REFOCUS ON CULTURE
Downturn and inflation, resistance to change, short-term innovation vs. long-term thinking balance, transformation, growth, and creativity are all at the forefront of an organizations thoughts. Taking a step back, responses seem to be suggesting the problem is more cultural than structural.
The community survey results indicate that people were thinking about downturn and economic stability when answering the questions. There are a number of results that seem to be historically consistent. In particular, ‘business resistance to change’ is always high. But the results indicating ‘resistance’ being present at the moment is interesting, considering the world we are in right now - where very many businesses are in a situation of needing to change. ‘Balancing short- term innovation’ versus ‘long-term thinking,’ is always a bit of an issue with innovation in that you want to show short-term bang for the buck through success. But that can often end up dominating so much that you don’t have time to do enough long-term thinking. The inverse of that is only doing long-term thinking and then failing to show short-term success, which is not good either.
“What the results are telling me, I think, is that people are feeling that their organizations are stressed to not be able to find the time or the priority to think about the future.” What the results are telling me, I think, is that people are feeling that their organizations are stressed to not be able to find the time or the priority to think about the future. They see the innovation function as actually having a role to not only create next generation products and services but to guide the strategy. Further, there is also a focus on transformation and growing the company in either new product or new service areas. The people that are answering this way are saying that innovation is important; their organizations are investing in it. It’s a lot to do with expanding the product or service portfolio and transforming the organization. There also seems to be quite a recognition that creativity is important, which is very positive. Taking a step back, responses seem to be suggesting the problem is more cultural than structural. Culture is about how people are feeling; the emotion in the organization. And if the emotion is ‘rush, rush, rush, we need to deliver
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