet on almost all aspects of society and because of the nearly ubiquitous deployment of personal computers in the workplace and in the home.
Now, well-over a decade into the 21st century, it is evident that the ‘Age of Information’ has given rise to the ‘Age of Intelligence,’ when information comes from diverse sources and is mediated by both human and machine to create insights (intelligence) previously unforeseeable. The world is digital, exponential, combinatorial, and instantaneous. In this new age, innovation is more critical to the survival of many key institutions and large sectors of society. In this new age, nothing and no one is really ‘too big to fail,’ and traditional attributes like being the oldest or the largest, or even the current leader, in an industry may be a benefit or a burden.
Libraries of every type and size now find themselves faced with new challenges for survival and with many new opportunities to redefine their roles in society at-large or within a highly-defined community.
While innovation is the general and most commonly used bucket term, organizations may literally be inventing something that is entirely new. They may be in engaged in innovation which often connotes doing something traditional but in a new way or with new tools—a variation or vast improvement. Ingenuity entails using something in a way that is different from its original intention. Technology has opened up whole new ways of using ‘apps’ beyond their original application. Finally, there is the concept of improvisation, which means using the resources you have on or already in hand to solve a problem. Often, improvisation occurs in the front lines of an organization and may happen without a clear line of approval. It is usually spontaneous.
Any of these gradations of innovation can be entirely disruptive; leaving no aspect of the organization unaffected. They can also be original, providing an ‘add-on’ to what already exists. They may enhance what exists and thereby serve a supplemental role. Innovations may be interdependent with their success tied to two or more innovations occurring in tandem, in sync, or in a particular sequence.
Interconnected innovations may be addressing different things but share some common factors like the same staff responsible for different functions or one technology being used to address different business operations. Integrated innovation refers to innovation(s) that have a positive impact—directly or indirectly—on the entire organization and brings together previous disparate functions or people.
But regardless of whether libraries are inventing, innovating, being ingenuous, or improvising, it is clear that to be successful they, their parent organizations (which may be national governments) and those clientele(s) the libraries currently serve or may come to serve will have to support long-term investment, constant change and recalibration, high tolerance for transformation, and a willingness to take risk. This essay will look at some of the ways that organic organizations, which libraries certainly are, can move away from inertia and adopt a culture of innovation (used hereafter as the bucket term in the most generalized sense).
From Inertia to Innovation. (Source: Roberta I. Shaffer).
Stages and preconditions for innovation
The seven stages of innovation are –
Inquiry
An on-going process within an organization that remains alert to any changes on the horizon that could affect the internal and external environment, and attempts to determine when the change will begin to impact the organization. The process is often called ‘environment scanning’ and ‘horizoning.’ This is key to the intersection of strategic and innovation planning.
Instigation
An event or series of events that gives rise to questioning a traditional practice, service or even mission of an organization. It may be a new competitor, change in leadership, change in funding (more funding, but more often in today’s climate, a reduction in funding), or a technology that enables a different workflow or means of production.
Insight
Recognition or realization that an institution has an opportunity or is challenged by an instigation.
Initiation
The decision point where an individual or a group of individuals within an institution decide or are convened to respond to an ‘instigation.’
Imagination and Inspiration
These stages often occur in concert, with imagination as the process of looking without boundaries at all options and inspiration looking at exemplars of those that have faced a similar ‘inquiry’ and successfully innovated. One of the keys here is to not just look to peers for imagining options and best practices. So, libraries might look at what other libraries have done to innovate but they might also look at other industries where service is critical to success like the hospitality industry. The print media and libraries are excellent ‘benchmarking industries’ since they have experienced similar environmental impacts.
Inlightenment
Purposely spelled as ‘in’ rather than enlightenment, this refers to the stage where innovation is internalized or becomes part of the organization’s culture or DNA. This stage may require internal changes in governance, budgeting, executive leadership, workforce skill sets, priority setting, and planning processes. Innovation may begin as a ‘creative kernel’ but all seeds of ideas need resources to develop into full blown innovation.
Even if an inquiry starts as the idea of an individual, there must be a core group within an institution who acknowledge the need for innovation and heed the call to action. This core group must be encouraged to dive deeply into the brain (cognitive) and the heart (emotion) of the organization, be given ‘permission’ to question traditions and turf at all levels, and be fully aware of both the promise and the peril of their task. They must be able to take risks and be rewarded for both successes and failures, if the latter should happen.
Many organizations attempt to secure full endorsement of all stakeholders as a pre-condition to move into the ‘imagination’ stage. In that case, very little innovation would ever occur. But, it is critical that the core group be given a recognized infrastructure in which they can operate. There must be an invironment that encourages the core’s imagination and inspiration. The core group should be empowered as a team; even if each member is bringing very different strengths, experiences and expectations to the table. As the team works, there should be transparency as to process and numerous opportunities for the interchange of ideas from and with all stakeholders.
As indicated earlier, innovation is most effective if the organization looks beyond its own industry or peer group and is interdisciplinary in identifying common and best practices. Innovation must be ‘intelligent’ – rooted in fact and verifiable research. This includes the need to thoroughly consider trends and social movements. This is the place to identify unique niches that no other player in the society does or can do as well as the innovating organization. That said, it is always a good idea to listen to intuition; often because it is based on what is acceptable within the value system of an organization or its social larger context. In addition, the organization’s brand is frequently based on more visceral or intuitive factors. Therefore, innovating organizations should be very aware of their ‘inheritance.’ That is, where they have come from historically and their historical role within their society. Inheritance is related to the brand concept and helps to inform decisions about what can be divested from an existing portfolio and replaced with an innovation. Finally, in today’s highly connected world, it is good to think of innovation with an ‘international’ mindset. In this sense, international means thinking beyond traditional or current borders of whom the customer is, where the staff works, how the service is provided, where and how assets are managed, and how value is measured.
Innovation options
Innovation may begin in an organizational incubator where it is viewed as a pilot or experiment within the larger organization. An incubator may be a permanent part of an organization where all innovation begins and where it can be tested and refined. An incubator may also be more like a ‘pop-up shop’ where it is fully recognized as a part of the organization, but it is not created to be permanent.
Governments often use the ‘not to exceed (NTE)’ approach with programs and even staff positions (not to exceed ‘x’ amount of spending or NTE months of employment) as a way to innovate within the confines of a bureaucratic system.
The iterative approach is used when an innovation can be scaled. It may start with one person or unit within an organization until it is ultimately enterprise-wide. This is particularly useful for strategic planning when units can be nested and queued up within the timeframes of plan. This approach also allows for an incremental allocation of resources.
Instantaneous innovation often happens under a crisis situation where fast action is required. It may even be something that is entirely unanticipated and was not part of the environmental scan maintained by the organization.
Incomplete innovation is stopped in mid-course, but is not reversed or reversible. Because it is ‘less than what was expected,’ it will probably not yield the same return on the institutional investment, but may still provide value to the organization.
Infectious innovation occurs in a haphazard, informal and often viral manner. The ubiquity of social media in our professional and personal lives has made infectious innovation much more prevalent in today’s society generally, and workplace, specifically.
Regardless of how innovation occurs, it should be measured for its impact internally and its influence externally. Before starting to innovate, it is good to have clear and desired outcomes. It is also interesting to note, that most innovations ‘over deliver.’ This means that they yield more impact than expected. Just as expected impact should be established, there should always be the built in flexibility and agility within an organization to improve and adjust as innovation is happening.
Conclusion
Innovation is stymied when an organization is insular, inflexible, in-bred, insincere, insecure, and operates independently without looking outside of itself. If it does not create and provide opportunities to staff for training, learning and growing, and if it does not regularly and frequently question its values, value proposition and mission, it is very difficult for any innovation or a culture of innovation to survive, let alone thrive.
The nature of the times in which we live makes us realize every day that there is lots of inertia around us. There is room in any marketplace for individuals and organizations that can deliver the ordinary and the traditional, but to paraphrase the greatfestivalofcreativity media campaign for GREAT Britain – …[w]hen the world is your competition, it’s innovation that matters. Doing more for less, doing more with less, doing old things better and new things first. The best among us manage innovatively. Innovation is the critical advantage.