Innovation is like sex: Sometimes something useful comes out of it, but that is not the reason we are doing it

Many people asked:

In a result-based organisation, how do you foster innovation?

In measuring the effectiveness of fostering innovation, there should be lead indicators and lag indicators. Merely measuring lag indicators like the successfulness of research and development projects and the cost savings generated from such projects would greatly undermine the risk-taking spirit necessary for innovation to take place.

Successful innovations are by-products of having a refined innovation management system in place for insights study, concepts development, evaluation, prototyping, and exploitation to be carried out effectively in an organisation.

What is the relationship between risk and returns?

Taking high risks will yield high returns, yet taking high risks do not guarantee that there would be any returns. However, taking low risks will definately generate only low returns.

If an organisation wishes to yield high returns from its projects, it must be willing to adopt a risk-taking spirit and encourage and reward those people who dare to take up that risk and put their careers in the spotlight. The innovation process is one of exploration and experimentation; the learnings from each failed experimentation increases the chances of having a major success in time to come.