Everyday innovation report - Nesta

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15. Axtell, C.M., Holman,
D.J., Unsworth, K.L.,
Wall, T.D. and Waterson,
P.E. (2000) Shopfloor
Innovation: Facilitating
the Suggestion and
Implementation of Ideas.
‘Journal of Occupational and
Organisational Psychology.’
73, pp.265-285.
16. Parker, S.K., Williams,
H.M. and Turner, N. (2006)
Modeling the Antecedents
of Proactive Behavior at
Work. ‘Journal of Applied
Psychology.’ 91, pp.636-
652.
17. Chell, E., and Athayde, R.
(2009) ‘The identification
and measurement of
innovative characteristics
of young people.’ NESTA
Research Report. London:
NESTA.
18. Feist, G.J. and Barron, F.X.
(2003) Predicting creativity
from early to late adulthood:
Intellect, potential, and
personality. ‘Journal of
Research in Personality.’ 37,
pp.62–88.
between the development of a good idea and
its implementation. Resilience, persistence,
personal initiative, and communication skills
are especially important in the context of
innovation in large, bureaucratic organisations,
where barriers to innovation are more manifest.
“Employees’ ability to communicate their ideas
successfully is also crucial for innovation. If
the case for an idea is not made sufficiently
well, the idea will not be taken forward” (Mike
Addison, Open Innovator, Procter & Gamble).
Alistair Leathwood (FreshMinds’ Managing
Director), says that “confident people tend
to innovate”. This concurs with research
evidence showing self-efficacy to be positively
associated with innovative behaviours. 15,16
(See also the work on young people and
characteristics by Chell and Athayde 17 ). This
was confirmed again in our survey, where
three in ten respondents listed self-belief/
confidence among the top three employee
characteristics that contribute to innovative
working in their organisation. The word
‘courage’ was used regularly in our interviews
as a key characteristic particularly for those
leading innovation.
The research literature consistently shows
intelligence is a necessary but not sufficient
condition for innovative working. 18 The
evidence from our survey and interviews also
supports this. Two aspects of cognitive ability,
problem solving and strategic thinking, were
endorsed by 50 per cent and 35 per cent of our
survey respondents respectively, to be amongst
the top three individual contributors to
innovative working in organisations (see Table
1). There are differences observed according
to sector and job complexity for example, the
level of knowledge for biotechnology R&D
roles will be significantly different from those
required in lesser skilled jobs.
3.2 Organisations typically neglect
to incorporate characteristics and
behaviours for innovative working into
recruitment and selection criteria
Given that innovation has become a greater
priority for an organisation’s agenda in the
current climate (over 70 per cent of survey
respondents confirmed this), businesses
must attract a healthy supply of talented
individuals who are then given opportunities
(and the support) to innovate. Derek Smith,
UBS Poland Service Centre Chief Executive,
explains that some time ago, opening a branch
in Krakow was a tactical one: it made the job
of attracting talented people considerably easy.
“Poland has a plethora of young, enthusiastic,
talented graduates…people are the sources
of new ideas; some people have lots of ideas”.
Accessing and attracting talented individuals
as a key to an organisation’s propensity to
innovate was a recurrent theme from our
interviews. “Paradoxically, in today’s poor
employment climate, there is no lack of
Table 1: Employee characteristics and behaviours that contribute towards innovative
working
Base: N=841, 9 respondents did not answer this section of the survey
Percentage of whole sample endorsing the following
characteristics/behaviours as important for innovative working
Openness to ideas 59
Problem solving 50
Motivation/personal initiative 43
Strategic thinking 35
Leadership and management skills 33
Self-belief/confidence 29
Willingness to take risks 28
Emotional intelligence 13
Tolerance of ambiguity 8