54% of CEOs Dissatisfied With Innovation 210
athloi writes "Invention is new and clever; innovation is a process that takes knowledge and uses it to get a payback. Invention without a financial return is just an expense. Ideas are really the sexy part of innovation and there's rarely a shortage of them. If you look at the biggest problems around innovation, rarely does a lack of ideas come up as one of the top obstacles; instead, it's things like a risk-averse culture, overly lengthy development times and lack of coordination within the company. Not enough ideas, on the other hand, is an obstacle for only 17 percent. At the end of the day all that creativity and all those ideas have to show on the bottom line. The goal of innovation is to make or save money, and IT should never lose sight of that central fact."
97% of Innovators Dissastisfied with CEOs (Score:5, Insightful)
It's no surprise to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Fast forward to today. I'm interviewing for jobs. Every single company I interview with doesn't care what my aptitude is, or what I can do to help the business use technology to give them a great ROI on technology while solving their problems. They only care "Do you know product X?"
So, my own experience shows me that CEO's certainly don't give a crap about innovation. Or, if they do, their IT managers certainly aren't following their vision (actually, I do think that is probably the case, as I saw some evidence of that at the last company after each quarterly meeting where I'd agree with what the CEO wanted to do, but my own management would always go down the buy the canned solution that doesn't work so well path).
Well doh (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Catch as many ideas as possible
2. Usually an initial independent review "does this make sense at all?"
3. Priority process, typically in several stages
3a) Benefit estimates, cost estimates, risk etc. into a business plan
3b) More review (alone)
3c) Prioritizing (total)
4. Develop quantifiable success metrics
5. Review resource contraints and select the best project portfolio
6. Do project implementation
7. Review project underways
8. Review compared to success metrics
Innovation is risk, but risk can be managed. Companies that don't innovate die, so it's not like "not doing it" is an option. I've seen so many bad examples of poor management here, basicly things get started ad hoc based on personal initiatives with no proper review, planning, success criteria or anything. On the other hand, I've seen a few companies that have overdone it though, where the red tape is killing it too. But most companies really crap out on two things: Highly unrealistic business plans which nobody gets smacked for, and starting off projects with little to no regard on "where do we really want to go and is this project taking us in the right direction?".
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Shit World 2007 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's no surprise to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bullshit (Score:1, Insightful)
'Innovation' in the eyes of CIO's, is that the 'Pet Projects' that they chose AND set the parameters on (ie COTS , big market leaders and self serving deadlines) continually fail, or were successfully implemented after the perception re-education phase.
A sure sign of this not getting the companies documents on and internal 'google', so that the people who did poor evaluation (strategic business unit or some non IT centric area) never get personally attacked for deficient costings and project/business plans.
Strangely, spending up big ticket items is seen as the way up - a successful series of quiet achievements is rarely noticed.
CEO's Want Something For Nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
If they want innovation, they need to understand not all ideas pay out. It's not unlike venture capital - it takes money to make money and not everything hits paydirt.
As long as CEOs keep wanting to do this crap on the cheap, they will be dissatisfied with the results.
Re:Shit World 2007 (Score:5, Insightful)
Card carrying member of the all-or-nothing crowd? Some of us still value shades of grey. But I can suspend that momentarily.
While we're in the process of doing a root-canal on human dignity, what is it about human nature that connects such a worthless rejoinder directly to the kneecap? A lot of people in history have worked for no paycheck, and there's a name for that, although it's hard to get creative work out of people under those conditions.
Fast forward history from the primal snarl, the dilemma arises where one profit-oriented sweatshop industrialist finds himself undercut by an even more ruthless profit-oriented sweatshop industrialist. He needs an edge. Maybe even an idea. But where to get such a thing? He certainly can't produce one himself, that might cut into his ego-maintenance time. No, his only recourse is to shackle himself a golden goose, one of those notorious flakes who has not fully and properly internalized the value that life is all about money.
Or if not money, honor. For example, if I work a machine shop and lose my hand, I get compensation. If I work for the military and I lose my life, I get a flag. The military has a similar never-ending connundrum: how to recruit without paying people commensurate to the risk and sacrifice involved. Amp up the service and loyalty and nation-under-threat rhetoric. It works for business too. Just amp up the "it's all about money", or bare a fang while leering "come work for free", and play it up as a fair rejoinder. The rhetoric "it's all about money" does not speak to money, it speaks to subordination, and primal greeds satisfied by one person controlling another. Any person who goes around reminding others of their primal needs is all about control. I once witnesses a person purporting to be an angel investor who came into the meeting room and filled an entire white-board with the two words: FEAR and GREED. That was on there the whole time he spoke, and another week afterwards. We were too intimidated to erase it.
Market Realities (Score:1, Insightful)
So anything that doesn't bring-in a fat bottom-line right now can't stand a chance.[/i]
I hope you realize the difference between the 2 statements you made, because it's important.
The CEO's job is to maximize returns for the shareholders.
This is DIFFERENT FROM a need to maximize that return for each quarter. In theory, if a CEO had an opportunity to underperform by 10% this quarter, but that would result in overperformance by 5% over the following 8 quarters, then he SHOULD do that. It's a profitable long-term investment which maximizes the total return to shareholders, even with reasonable discounting of the future returns.
Unfortunatly, many CEO's don't value the long term. And much of the problem is investors. There are huge reactions to current quarter results, and not a lot of value given to future investments. The way the system is structured, most CEO's are incentivized (and evaluated) on a "win now" framework. Like I said, I blame investors as much as CEO's for this, but there you are.
The CEO's need to get "a fat bottom-line right now" is NOT, in many cases, long-term profit maximizing.
I find it ironic that the same investors who reward short-term thinking are the same ones who complain in many cases about not being innovative.
Maybe... (Score:2, Insightful)
Right now anything remotely interesting ends up getting sued out of business. I am tired of companies not learning how to adapt to new technology *especially web technology*
There is a whole world of innovation out there but the problem is that it costs too much whether it be money or the threat of getting sued out of existence...it is a huge risk now to start up your own business or even bring to the table innovative products to your own corporations.
I refer to office space a lot because a huge portion of it is true in business practices. If I make an effort to do my job plus try to save the company money...plus be innovative and I bring it up the ranks. Do you think I will compensated for that amazing job? Fuck no. You either get a miserable raise and/or a kick in the nuts.
Welcome to the corporate world of mass fuckery
Re:97% of Innovators Dissastisfied with CEOs (Score:5, Insightful)
From my experience, in a lot of companies, they just don't want to innovate.
Doing the exact same thing with a computer application instead of a typewritten form isn't innovation. I'm sorry, it just isn't. An optimization that doesn't change the process at all, isn't it. Innovation is when you figure that you can turn the process upside down, and do things like they _weren't_ done before. When Ford figured out he'd use an assembly line instead of the old fashioned way, that was innovation. If Ford had just hired a faster courier boy to carry the forms from one beancounter to another (which is what a lot of computer apps really are today: just a faster way to do the exact same thing with the same people), that would be at most a straightforward optimization.
But when you want to shake up the process, you run into a lot of managers and egos which would be displaced by the new version. And there in a lot of places is where it fails. Try explaining to someone that his function will lose some power or prestige when your cool new system goes online, and see what kind of disproportionate resources he'll mobilize against it. Or try explaining to an old dog that he must learn new tricks, and see real resistance in action.
Remember, a lot of these are guys who know how to backstab, brownnose or make backroom deals, when they need to. In a lot of cases that's the only skill that got them there in the first place. If you think they'll just bend over and take it just because a techie figured out how to displace them, you may be surprised.
So what will happen in a lot of places is that they don't really want innovation. They want to keep their power and influence intact, and keep doing things like they were always done. With a computer, maybe, but nevertheless in the exact same way.
If the old process required that a form doesn't even have a registration number before a beancounter uses his stamp to give it one, don't be surprised if the requirement for the computer version says the record may not have an ID until the beancounter gives it one. That's his "power" there: he's the guy (or the boss of the guy) who gives registration numbers. He's not going to give that up. (Don't laugh, I've actually been in a team which implemented exactly that. We actually had a hidden unique ID, while the one assigned by the beancounter was only for display purposes.)
That's not innovation.
The budget is an excuse there. In a lot of places, the budget isn't even really calculated as in "what can we get for how much money", but a function of:
- corporate politics and petty wars and power grabs between heads of departments
- the product of some inflexible regulations (e.g., if in the last year you used only X dollars, you automatically get that. Whether there's actually an ROI in it or not. And a lot goes into _waste_, not R&R, because a penny saved is a penny cut next from your budget next year.)
- the result of some new boss pissing on everything to mark his territory (e.g., he'll show everyone who's boss by pointless half-baked restructuring games and budget reorganization, not because he actually studied what needs to be done with that money, but just to mark his new territory.) This goes especially well with the previous situation.
Etc.
Note that in the above I've said "many" or "a lot", but not "all". Yeah, there still are sane places. On the other hand, like Scot Adams put it recently, we seem to have harnessed the power of stupidity: at any given time, 90% of society's resources are pushed off a cliff by morons. It makes one wonder.
Re:Shit World 2007 (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, let me guess, you're one of those jackasses under the delusion that employment is some sort of master / slave relationship. Here's a little reality check for the aspiring Lumbergh: The master is whoever costs more to replace.
Besides, the point of money is to fuck the hottest chicks, eat the best food, and die with the most toys, so this whining is counterproductive. If the employee and the CEO aren't on the same page about getting more money, you've got bigger problems than IT costs.
Blue Sky research is what is most lacking (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not a good thing. We need more blue sky deep research - research with NO profit motive - its where the real ground-breaking stuff happens. Keep science away from bean-counters. They will eviscerate it the same way they gutted the Arts and Humanities.
RS
Re:Shit World 2007 (Score:3, Insightful)
The goal of innovation (Score:3, Insightful)
Within the rather thin, anemic context of profit-seeking enterprises, yes.
It's been apparent for years, however, that profit-seeking behavior presents one of the greatest obstructions to innovation, whose purpose is to actually help people (and not just "enterprises") to improve their conditions and lives. From proprietary software and web services EULAs, the DMCA and abuse of its takedown notice systems, incessant pointless copyright extensions, to incompetent patent granting system, you don't have to go far to at least reasonably wonder if "the bottom line" is failing to help innovation more than innovation os failing to help generate profits.
There's a LOT more to life outside the grubbing business world, but judging by the prevalence of people making misleading statements like this, it's easy to forget.
Re:97% of Innovators Dissastisfied with CEOs (Score:1, Insightful)
Sometimes they do, but when you are talking about public utility and infrastructure companies that have so much money, power (money), political clout (money) and high barriers to entry (built with public money) they aren't subject to market forces.
Re:97% of Innovators Dissastisfied with CEOs (Score:3, Insightful)
How many new products fail? Look at Zune, and look at the iPod. Apple NAILED the dedicated portal media player with the iPod by giving it an excellent UI and GUI, (limited) cross-platform compatibility, and released a storefront/download/media management suite which not only adheres to quasi-open, de-facto standards such as MP3, but incorporated for its DRM a downright _reasonable_ copy protection scheme which really does block only casual "piracy," but does not really infringe upon wholly legitimate Fair Use in any way.
What did Microsoft do? They sunk hundreds of millions into the Zune (product development, production, marketing, etc) and ships it, leaving it up to users to discover that not only does it not work well with the established product leader, it does not work well with Windows Media Player, and also does not work with the widely-adopted "Plays For Sure" scheme that Microsoft previously shoved down customers' throats, forcing Zune customers to re-purchase content they already paid for and legally own, because breaking DRM and transcoding it to the Zune's format is beyond Joe Sixpack's ability. As a result the Zune flopped in the market. It's still languishing to this day. A friend working at an electronics retailer claims that the small chain sold only TWO Zunes as of June (I haven't asked him since - he was so amused by the fiasco he'd periodically bring it up in conversation), and are stuck with several hundred in stock.
My point? Products can and do flop. Some may flop because the idea came too soon, some because it was not implemented well, some because the price was too high, others because of lack of consumer awareness, and others because they are simply bad ideas. Zune failed because it was bad idea, a poor implementation, AND the price was/is too steep. Had Microsoft opened their standard just a tad, supported PlaysForSure, and supported cross-platform interoperability, then Apple may have had something to worry about.
Oh, there are other reasons products fail. Some due to reliability, some due to supply issues, and yet others due to outright poor timing and a stressed economy plus availability of better alternatives (cue cat for example).
Re:Shit World 2007 (Score:3, Insightful)
This post is the single most alien thing I've ever read on slashdot. How can you possibly not wonder about that? You even go so far as to glorify your own ignorance of the world around you?
You get what you pay for (e.g. offshoring) (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It's no surprise to me (Score:3, Insightful)
"Ideas are - in some ways - the easy part."
I know plenty of people who come up with crappy ideas but who can market them effectively. In the best case scenarios, those ideas only waste the resources that were diverted to fund them. In the worst case scenarios, those ideas hurt everyone who were tricked or forced into embracing them. So yes, coming up with ideas is easy. Coming up with good ideas is hard.
"Of course, to make the above work, the researcher would have to get down and dirty and actually talk to the end users to find out about the real world."
Which they have no way of doing unless they are given support from management. Its easy to come up with an idea while sitting in your cubicle working on your day to day work, but to advance an idea requires time and commitment. If the company's "innovation policy" is just to have employees come up with viable ideas on top of their day to day job, of course they are not going to get the hard stuff done.
Or do you expect employees to develop and market innovative ideas on their own time without support from management? But if they could do that, why would be working for the company in the first place? Why wouldn't they go off and start their own company and become rich selling their invention on their own? Too often management seems to think their only duty to innovation is to give pep talks, write memos stressing the importance of innovation, and every once in a while fund a project or two. That is lip service. Real innovation requires real investment. It is a risk, but if you could easily gain market share without risk, don't you think your competitors would have already done that?