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07.08

Innovation — Every Engineer’s Role

By Peggy G. Hutcheson, Ph.D.

In a knowledge-driven economy, innovation is heralded as the key to success. Leaders across industries maintain that competitiveness today cannot be sustained without innovation. For too long, innovation has been considered the exclusive domain of new product developers and inventors. Innovation also occurs in strategy, process, knowledge development and sharing, and organizational leadership. Because it is so important to continuing business success, and because opportunities for innovation are everywhere, innovation can be a vital ingredient for career success for every engineer.

Are you innovative? The answer is yes. Everyone has the capacity to be innovative. In fact, one widely-accepted maxim says that the primary difference between people who are innovative and those who are not is whether you believe you are innovative.

Rather than are you innovative, the more appropriate question is how are you innovative? Where does your innovation start? John Emmerling, founder of The Innovation Consulting Group, Emmerling Communications, has said that innovation is creativity with a job to do. This job may be major breakthroughs (see the National Academy of Engineering’s top innovations of the 20th century, including electrification and the automobile) or less dramatic, yet high impact, innovations that improve a product significantly (such as the iPhone that is revolutionizing handheld communications). Your innovation job may be part of improving a process, work method, or tool. Kaizen, Six Sigma, and the Total Quality movement all aim at innovation.

Through the years, management leaders, marketing sages, and technical gurus have sought to understand just what leads to innovative thinking. While head of Innovation Management at SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute), William Miller observed four ways of thinking that combine into four different approaches to innovation.

Some people’s innovation is stimulated by thinking through facts; others begin with intuition and insights. Some approach the innovative process in a focused, well-planned, outcome-driven way; others prefer broad, perceptive approaches. These four factors combine into four ways we approach innovation.

• Visioning – This approach to innovation uses intuition, focused on specific outcomes. Those who use this style like to work toward an ideal future guided by long-term goals. The English Barons who created the Magna Carta, changing forever the way the world looks on the powers of rulers and the rights of those they rule, represent the Visioning style.

• Exploring – This second approach to innovation combines intuition and broad thinking. People who relish the idea generation process and resist routine are likely to share this innovation style. Albert Einstein is representative of this style of innovation.

• Experimenting – This approach describes how broad thinkers who like to focus on facts (rather than intuition) innovate. They like to test out different combinations of ideas and solutions. When Thomas Edison experimented with dozens and dozens of possible filaments for his light bulb, he was utilizing the Experimenting style.

• Modifying – Modifiers like to take what exists and see how it can be improved. Like Levi Strauss and his development of blue jeans by using indigo dye on denim fabric, modifiers look for ways to make what exists more useable.

Every engineer begins addressing a problem in ways that indicate their innovation style. If you begin by wondering, “What is the long-term ideal solution?” chances are that Visioning is a key part of your approach to innovation. Those with the Exploring style are more likely to begin with a question such as, “What can we do that is radically different?” If you tend to focus on “How can we put things together in a different way that is practical,” you are likely to favor the Experimenting style. Those who ask about how to simplify and thus improve something are using the Modifying approach. Keep in mind that the style reflects where you begin working on a problem or issue. It is an approach to addressing the issue, not a description of who you are.

As you think about how to increase your effectiveness in innovation, consider these options:

• Contribute to an innovation-friendly culture where you work. Share information and ask questions. Spend time talking about what is going on in your projects and hear what is challenging others in their work.

• Involve people who think differently than you — who approach a problem from a different perspective. Welcome divergent ideas.

• Seek to avoid traps like, “we have always done it this way,” or “there’s no use trying to change.” Innovation requires getting outside the proverbial box and influencing better, more productive ways of getting things done.

• Challenge yourself to improve something that challenges you away from work. Is there a way to improve how your family shares information, schedules events, or prepares for a vacation? Idea generation for problems in one setting just might generate new ideas in another very different setting.

• Remind yourself that you are innovative. Read about innovation and innovative people to gain inspiration and to recognize examples of incremental innovation (change), as well as breakthrough innovation.

Peggy Hutcheson is President of The Odyssey Group, Inc., a consulting firm in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Hutcheson provides organization development and strategic learning processes to organizations ranging from Fortune 100s to small entrepreneurial businesses and government agencies. She is currently chair of IEEE-USA’s Employment and Career Services Committee. Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.

Opinions expressed are the author's.