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Different Management Tools and Thinking
Managing innovation requires specific
approaches.
"If you try to manage the uncertainty inherent in innovation
with tools and thinking designed for the relative certainty of operations,
you'll run into trouble... You'll be continuously surprised as your
assumptions prove false".
The most effective way to deal with uncertainty
inherent in innovation is to have a
learning process that "systematically
confronts the unknown with new hypotheses, tests them, and eventually
creates a new knowledge".
When innovating, you cannot figure it all out and ahead of time and stick to one
plan; so, don't wait ‒ just go for it, learn
and adjust as you go. That's why "successful innovators get used to moving
forward, backing up, going sidewise, chasing parallel paths for a while,
consolidating, and then going forward again". |
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"Managing and
innovation did not always fit
comfortably together. That's not surprising.
Managers are people who like order.
They like forecasts to come out as planned. In fact, managers are often judged
on how much order they produce. Innovation, on the other hand, is often
a
disorderly process. Many times, perhaps most times, innovation does not turn out
as planned. As a result, there is tension between
managers and
innovation."
~
Lewis Lehro |
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