How to Execute Innovation Successfully

Innovation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

Thomas Edison

Why Innovation Efforts Fail

I’ll probably get in trouble with my wife on this post about executing innovation (since she reads and critiques all of my posts), but I am a brave man (and we have been married long enough) so I’ll venture on.  My wife is very creative and she has suggested several business ideas to me over the years as new technologies and processes emerged.  As she reminds me still, a couple of her ideas have turned out to be very lucrative. Unfortunately, those dollars went to someone else, however, who had the same ideas and executed them. I won’t put it in writing here and memorialize those missed opportunities, but they really happened.  I delayed acting on several of her ideas and well she occasionally reminds me of my lapses in judgment. You’ll have to trust me on this!

While I know I am not the only husband who has lived to regret not listening to his wife on a course of action, my delay in acting shows an important truth about innovation.  Many people have the same good ideas but it is what we do with those ideas that matter.

How many companies invest significant resources in brainstorming efforts and strategy development only to fail in the execution stage? Clearly, many firms fail in execution–either because they fail to move the ideas forward at all or because they poorly implement the ideas that they do move forward. As the quote above from Thomas Edison shows, it’s making creative ideas work or the innovation part where most of the effort lies.  Creativity is the 1%; innovating creativity is the 99%.

Written by Robert Tanner | Copyrighted Material | All Rights Reserved Worldwide

This article is accurate to the best of the author’s knowledge.
Content is for informational or educational purposes only and does not substitute for professional advice in business, management, legal, or human resource matters.

Robert Tanner, MBA

Welcome to my leadership blog. I'm the Founder & Principal Consultant of Business Consulting Solutions LLC, a certified practitioner of psychometric assessments, and a former Adjunct Professor of Management. As a leadership professional, I bring 20+ years of real world experience at all levels of management.

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