Spreading change involves the operationalisation of an innovation into the existing framework of a certain organisation. Such an organisation must decide whether to adopt the innovation as a whole or to integrate some aspects of the innovation into certain aspects of the organisation’s systems and practices. For such a move to be successful, change managers must understand several things about the spread of innovation.
Attributes of Innovation
Organisations entertaining the idea of adopting an innovation should start with a basic understanding of what makes an innovation. This will help change managers in determining whether a change is right for their organisation or not. In 1957, Everett Rogers forwarded his perceptions about the potential attributes of an innovation.
- Relative Advantage Over Existing Practices
Rogers observed that organisations that are successful in the adoption of an innovation tend to have a more favourable opinion about the relative advantage of such an innovation over current and existing practices. The very nature of innovation is that it should be better than that which it supersedes.
- Compatibility with Current Practices
An innovation should also be consistent with the values and other attributes of the adopting organisation. If there is a wide variance between what the innovation requires and what the adopting organisation has, there is a strong chance that the organisation will not be successful in the adoption of the innovation.
- Ease of Understanding
An innovation should be easy to understand. This helps in the smoother adoption of the innovation, ensuring its ease of use.
- Observability
Change managers need to determine whether the results of adopting such an innovation are measurable or, at least, visible. Anyone who is going to adopt a measure will want proof that it indeed works.
- Testability
Before an organisation adopts an innovation, it must test it first on a small unit of their organisation. They can evaluate whether the innovation can deliver or not. If the test is successful, then the organisation can institute the measure to the rest of the organisation.
- Adaptability
Rogers did not identify ‘adaptability’ as one of the attributes of innovation. However, there are management gurus who say that adaptability is crucial to ensure the correct fit of the innovation to the needs of the organisation. It can involve modifying certain aspects of the innovation to ensure a correct fit.
Key Takeaways in Innovation Attributes
Based on the foregoing discussion, it is safe to assume two very important things about the nature of innovation. These two key takeaways were highlighted in Gabriel Szulanski and Sidney Winter’s “Getting It Right the Second Time” in 2002.
- Not Fixed Qualities
Innovations offer enough flexibility for other organisations to adopt and apply them in their respective frameworks. It is for this reason that true innovations do not have fixed qualities.
- Not Exact Copying
There will always be certain aspects of an organisation that is not the perfect fit with the elements of an innovation. It is impossible to copy an innovation and guarantee 100 percent reproducible results. The results in one organisation may be different from another because of the unique characteristics of each organisation.
Reinvention and the Modern Organisation
One way for organisations to spread change is by reinventing the innovation that they want to adopt. Reinventing an innovation allows the organisation to create a system that is a perfect fit to the organisation’s fundamentals. For reinvention to be successful, the organisation must have the following attributes.
- Employee Skill Fit
It is imperative that the employees of the adopting organisation have the correct competencies to use the innovation. It makes no sense to use an innovation that still requires extensive training or the complete overhaul of the employees’ skills. Reinventing the innovation can help fashion the innovation after the skills of the employees.
- Incentivising Innovation Use
Organisations can provide incentives to employees for using the innovation. This can serve as motivation for the organisation’s people to adopt and integrate the innovation in every aspect of their work. This is another attribute of reinvention worth including.
- Removing Obstacles
Change managers should identify potential obstacles to the successful adoption of the innovation. Reinventing the innovation helps remove obstacles or minimise the factors that can undermine the successful implementation of the innovation.
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Values and Innovation
The success of adopting an innovation hinges on the inherent values of the people in the adopting organisation. As a rule, the greater the congruence between the values of the people and their perceived value of the innovation, the greater is the likelihood of a successful adoption of the innovation or its reinvention.
- User Values
The individual values of each employee of the adopting organisation can have a substantial impact on the success of the reinvention or the innovation adoption. The more congruent the values of the potential users are to the values that the innovation espouses, the greater is the chance of success of the innovation.
- Appealing to User Values
The main challenge for change managers is how they can find the correct fit between individual user values and the values of the innovation. It starts with the identification and the correct interpretation of user values. These observations can then be used to determine the level of fit to those that the innovation requires. Appropriate modifications can be administered to ensure a correct fit.
- Effects of Implementation Climate and Innovation-Values Fit
An organisational climate that understands, appreciates, and fosters the values of the people of the organisation is crucial to ensuring successful reinvention or adoption of an innovation. Finding the correct fit between values and innovation can also help increase the level of success of the innovation adoption. The organisation can expect to improve on its systems and processes. This can lead to an improvement in customer service and an inherent increase in the organisation’s bottom line.
Spreading change can occur in two ways. One is by adopting certain components of an innovation to help improve the existing processes of another organisation. The other one is by reinventing the innovation to secure a more appropriate fit to the adopting organisation’s fundamental framework. It is in the hands of an organisation’s leaders and change managers how they wish to proceed with the spreading of change.