Innovation – Let’s Give It a Chance!

People know that innovation is one of the keys to our future and it was great to come across an excellent article published recently in a main stream media blog. The article on Innovation by Kristen Le Mesurier in the Sydney Morning Herald Website is well worth reading as is one in the New Yorker: Hanging Tough that Kristen refers to.

Some companies have jumped in far too quickly and started laying people off too soon before they had really analysed the full costs of doing that. Usually, companies factor the cost of an employee as several times that persons salary package. So losing just one good person is expensive, but actually laying lots of people off that you may later need is extremely expensive! It can be fatal to long term success whilst providing a short term solution only.

On one hand if companies lay people off too soon they are hampering the chance for the business to grow again when the times improve and are spending a lot of money in redundancy payouts to boot! But on the other hand if they keep on employing too many staff at a loss for too long then they are putting the whole financial foundations of their business in peril. They are caught between the proverbial "rock and a hard place".

To my mind though, real Innovation is much harder than the easier approach of cost cutting. Yet innovation can yield fantastic results but takes brave managers with foresight and real determination to drive through. When you have a Company Boardroom breathing down your neck it can be very hard to say. “Hey, I have a great idea, let’s try out a complete new product or service line”. Of course, it is easier and more defendable to the shareholders to just cut costs. The connection between innovation and the bottom line can seem a long way off. It is risky, maybe innovation will work, maybe it won’t. And usually our senior managers and executives, as good as they are, are not rewarded for their innovation. Hence, the most common approach is reluctantly for businesses to cut costs. Like a disease it is catching. If your competitors do it, you feel you should and so on it goes.

But history shows Innovation is key, and many books attest to that.
Books such as:

• “Good to Great” and “Built to Last” by Jim Collins
• “The Medici Effect” by Frans Johansen
• "Think Better” by Tim Hurson and
• “Blue Ocean Strategy” by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne

are fantastic reads that should inspire any company leader to try something different.

I understand the difficulties, but just doing what every other company in the crowd does won’t work in the long term either.

Innovation – Let’s give it a chance!

Owen


P.S. Watch the short presentation by the legendary Tom Peters.



And two longer presentations from Harvard Business Publishing

Plans for this blog plus jobs Social Media networking reminder.

Hello again,

I haven't been doing much work on this blog lately as I have been working very hard on one of our commercial e-commerce sites. I also completely updated our company website at http://www.KnowledgeStream.com.au and put some of the internet information I have gathered for those interested on
http://InternetBlog.OwenMcNamara.com

My plan when I get time, possibly next week, is to move all my blogs into a new WordPress blog at http://www.OwenMcNamara.com . I have set up a new WordPress template at that domain but haven't moved the posts across as yet. I like this blog service at Google, it is free and Google Blogger is great, but I just wanted to try out the famous WordPress and am able to get some great templates for that.

I must admit I had larger plans at one stage for a Career Advice type website that this blog did start out as but over time I have come to realise that the market is quite saturated already and that most people when looking in the current climate are just after something quite simple but very very important: a job!

So just to remind you of a few posts that listed some job web sites to check out
http://next-career-move.blogspot.com/2009/02/job-sites-to-try.html
and
http://next-career-move.blogspot.com/2009/02/some-interesting-websites.html

as well as the more well known job search companies Seek, Monster, CareerOne, ITWire, Creative Jobs Central, and so on. There are many many to choice from depending on which Country you reside in - they are easy to find on the web.

On the Job hunting front, for people who are looking, I want to remind you of the benefits of services such as LinkedIn for finding people and staying in touch with them. Often you can find a new position from your own network without ever having to look elsewhere. That way you will have a personal recommendation from someone you and your perspective new employer knows and that is a big advantage. Perhaps even more so in these times of recession in most of the OECD countries. So if you haven't already, I suggest you check out LinkedIn, and see if you can find people you know. It is amazing how useful it can be. Even I am in there at http://www.linkedin.com/in/owenmc.


On the same line I have heard of many using Facebook the same way. So don't restrict yourself to the traditional ways, use the new Social Media Internet tools as well to help find a lead to your next job. Good luck in your search.

Until next time

Owen