“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

Ironically, it's been proven that Charles Duell, the U.S. Patent Office Commissioner from 1898-1901, did not actually say that. But the sentiment remains. Innovation leaders at the world’s leading organizations feel this anxiety:

“How long until we run out of ideas?”

High Alpha Innovation CEO Elliott Parker recently shared how we're seeing shrinking lifespans in companies.

"Competition is becoming more fierce," Elliott explained on the The Disruptive Voice podcast.

"Lifecycles of companies are getting shorter. It's harder than ever to compete," Elliott continued. "It's harder than ever to innovate. And you've got people working inside of big companies who are trying to drive this innovation, who feel increasingly like they're banging their heads against the wall every day and wondering, 'Is it me?’ ‘Is it my organization?’"

The answer, Elliott indicated, is no. "It's just harder.”

‍Identifying low-hanging-fruit innovation avenues for your scaled organization

Our corporate and university partners often ask:

“Are we picking the low-hanging fruit? We have a great portfolio, but will there be enough quality ideas down the road?”

This brings up a great analogy:

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• Many of us enjoy apple-picking each year as the air turns crisp.
• Easy-to-reach fruit on the lower branches go first, especially in a year of a late frost or springtime snowfall.
• Once an orchard has been picked over though, it takes more energy to reach the remaining limited selection.

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Having young kids, I certainly know what it’s like to lift someone on your shoulders to reach the remaining prized fruit in an orchard that hasn’t fallen to the ground to rot.

Innovation and strategy leaders with limited resources, a tightly focused scope, or renewed emphasis from leadership can certainly relate to the difficult task at hand.

Apple orchards take years of preparation and cultivation to yield the quantity and varieties of fruit we all enjoy. If you plant one apple tree, you'll very likely be disappointed if you expect fruit at the end of the season or even years later.

And apple blossoms need cross-pollination from another apple tree to yield fruit. That’s why you need at least a few trees in relative proximity, and why vast rows of trees are planted in these orchards.

You’ll often notice beehives on or near an orchard where honey bees perform the essential job of cross-pollination in order for the fruit to develop and produce a bountiful yield each year.

The problem many scaled organizations face today is they're too good at what they were designed to do by becoming more specialized and less innovative as a result.

The paradox of 'operational excellence' increasing the risk of disruption to the organization was famously coined by the late Clay Christensen as “The Innovator’s Dilemma." So, how can you cultivate the environment to create rich combinations of ideas and discover market defining opportunities?

Your organization may respond with additional resources to spur innovation: build newer and bigger labs, buy more equipment, or increase innovation rewards for projects that yield strong ROI.

But efforts that double-down on existing methods can often aggravate an existing system dynamic.

Bigger innovation program cost centers will become budget targets when comparing the unknown with clearly defined opportunity costs for financial returns.

Along with vanity metrics, the illusion of innovation can incentivize the wrong behaviors.

It can be frustrating to see the increased efforts without the results to match. Ideas, much like fruit, need cross-pollination.

It takes time and active effort to cultivate an environment where ideas can flourish. Creators, innovators, and problem-solvers must be empowered to make new connections that lead to new opportunities.

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‍Simple steps you can take today to promote a strong culture of innovation

The solution isn't another siloed program or sticky-note workshop.

Rather, it's a system-wide incentive structure that requires buy-in from leadership at all levels and helps protect and promote those engaged in creative innovation — including venture-building initiatives.

World-class organizational leaders can establish stronger innovation cultures by:

Operations & facilities‍

• Designing physical and virtual spaces to get people out of their seats to make new connections, and creating collaborative environments with resources to share ideas between people who normally don’t work together
• Instituting modular, temporary, cross-functional, and even mobile workspaces that can facilitate discussions across corporate and university campuses
• Hosting internal meetups and external events where people from various backgrounds can brainstorm novel approaches to enduring problems

HR & talent

• ‍Hiring diverse teams with a wide breadth of experiences, interests, and unique backgrounds that might traditionally be screened out of well-defined, specialized roles
• Helping people identify and promote their unique quirks and hobbies as well as their superpowers and experiences that they alone can bring to the table
• Making sure job descriptions, roles, and responsibilities have the flexibility to consider non-traditional candidates with alternative education or industry backgrounds
• Creating clear and significant incentives for everyone to explore and be creative. Recognize and reward novel contributions with more than a gift card
• Being aware of structural penalties for work and time spent outside of assigned work to not punish innovation and collaboration
• Building alternative pathways to career development or tenure (e.g., sabbaticals, rotational programs, startup experiences) that can integrate into traditional career tracks

Finance & strategy‍

• Creating 'build-buy-partner' startup strategies that innovate from the balance sheet
• Rather than repetitive budget talks, carving out the strategic space for transformative growth opportunities by making asset allocations rather than expense line items
• Delineating the role of M&A, CVC University Technology Transfer, and Endowment Fund activities by matching internal resources and capabilities to existing markets or business models and matching external investment vehicles with new markets or business models

Sales & marketing‍

• Building genuine relationships with prospective customers (trust generates insights of deeper needs; you're in a unique position to understand the pulse of the market, so surface insights by championing customer experience)
• Not just segmenting and tracking your traditional CAC, LTV, an dROAS metrics but also engaging in ethnographic research to build contextual empathy and develop clear customer personas that communicate those values to your organization (i.e., being your customer’s greatest advocate)

R&D & innovation‍

• Being insatiably curious
• Not waiting in an ivory tower for innovative solutions to drop in your inbox (move beyond the whiteboard to meet others and learn about their work; make new connections and introduce people; talk with the front lines)
• Illuminating and surfacing the insights from those closest to the problems
• Ensuring a dedicated, sustained effort will build continuity and trust among your organization where people will share ideas or surface opportunities when they know you care enough to understand them

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‍Embrace open innovation with a dedicated, proven venture-building partner

Charles Duell’s actual expression is much more inspiring, which he said in 1902 after completing his appointment:

“All previous advances in the various lines of invention will appear totally insignificant when compared with those which the present century will witness. I almost wish that I might live my life over again to see the wonders which are at the threshold.”

At our business, we echo that sentiment. There are (many) more ideas on the horizon than we can imagine today.

The key is we put in the effort to cultivate them.

We work with our corporate, university, state government, and non-profit partners to systematically build and launch new, transformative companies before those ideas fall off the branch and rot.

One way we do this is by building venture studios, an entity that helps them secure funding to launch multiple startups at scale. Through the venture studio model, our partners to bring several businesses that address big problems of interest to them and solve unique customer needs to market rapidly and efficiently.

Innovation means different things to different organizations.

But startup creation is one flavor of innovation that becomes much easier to execute on, when you have a reputable partner with a proven venture-building playbook that can help you turn your ideas into reality.