Cultural Elements of Innovation

I think it's very important to pay at least as much attention to the cultural and organizational changes required for a successful innovation program as it is on developing a pipeline of ideas. Here is a link to a short article that emphasizes the change management elements of innovating. The article misses a big piece of the puzzle by not mentioning goals but is still a good introduction.

Most goal focused managers are much more likely to focus on the strategies and tactics that helped them achieve last year's numbers as opposed to developing new methods for achieving goals two or three years in the future. Especially when you factor in the much greater likelihood of new ideas failing, it's easy to see why managers are not focused on innovating. The techniques mentioned in the article can definitely help form a foundation, but without changing goals to explicitly include innovation- and the acknowledgement that short term results are not expected from these efforts- it's difficult to change direction.