Internal Innovation Scouting

In order to use the creative potential of the employees in the company, companies like to use the company suggestion scheme (BVW). In general, the BVW is a rather reactive instrument that tries to detect ideas in the company and relies on extrinsic motivation, i.e. on external incentives such as rewards. It is essentially suitable for tracking down incremental, i.e. small-step, improvements and is therefore more likely to be used in the area of production and quality management than in the area of research and development. However, the company suggestion scheme can also quickly become a "suggestion prevention scheme" if, for example, the processing times are too long or the remuneration is unclear.

Search internally

For the detection of radical innovations, a different approach is required, which is referred to in this article as "internal innovation scouting". In contrast to the BVW, the scouting approach relies on the detection of so-called intrapreneurs, who are motivated by intrinsic or internal reasons.

Like a good stew

They work on a topic on their own initiative. This active approach attempts to identify more radical ideas for the company by networking and promoting these intrapreneurs. It is complementary to external innovation scouting, which searches for new innovation directions based on trends or for new technologies and innovations outside the company within the framework of open innovation.

Track down intrapreneurs

The American creativity researcher Teresa M. Amabile says: "Being creative is like cooking a stew. "Like a delicious stew, creativity requires three ingredients:

• The basic ingredient, the meat or vegetable in the stew, is the expertise: If you don't know anything in a particular field, you can't do anything creative. 
• The spices or herbs that really bring out the flavor of the basic ingredient are the creative thinking skills that generate new ideas from existing expertise: Without the necessary mental flexibility, everything stays with the old routine and nothing new emerges.
• Finally, the fire under the soup pot is the passion or intrinsic motivation for a thing: you can't be creative if you don't like doing a thing.

These findings may not be particularly new. But what Teresa M. Amabile has found out in her scientific research is astonishing: Passion can, to some extent, make up for a lack of knowledge and creativity. In innovation scouting, it is therefore important to identify precisely those employees who are literally burning for a cause and to actively involve them in the innovation process: the so-called intrapreneurs.

Dormant potential

The term "intrapreneur" was invented by Gifford Pinchot as early as the 1980s (see box). He used it to describe employees

The engine passion

Intrapreneurs are the people in a company who behave like entrepreneurs within the company, i.e. who act entrepreneurially instead of waiting for instructions. In a nutshell, intrapreneurs are "Dreamers who do". The term "Dreamers" emphasizes that they carry the vision of a better future. Intrapreneurs are therefore solution-oriented, unwilling to compromise on factual issues, and open and direct in addressing problems. Today, such uncomfortable contemporaries would perhaps be described as "lateral thinkers". But this alone is not sufficient, since their performance would otherwise not go beyond daydreams and castles in the air or, in the worst case, beyond destructive nagging. The verb "to do" in the adjoining subordinate clause indicates that intrapreneurs also excel in action: intrapreneurs often act without permission, transgress professional and functional boundaries, and therefore get in trouble for doing, not for not doing. In other words, they are people who would rather ask for forgiveness than permission. This sets them apart from employees who are simply "lazy", as the latter get the trouble for doing nothing. (Graph 1)

target actors

The described characteristics help to find intrapreneurs. And the intrapreneurs identified in the company should then be supported. On the one hand, this can be done through targeted personal development, such as coaching and feedback for their ideas or training in workshops and seminars to provide them with further tools for their intrapreneurial activities, for example "How do I create a business plan? On the other hand, intrapreneurs can be supported through networking and exchange of experience. It is conceivable to establish contact to internal sponsors and external facilitators or to found a community of practice for intrapreneurs. In addition, recognition should be given to intrapreneurs in order to create a corresponding culture of innovation in the company.

Recognition customs

company. This should not only include recognition for successful projects, but also recognition for courageous but failed attempts, such as a "Dared to try" award. Otherwise, there is a danger that employees will play it safe and no longer take on major challenges.

Leadership in creative companies

In their article "The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas", American researchers Jennifer S. Mueller, Shimul Melwani and Jack A. Goncalo show in two experiments that people have an implicit aversion to creativity, even though they explicitly profess it. They attribute this aversion to the underlying uncertainty of the creative idea.

The researchers draw the following conclusion from this result: If individuals have an implicit aversion to creativity, then it can be assumed that organizations also exhibit this, even if they explicitly communicate otherwise. Furthermore, the result should be an impetus for dealing with creativity. The focus should shift from the question of how to generate as many new ideas as possible to the question of how to help organizations recognize and accept creativity.

This insight brings us to the second factor of internal innovation scouting - in addition to finding and promoting intrapreneurs - the new leadership principles that are important for a creative company. In their book Corporate Creativity, American academics Alan G. Robinson and Sam Stern describe a company as creative when the company's employees try something new and potentially useful without being directly directed to do so. Following the two authors, one can highlight the following leadership principles that can help a company become more creative.

• Stringent alignment Every employee must be clear about the company's vision and innovation goals. This requires clear communication of innovation goals, leadership commitment to initiatives that advance innovation goals, and accountability for actions that impact innovation goals. And, of course, it also requires having innovation goals in the first place.
• Promoting excitation Many innovations owe their discovery to a lucky coincidence. But this is only one side of the equation. Louis Pasteur already said, "Chance favors only the prepared mind." In order to use serendipity for an innovation, judgment is needed by the company's employees. For the combination of serendipity and judgment, Horace Walpole coined the term "serendipity" in 1754 (after the Persian fairy tale "The Three Princes of Serendip"). A company can make use of the serendipity principle by providing its employees with new stimuli and then encouraging them to take unhindered initiative.
• Unhindered initiative Creative freedom allows for self-initiated and unofficial experimentation. As mentioned above, passion is immensely important for creativity. Self-initiated experiments mean that employees try things they feel passionate about (intrinsic motivation). Ideas that could lead to radical innovation are akin to raw eggs. Such a raw egg can be destroyed incredibly quickly when it meets the harsh reality of existing customer needs, market data and company metrics. It is therefore advisable to create a protected area for radically new ideas so that they can prove themselves first. Unofficial experiments that are not under the management's magnifying glass create a kind of incubator or greenhouse for new ideas - an "Innovation Greenhouse". 

CorporateCreativity

The best examples of the implementation of unhindered initiative are the creative time that Google grants its employees to work on their own projects and the "Skunkworks Project" for the first Apple MacIntosh computer.

• Open communication channels Open communication channels fulfil two functions. On the one hand, they enable the exchange of knowledge and ideas between intrapreneurs and between intrapreneurs and company experts. On the other hand, they make it possible to transform unofficial experiments into official R&D projects at the right time.

Leading by non-interference

In order to better tap the creative potential of one's own company, it is therefore necessary on the part of the management to make a temporary targeted loss of control and an active leap of faith in the employees. In this context, the German innovation expert Jens-Uwe Meyer speaks of "catalytic leadership". In his book "Kreativ trotz Krawatte" (Creative despite a Tie), he describes how the role of the manager is changing: away from control and towards becoming a catalyst for new ideas.

Trust instead of control

Similar to a catalyst in chemistry, a leader should increase the reaction rate for ideas.

In his book "The Lateral Thinker Factor", Stanford professor Robert I. Sutton calls this style of leadership "leading by not interfering" and recommends the following quirky idea for implementation: "Promote the innovative power of your employees by encouraging them to ignore and defy their superiors. " He thus sums up what is described by the term "Internal Innovation Scouting": finding and promoting intrapreneurs and releasing corporate creativity by implementing the corporate creativity principles described.