Hierarchy and Innovation

I recently caught up with my friend who had been laid off from a large organisation and is currently employed with a small start up. Amongst other things, I was asking him what the differences were between his previous employer and his current one and he mentioned that the biggest difference was with respect to the innovation culture. The start up is so very open to innovation and promotes the innovation culture that he feels the bigger organisation can never catch up with that. That set me thinking.

Most large organisations are characterised by hierarchical organisational structure and by well defined processes. Is this a deterrent to the innovation culture? This typically breeds a “silo”ed way of working where more rules are specified and boundaries dictated. This will over a period of time kill the experimental spirit of individuals and discourage “out of the box” thinking. I know there are a few examples which have defied this logic but that has happened only due to exceptional and conscious reasons.

The other fact is that most large organisations have found a way of achieving success. This in turn makes people reticent and satisfied to create boundaries and stick to that. While, this strategy may work during good times, it will bite back with a vengeance during bad times since suddenly people are shaken off their comfort zones and more importantly have forgotten or have not developed their innovation or risk taking abilities.

The start up firm, in sharp contrast, is still finding its feet and so is open to try out new things, learns quickly and progresses. This in turn makes them very agile and able to adapt really quickly. Also they have less baggage and risk to worry about since they are the underdogs and so literally free to try out new things.

This is a pity since the vast majority of us are employed in large organisations and it seems such a shame that the majority of us are not potentially using our complete skill sets or exploring the innovative side of us.

So can we do something about this? Surely there have been some large organisations that have broken this shackle. How have they achieved this? Can we learn from them?

The answer thankfully, is that, it is definitely possible. But it just needs time, patience, constant reinforcement and some able leaders who believe in this and are willing to lead by example.

So how do you get started? For starters, large organisations have to make a conscious effort to acknowledge the problem and then take concrete steps to progress this. Some of the initiatives I can think of are:

• Reward people to break the corporate silos and participate in company wide initiatives


• Earmark money specifically for exploring new ideas/avenues and ensure it is spent only for new avenues (not extensions of existing areas)


• Consciously break strict hierarchical structures at work and encourage the formation of specialised groups. This will get the best minds to come together and discuss their challenges and you can be sure that some good ideas will come out of this.


• Focus specifically on middle management layers. They are generally the most difficult to get to participate in company wide initiatives since they are so focussed on the profit and loss of their departments.


• Ensure that the best talent is rotated amongst various departments to ensure that knowledge is shared. These resources are the best influencers and so it is important they are spread to all corners of the organisation.


• Publish success stories and encourage talent who lead by example. This is very contagious and soon you could have different teams competing with each other to contribute to such initiatives.

Have more ideas? I would be happy to hear from you. Share your experiences or thoughts on how this can be further improved.

The path is not easy but definitely worth pursuing. Let me leave you with a thought. The problem today is that we consider innovation today only when pushed to the wall like we run to a doctor when we are sick. In sharp contrast we ought to be thinking of it all the time (like health wellness centres getting popular these days). Let us not wait for a wake up call to focus on innovation.