“Innovation is a horrible word. The term has become so buzzy, it seems to have lost all practical meaning,” said Alex Goryachev in the introduction of his new book, Fearless Innovation: Going Beyond the Buzzword to Continuously Drive Growth, Improve the Bottom Line, and Enact Change.
I interviewed Alex for Episode 71 of the Agents of Innovation podcast and encourage you to listen to our full interview on your favorite podcast app. In preparation for the interview, I read the book. And, it really captivated me.
The other thing I enjoyed learning was Alex’s story. He was born in the Soviet Union and migrated to the United States with his family, as a teenager, in the 1980s. “I’m no stranger when it comes to dealing with change,” he asserts. “After all, I was born in a place that no longer exists—the USSR.”
Once in the USA, he invested his time “teaching myself the Linux operating system, hung out with a local hacking community of fellow weird outcasts, and became a supporter of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a groundbreaking nonprofit that was the first to understand the importance of civil liberties and personal privacy in cyberspace.” He went on to work for Liquid Audio, Napster, Pfizer, IBM, and Cisco Systems, where he has been for the past decade and serves as Managing Director of their Global Co-Innovation Network and Employee Innovation Programs.
Alex believes that “innovation isn’t a thing, it’s a mindset and attitude made up of clear principles” that he discusses throughout the book. He acknowledges that while “change happens naturally; innovation doesn’t.”
“Innovation is urgent, time sensitive, and always present,” he says. “Innovation never sleeps, and we can’t sleep on it.” He cites companies that failed to meet change with innovation, such as Blockbuster Video. He also gives examples of companies that have been around a long time but have remained relevant because they embraced change with innovation – one of his great examples is the Lego company.
“When it comes to the business environment, today almost always gets in front of tomorrow,” says Goryachev. He explains that many failures to change include these common responses: 1) they ignore change 2) they shame it, and 3) they attempt to regulate it.
While Goryachev is clear that innovation doesn’t necessarily mean “tech,” one exciting thing about advancing technology is that it is giving us more opportunities for innovation. “We are provided with more opportunities to change our life experiences every single day,” says Goryachev. “Meeting our advancing human needs can be seen as a societal challenge, and societal challenges always lead to innovation.” However, he also acknowledges that “while some of us are living in smart houses, with amenities like connected irrigation systems, and are sending off cotton swabs of DNA to learn about our personal genomics, almost half of the world has yet to get connected to the Internet.” He believes that “we all have a responsibility to improve the living conditions for people everywhere. Such improvement can only happen through innovation and economic opportunity.” He points out that “we are witnessing the emergence of companies that are as passionate about social impact as they are about profits.”
One of the great things about this book is the middle – the meat of it – where he walks you through how organizations can allow innovation to flow throughout the organization and not just get siloed to one “innovation” department. He believes that the human resources department is perhaps the best place for innovation to be led from, but that it must be instilled throughout the organization. He also stresses how most of the innovation in organizations will come from middle managers, people who have a sense of the broader organization, from their touches with leadership, to employees at every level, and ultimately to the customer.
“But execution can’t take place without leaders who drive clear strategy by getting others on board,” he said. “Innovation requires transparency that only comes about through honest two-way dialogue. If you’re not transparent with your employees, the talent market will be very transparent with you and you will lose your best people.” Goryachev also suggests adding incentives for employees to be innovative, which will add to instilling a culture of innovation throughout the organization. And on top of that, every employee should be involved and be asked questions about what they are seeing and what they believe could be improved. “Innovation requires different points of view, and each team brings another, unique perspective.”
Goryachev also helps readers of this book apply a strategy to measure innovation. As he says, “if you can’t measure it, then it’s probably not innovation at all; it’s more likely fake innovation.” He adds that, “True innovation is all about a clear purpose with measurable results.” Of course, not everything needs to be innovated, but for those things that do he suggests that “instead of mandating, requiring, or forcing innovation, the best way to put this mindset and attitude into action is to incentivize the behavior that supports it.” And, as we are attempting to innovate within our organizations, we should share the results. “When you share results, make sure to publish them all—the good, the bad, the ugly—not just some sugar-coated selective messaging. Even if the results are painful—and there will certainly be times when they are—clear metrics will create clear actions and results.”
Goryachev warns not to confuse innovation with disruption. “Today, whenever the concept of innovation comes up, the word “disruption” is likely to creep in behind it,” he says. “In fact, it’s mentioned so much in relation to innovation that many people think innovation is disruption, and vice versa. But innovation and disruption are not the same—don’t get them confused.”
“Thinking ‘disruptively’ is counterproductive nonsense, and not applicable in most settings,” says Goryachev. “As a leader, if you try to ‘orchestrate disruption,’ you’re going to fall flat on your face … Instead, you need to focus on a clear vision, pragmatic strategy, and execution in small measurable milestones.”
Goryachev also fights back against what he calls “the myth of the lonely innovator.” He says there are many cases of lone inventors, but he gives many examples of how innovation was essential in bringing those inventions to the marketplace. “Collaborating with others made them innovators,” says Goryachev. “Their names wouldn’t be known in history as they are today if it weren’t for the aid they had from colleagues and team members to bring their ideas to life and then to market and sell their products far and wide … The catalyst of any innovation is typically an individual, the spark that leads to something new. But the fire would go out if it weren’t for a team that supports the individual and his or her ideas.”
“Without a team an idea remains just an idea, no matter how groundbreaking it might be. You may have the right innovation mindset and attitude, but without others you’re going to go nowhere,” says Goryachev. “Simply said, solo innovation does not exist—it’s a team sport.” He also breaks down how centralized, decentralized, and a hybrid of those two models work differently and how each one of those models can best be applied to given situations.
Goryachev also stresses how diversity accelerates innovation. This includes “different genders, ages, abilities, ethnicities, and educations” but also people at different levels of an organization and people with different skills sets. “Hard evidence shows that diverse teams perform better,” he says. “Innovation … comes from actual diversity in thought, which is a result of different life and professional experiences.”
Goryachev also highlights how innovation should be communicated with transparency outside one’s organization to their customers and potentially beyond. “Just as no one will care about innovation within your company if they don’t know about it, no one outside the company will care about all the progress and steps forward you’ve made if they don’t hear about them.” He adds that “innovation rarely happens without active listening. And listening leads to clear, honest communication, the kind that is necessary both within your company and externally.”
He also encourages partnerships with other organizations. “Competition and innovation go hand in hand and lead to better results, but cooperation and co-innovation lead to the best results.” Given his background in technology, Goryachev also uses open source as an example of how cooperation has created unprecedented value for all. And, he also highlights how governments, especially at the local and state level, are creating partnerships with companies and nonprofit organizations to accelerate innovation locally.
Goryachev closes the book with a call to action: “What we need is a truly bold culture—a culture of fearless innovation. No one can do it alone, and luckily, no one has to. Most of us are social beings, and outcomes are always better when we work together. Innovators are behind all breakthroughs throughout history—from science to art and everything in between—but only because they were willing to co-innovate with others.”
That is likely why a man who has seen the radical differences between his native country of the former USSR and his adopted country of the USA sat down to write a book about innovation. He has seen what happens when you live in a closed culture versus an open one. He has now spent almost his entire career in perhaps the most innovative environments of Silicon Valley and has seen what works, what doesn’t work, and how when we all are truly engaged in a culture that enhances innovation, we can do so much good for our organizations – and ultimately, for the world.