As I divide daily time, 70% of my attention is generally focused on the business at hand. The day-in and day-out matters of taking care of business. This means that 70% of my innovative thinking is targeted toward core activities that take place, and must take place, on a routine basis. For me, core innovation is about always being mindful of the core of work, and looking for innovations within these recurring details, NOT reinventing the core of one’s work.
In my work with the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), my ongoing attention is directed routinely toward matters of personnel, budgeting, cash flow, paying bills, membership, publications, legal issues, contracts, conferences, social media, financial development, and building maintenance. For many, if you were to look up the word “boring” in the dictionary, it might just resemble the list I just mentioned. Indeed, boring could be the definition, if I did not view my work through the lens of creativity and innovation. The core of my work is defined and directed by our stated mission. However, this does not mean that innovation cannot be introduced to core activities within ones mission.
The good news for me is that I work with skilled and intelligent people who manage many of the areas of our corporate daily routine. I depend on them to help me keep the, uh, status quo. While I will be the first to reward creativity and innovation, the very fact that risk is involved in all areas of innovation makes it hard to expect that innovation will spring naturally into the routine practice of management.
Innovation is a risk leaders take. In the area of core innovation (the work that comprises 70% of my time), the risk is minimal, so I encourage everyone I am working with to think innovatively about routine items. Occasionally, innovation does come from those that manage routine operations. However, I find that innovation at the core level generally involves making work easier or more efficient, not innovation that brings challenges to the normal workload. This sort of innovation is still encouraged, as we will always be looking for ways to economize time and resources.
While core innovation is not flashy or game changing, it is necessary as the passing of time introduces new challenges to what we do as a matter of routine. I have used the phrase “ruthless about change” in my work, only to recognize that change is inevitable, so we must embrace it. As I look at spreadsheets on a daily basis, I know that we are either growing or decaying. Staying the same is never an option, and I prefer growth to decay. Therefore, I am ruthless about change, and I view such core change through the passage and filter of potential innovation.
Change, when it comes to our core work, must be smart. As leaders, when we look at our mission, we realize that the words of our mission statement is what creates the reality of who we are as an organization and what we do. Core innovation can be energizing and exciting, even in its incremental level of change. Case in point—can you imagine reinventing the wheel, or truly building the better mousetrap? Finding new applications and new efficiencies to the routine is a matter of creative racheting.
I witnessed core innovation recently at a conference of the American Choral Directors Association. At one of our regional conferences, the event began with an all-participant luncheon that was offered free. Free, that is, to everyone that had pre-registered for the conference. You see, pre-registering for a conference brings enormous relief to conference planners since they are better able to assign rooms for events, prepare materials, organize transportation, and a host of other details that matter to conference planners but rarely enter into the thinking and advance planning for attendees. What made this event “innovative” is that the free lunch rewarded and enticed people to pre-register. The routine pattern is to penalize people who do not pre-register by raising the conference cost for late registration. The innovative act was to reward early registration with something that mattered to attendees, rather than to penalize them for registering late. Brilliant, and innovative, and core thinking.
Core innovation takes a mundane, routine, system, plan, or expected activity, and turns it into an improved and more desirable or creative outcome. Core innovation can keep the challenge of the routine relevant and interesting.
POSTSCRIPT: A couple of ChoralNet readers asked me to offer some specific examples of innovation I have experienced, in addition to my more theoretical blogging on this topic. I am happy to do so, keeping in mind a head-turning innovation for one might just be business-as-usual for someone else. Specifics: 1) For our staff, I have found that sharing information about new apps has prompted core innovation for some people. 2) Another approach has been "Techie Tuesdays" where we learn some new tool to help us with technology. 3) Recently, a joint meeting of our staff with the staff from another national association produced eye-opening core application ideas for people who performed similar tasks at the two different non-profit organizations.
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