In this issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review we are proud to feature as our cover story “When Innovation Goes Wrong,” written by two people closely affiliated with the publication—Christian Seelos, visiting scholar at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (publisher of SSIR), and Johanna Mair, academic editor of SSIR.
As the name of our publication implies, SSIR understands the important role that innovation plays in advancing social change. But we are not mindless boosters of innovation. Rather, we believe that innovation is one of many tools—albeit a powerful one—that organizations can use to be more effective and achieve greater impact.
Done right, innovation can lead to better products and services, and improved ways of operating. Done wrong, however, innovation can result in wasted time and money, flawed products and services, and poorer operations—in other words, organizations that are less effective and have less impact. Social enterprises must learn how and when to tackle innovation projects.
Seelos and Mair have spent years studying and writing about the role that innovation plays at social enterprises. Four years ago, SSIR featured another article written by the duo that also explored the subject of innovation. The main point of that article, “Innovation Is Not the Holy Grail,” was that innovation should be understood as a process, not as a product or an outcome.
In this article, “When Innovation Goes Wrong,” Seelos and Mair examine the many ways that organizations can fail during the innovation process. The authors call these obstacles “innovation pathologies.” They have identified six pathologies that most often foil social enterprises’ innovation efforts. One of these is “Stopping too early.” Sometimes organizations abandon an innovation too early because of a lack of funding or a lack of top management support. Other times, organizations give up too early because they hold the innovation process to a rigid series of milestones rather than letting it evolve and morph in new directions.
Interestingly, a second pathology that gets in the way of successful innovation efforts is “Stopping too late.” In this situation organizations continue pursuing an innovation even after it is clear that it is ineffective or unworkable. This might happen when the innovation is a pet project of a senior executive, or when an organization believes it has already sunk so much money into an innovation that it has to find a way to recover some of its investment.
As important as it is for organizations to understand the pathologies that can obstruct the innovation process, it’s just as important to understand how to avoid those pathologies. The article does just that, suggesting six ways that organizations can develop better innovation practices. One of these is at the start of the process when the organization needs to “Defi ne a clear objective.” If the only objective the organization can come up with is “Because innovative social enterprises get more media attention” or “Because our funder wants us to be innovative,” one should put on the brakes. Organizations should launch innovation projects only if they are able to clearly describe how the project will advance their mission.
To learn more about innovation pathologies and best practices, turn to page 26 and read the article. I know you will be glad that you did.
Read more stories by Eric Nee.