INNOVATION ENGAGEMENT
Folks in innovation tend to be intrinsically motivated; they like tough problems, they feel a lot of passion for new solutions and so forth. Keeping those folks engaged will enable them to continue to deliver and make a real impact on the business.
The survey results show that budgets were up this year and expected to be up next year. But I assume the feedback on 2023 is aspirational at this point. We’re going into a tricky phase right now. Folks are unsure what their budgets are going to look like next year, how the business is going to do, and so forth. On the one hand respondents feel that their budgets are increasing, but if they’re saying that there’s not enough attention on the long term, that means that it’s their perception that money is going towards short term innovations and not investing in longer term innovations. Folks need to show the impact of their technology, their product idea, etc. and how that impact is going to be realized for the business- so that they can get their share of that budget. There’s more money there, but they don’t seem to be claiming it.
As far as strengths, we’re seeing a fair amount of focus on ‘doing more with less.’ That goes along with the feedback on budgets and resources. The community is getting creative in how they solve problems. And respondents seeing ‘impactful influence on the business’ as a strength makes sense; you always want to be number one on that. Regarding what’s causing issues, ‘lack of alignment, shared vision with internal partners,’ sticks out to me. That could mean that the strategy isn’t playing out in an aligned way across the organization. ‘Talent/Hiring the right skill’ set being a challenge makes sense. It kind of tracks with what we’re seeing currently; people are moving around; they’re ‘quiet quitting.’ So, that makes sense. But, it also is a real opportunity for folks who want to be in the innovation space. If they’re visible, if they’re connected, if they’re connecting with people, there may be some real opportunities for them to join organizations. Folks who are working on next generation technologies, oftentimes those people are in the R & D function, but not always. And we’ve learned through these results that the community is about a third, maybe less, that are in an R & D function. Perhaps
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