Rob McKay from SEEDA shared some early thinking on the topic:

What are the key factors in creating an environment, within an organisation, that will maximise the opportunity for innovation? How can a culture of true innovation be cultivated, so that it encompasses both reactive and proactive innovation? Is it possible to obtain the ‘full recipe’ for innovation, rather than having to focus in particular parts or processes in isolation?

A number of key areas make a significant contribution to make to understanding the nature of innovation in organisations: There must be an understanding of the business drivers for innovation. Without a compelling business reason for having an innovative culture, its achievement is purely vanity.

Knowing the role innovation plays in meeting future business requirements; addressing customer wants and needs, outpacing competition, and meeting changing regulatory demands, is essential to ensure that any organisational development that leads to a better engagement with or fostering of innovation does so effectively.

There is a need to understand processes available for exploiting innovation. Effective use of knowledge management systems, open innovation and Knowledge Transfer Networks are important tools both for capturing innovation and stimulating it. However, they are tools, rather than a complete solution. Ineffective or inappropriate use of tools can lead to a negative outcome, and an organisation must be in a mode that maximises the effectiveness of these and other tools.

It is vital to understand the role of leadership in creating and maintaining an organisational culture. Leadership defines culture, through example, reward and approbation. A truly innovative organisational culture permeates all staff, and would need to respect the fact that leadership qualities exist at all levels.

As the famous quote from Lao Tsu states, “When the work of the perfect leader is done well, the people think they have done it all by themselves.”

There is also a role for grasping how aspects of leadership roles such as coaching and mentoring play an important role in empowerment and encouraging ownership of both problems and solutions, ensuring that innovative thinking and creativity are as close to the customer as possible. There is considerable value in grasping how the brain processes knowledge, learns and solves problems, and how it moves through the creative process.

There have been many eye-catching attempts (especially by ‘new economy companies’) to create environments to stimulate creativity and innovation. There is a concern that these are gimmicky and distracting, rather than effective.

• What level of disjuncture from ‘normal’ surroundings maximises new thinking, before becoming too strange to be comfortable for the participant?
• We all understand that distance from a problem assists in its solution – but what is the critical distance?
• How do crises and pressure affect creativity?

Innovation is undoubtedly a social process. There is a need to understand the psychodynamics of organisations, and in particular the iterative processes that ideas go through when worked on in a creative collaboration.

• Are there optimal structures or group sizes?
• Do personality profile mixes, Emotional Intelligence factors or combinations of learning styles increase collective creativity?
• What are the basic motivational aspects of effective individual participation in group creativity?
• How do we pin down the more nebulous aspects of innovation?
• What is creativity?

John Adair, the writer and thinker on leadership, and the author of books on innovation and creativity advocates ‘practicing serendipity’. Since serendipity is by its very definition, happy accident, this is clearly a big ask.

Lynda Gratton, from the London Business School, talks about innovative organisational cultures in her book ‘Hot Spots’. She condenses the Hot Spot, an organisation that lives on creativity, to the following equation;
This captures some of the elements above, but perhaps not all; Grattons work is based on observation of existing organisations that she recognises as innovative and creative, rather than working through from first principles to create such an organisation. Certainly, Gratton acknowledges the multi-disciplinary nature of the task.