How can HR facilitate innovation?

I listened to an interesting podcast recently from the CYA Report team - "How HR is Killing Innovation with Hitendra Patel" Sure the title is a bit sensationalist, I personally don't think HR is killing innovation but poor HR certainly can.

Hitendra Patel is Managing Director for IXL Centre, an innovation consulting firm among other interesting positions such as Professor of growth and innovation at Hult International Business School.

There are a few thoughts and quotes from Hitendra that I'll draw out and discuss. It sounded like Hitendra was calling in via phone rather than in studio which made it difficult to catch each word however i'll do my best to capture Hitendra's statements when quoting him (apologies if this isn't a direct word-for-word).

Organisations tend to have people who fall into two categories; employees who diverge in their thoughts and employees who converge in their thoughts.

Staff who diverge tend to bring new ideas from outside the organisation into a discussion and are quite comfortable (and even enjoy), conversations taking creative twists and turns as ideas are explored. This could be sparked from an article they read, a new website they discovered or a fresh experience they had over the weekend.

Staff who converge tend to enjoy structure and focus. This can be formulating lists, plans and clearly executable action items on next steps. You might see them frustrated with meetings that lose focus or take too long and may actively cut them short to bring things back on track.

"We need the person who diverges, because those sort of people look beyond the boundaries of the organisatoin for dots, new dots, new ideas and eventually you'll need more dots than the dots that exist in your company but you'll eventually have to connect the dots. 

The person who converges doesn't like that space as much and will compress it but the person who converges is necessary because sometimes we do have to shut up and move forward and this can bring discipline to the process. Put those two people in the same room and we will have a fight but we have to teach each other how we will work with each other to collaborate." - Hitendra Patel

It's about building an organisational culture that allows both traits to co-exist and add value to the organisation in their own way; the people who create the dots and the people who connect them. Hitendra rightly points out we have a habit of hiring people just like ourselves and so it's important to make a conscious effort to consider if the organisation has a healthy balance to stimulate innovation (and make it stick!).

Innovation is about an experimentation cycle and iteration cycle

Experimentation cycle

This cycle is where an individual innovates and tries multiple different approaches. Think of a scientist or engineer who might not know exactly where the answer lies and so will test several options at the same time to see where they lead. This will inevitably lead to failures but that's the point of the experimentation cycle.

Hitendra talks about how many organisations stifle innovation by punishing failure, rather than seeing it as part of the experimentation (i.e. learning) process.

Iteration cycle

This is when a wining idea or process is found and resources are then spent on a continuous improvement initiative. This is a standard process within organisations as they look to streamline processes, refine procedures etc. However an iteration cycle without an experimentation cycle can open the risk of people barking up the wrong tree to begin with.

"When we look at most other functional jobs within companies, sales marketing, operations - we only give people one chance to do their work. We don't design in multiple cycles of experimentation and when you don't do that your staff are only going to take low risk and only do things that are 'right' or what you have done yesterday because you have not designed in opportunities for learning." - Hitendra Patel

Overly prescriptive position descriptions stifle innovation

This was an interesting point because in my experience position descriptions tend to have a surprisingly small impact on actual work performed. All too often I have encountered PD's covered in proverbial cobwebs reflecting a time and place sometimes years back. I'll assume then that here Hitendra is more so referring to an organisational culture that builds strictly defined position limits.

People need room to move, grow and change. To look beyond their day job and ask 'What's next?' 'What if?'. As mentioned above, if employees always do tomorrow exactly what they did yesterday they're not going to innovate. There's a useful metaphor mentioned in the interview where Hitendra talks about basketball players - given their experience they don't have to expend all their mental energy dribbling the ball (representing their day job). They instead focus on who they will pass the ball to, where they will play the court, the next decision they will need to make - future focused.