Monday, June 9, 2008

Innovation: How to rescue it from the abyss of bureaucracy

The largest companies in the world often suffocate innovation through multiple levels of unnecessary bureaucracy. As companies grow, structures are often put in place to standardize and streamline processes. The problem? The diversity of opinions and ideas that can spur innovation often get buried in a tangled web of red tape and office politics. In today’s competitive business environment, however, executives must create a multi-directional information infrastructure to open channels of communication in order to leverage the talents of a larger employee base.

Organizations with traditional hierarchies often forced information downward without providing opportunities to incorporate the insight and creativity of a larger resource base in the development of the organization’s corporate strategy. This means that organizations often failed to amalgamate “the collective intelligence and imagination of managers and employers throughout the company”(1) to provide the maxim benefit of a diverse workforce. With increased competition and changing conditions, companies must leverage the strengths of all persons in the organization through open communication channels.

Once the executive team understands that the collective talent of the organization is more powerful than the brains of the oligarchy, the team is able to foster a mindset that enables multidirectional communication. This starts with a culture that inspires employees to communicate upward with the same frequency that managers communicate downward. As the company expands its communication infrastructure, collaboration among executives, managers, and employees must occur horizontally as well. By facilitating communication in all directions, companies are able to develop a “more open-ended process of strategic discovery”(2) that can lead to increased communication and the opportunity to capitalize on the plethora of great ideas that are typically buried in the abyss of corporate bureaucracy.

Sources:
Hamel, Prahalad, Competing for the Future, (Page 26)
Hamel, Gary; Strategy as Revolution, Harvard Business Review (Page 11)

No comments: