Innovation Management an Oxymoron

Beware of books and articles that profess to give insights into the management of innovation. The further I dig into the field of innovation, the more I become convinced that innovationmanagement is an oxymoron.

The term management is all pervasive in industry. We have managers everywhere. We see management as an integral part of doing business, as if it were the very oxygen we breathe.

Yet it is a very poor metaphor in the field of innovation. Whilst we can bore ourselves silly debating the definition of innovation, there’s no denying that a large part of innovation relates to hope. We can set up all manner of initiatives and processes to facilitate innovation and to create an innovation capability, but we still hope that something good emerges from the innovation resources deployed. This is so evident in so many corporate vision statements and top-down management signals that are, when stripped of their jargon, empty slogans begging for meaning, waiting for some brave imaginative soul to fill the void.

And if our future boils down to hope, then we need to do everything possible to feel hopeful. If we feel hopeless, as many employees do in their jobs – or at least resigned to an outcome beyond their control – then how can we expect anything much to emerge from our resources?

Hope is connected to enthusiasm and optimism. These are two ingredients of innovation that cannot be managed. The word manage has that awful industrial-age feeling of “to cope with,” which is hardly a mindset that applies to innovation and creativity.

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