DailyKaizen

I have been thinking a lot lately about how great companies innovate.  In a former life I worked in the high tech industry and all we ever talked about was innovation.  In fact, the word innovation was thrown around so often it really no longer had much meaning.   Until recently, like most people I considered innovation to be the next big break through.  A brand new product or service that was so disruptive it would change the market place forever.   Why wouldn’t I think this way?  All of the companies that I worked with had specialized departments focused on finding the next big thing.  Innovation was the job of product developers, R & D, sceintists, or engineers. 

As you can guess my view of innovation has changed greatly through my Lean experience.  I now view innovation mainly an outcome of common, well planned out, process improvement.   Great companies like Toyota don’t rely on small teams of creative people to incubate innovative ideas, they instead look to all employees to make small improvements every day.   Here is a quote by Matthew May on this very subject:

 ”At the heart of all remarkable innovations in any realm lies a rigorous routine, a disciplined methodology.  And the learning cycle is at the core of the process.  By codifying it, applying it, teaching it and adopting it as your offical modus operandi, you gain enormous benefit.”

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