The innovation book Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival lays out a step-by-step framework of 10 Key Imperatives that an organization must take to achieve profitable business growth through innovation. While a structured, repeatable innovation process is critical to create and sustain innovation in a competitive, dog-eat-dog marketplace, it alone is not always sufficient to turn a great innovative idea into a profitable “on-the-store-shelves” reality. The recently published Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation, provides practical techniques to break down many of the barriers to innovation in business. Innovation requires more than just idea generation. After all, innovation cannot exist in a vacuum; but rather, an organization must build a culture of innovation to catalyze and sustain the creation of new ideas and then ultimately actually implement the ideas that make it out of the initial starting gate.
Innovation implementation often appears as a daunting, overwhelming process due to people-related issues and resultant roadblocks. A notorious clash among innovation teams is the rift between boomers and millennials.[2] The older generation of workers are often frustrated and perplexed by millennials who are overeager to take on big projects and responsibilities right off the bat, instead of first paying their dues. Boomers often lament that their millennial coworkers are impatient and have short attention spans. On the flip side, millennials can become increasingly irritated and turned off by the boomers who “are seen as selfish (for having lingered in the workplace for so long, taking up those increasing rare plum spots), IT challenged, and at worst, believed to be guilty of the ruination of the American dream, the environment, the health-care system, Social Security, and so much more.”[3] Multigenerational challenges and conflicts are not isolated incidents in today’s workplaces. While organizations can benefit from a diverse, multigenerational workplace, they must also have a game plan to overcome potential conflict and challenges. A 2014 survey by ASTD (the American Society for Training and Development) and Joseph Grenny, author of Crucial Accountability (McGraw-Hill, 2013) as well as Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking when Stakes are High (McGraw-Hill, 2011), “found conflict among generations that result in wasted time and lost productivity. In fact, 90 percent of all survey respondents agreed that generational conflict was a time waster. According to the study, over one third of respondents said they wasted five or more hours of work weekly (12 percent of the work week) because of chronic, unaddressed conflict among different generations. The two generations who have the most difficult time working together are Baby Boomers and Millennials, according to survey respondents, but it appears that each generation has some problem with one or more of the others.[4] As referenced in Robert’s Rules of Innovation II, in a multigenerational workplace, the authors[5] of Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High bestow the following four introductory tips for starting to patch the rift between the two groups: For more information about how to promote and implement innovation at your company, check out the innovation books Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival and the recently published Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation. [1] For more information about the “People Aspects” of innovation implementation, check out this previously published RROI blog entitled “Innovation and the Art of Implementation (Part 2).” [2] Who are millennials? Who are boomers? According to a April 25, 2016 article by Pew Research group, “Millennials have surpassed Baby Boomers as the nation’s largest living generation, according to population estimates released this month by the U.S. Census Bureau. Millennials, whom we define as those ages 18-34 in 2015, now number 75.4 million, surpassing the 74.9 million Baby Boomers (ages 51-69). And Generation X (ages 35-50 in 2015) is projected to pass the Boomers in population by 2028.” See Pew Research Group’s “Millennials overtake Baby Boomers as America’s largest generation.” [3] Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation (See p. 163) [4] Managing the Multigenerational Workplace, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School [5] The authors of Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High (McGraw-Hill 2011) include Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler [6] Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation (See p. 174) Then sign up for your FREE account from Idea to Value to not only get great pieces of insight like this every week, but also free training on improving your creativity and company innovation capabilities from some of the world’s leading innovation experts. How have you addressed this conflict in your company? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to share and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.How to Fine-Tune Working Relationships between Boomers and Millennials to Create Harmonious Innovation Teams
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Robert F. Brands
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