Enabling innovation: Leadership, tasks, and tools

Innovation must become a basic business strategy for all organizations. Furthermore, the necessity for speed of response dictates that innovation occur in all departments throughout the organization. For this to happen, leadership capable of enabling the innovative process must also be found throughout the organization. Innovation will not happen without leaders who understand how to pick the right team for innovation to occur, how to choose the right facilitator, and how to gather, store, and distribute ideas throughout the organization for possible action and future use. Innovation means instituting a change that adds value to the organization by increasing the efficiency, effectiveness, and cost of running the organization. While much has been written about the idea generation phase of innovation, relatively little attention has been paid to the leadership skills needed for innovation to occur. Innovation is more than creativity or the invention of a new product. Having new ideas is an essential part of innovation, but there is no innovation unless the most profitable ideas are recognized and implemented. More attention must be directed at innovation as a system and on the leadership skills needed for implementing ideas that make a difference.