Unless, as this recent post on the HBR Blogs on the power of a common language, you don’t have a common definition and understanding of what innovation means to your company. At which point, one of you will be thinking “absurdity” while another will be thinking “lunchmeat”.
As the article notes, in order to achieve innovation, a company must have:
- An overarching, commonly understood, definition of innovation.
- Well defined innovation categories, and a primary focus.
- An owner for each innovation category, and each approved innovation project.
Otherwise, one team will be working on process streamlining while another tries to reinvent the process. And both will announce success at the same time, only to realize failure.