Technologia: In a few words, what is innovation and what is its purpose?
Michel Filion: The OECD defines innovation as any new product or service, or significantly improved service, that is brought to market or made available to a user public. In a few words: innovation consists in using our creativity and, from the fruit of this creativity, modeling a product, a service, an answer to a need. Business people are interested in innovation because it allows them to obtain a niche in a competitive market and to benefit from it above the norm while the competition adjusts!
T: Is improvement really innovation?
Michel Filion: There are generally two types of innovation: breakthrough innovation, where something radically new is invented (think of the discovery of electricity or the first iPhone) and catch-up innovation, where already existing innovations are used to catch up with the organization (think of the cell phone manufacturers after the release of the iPhone).
In all cases it remains innovation, even if one is more spectacular than the other. Innovation, even catching up, is about taking the right ideas to focus efforts and maximize benefits.
T: Does innovation concern goods and services equally?
Michel Filion: The innovation process works equally well for a service or a product. In both cases, it is about turning a good idea into reality. It's the same process that includes five key steps: ideation, invention, prototyping, production and marketing. Knowing that there is a back-and-forth process, that at any moment you can go back and that a new idea or a new constraint (legal in particular) can arise and change the situation.
T: Is innovation a solitary process?
Michel Filion: No. Our ability to listen and collaborate is a key factor. Our ability to listen and collaborate is a gas pedal of new ideas. And the leader in the organization plays a fundamental role, particularly through his or her interpersonal communication skills, in order to generate the desire to talk. Innovation is born from these exchanges, because no one has all the right ideas. Sometimes, even the bad idea of one person will be taken up by the other, refined, to become relevant.
T: Is this how you promote "innovative companies"?
Michel Filion: Absolutely! By leaving room for others, by valuing their contribution, by allowing mistakes and ramblings, by accepting that an ideation session leads to nothing, we increase the chances of finding the Idea with a capital I, the one that will make the difference.
T: Finding the right idea can take (a lot of) time. Time that companies don't have. How do they maintain their level of innovation?
Michel Filion: Indeed, in business, companies need to make their initiatives profitable relatively quickly. To achieve this, there are ways to accelerate and identify the most profitable ideas that would be easy to implement in the organization. The five steps mentioned earlier and a few other technical elements can make a difference.
T: A word to conclude?
Michel Filion: The quest for innovation can take the form of a method that is acquired, step by step, through learning and training. Companies can foster innovation by ensuring that everyone's contributions are welcome, by accepting the momentary uncertainty caused by certain ideas. The appetite for competitive advantage needs to be nurtured, whether in SMEs or larger companies. A few key elements: recognizing everyone's right to be at the same table and to be able to speak; accepting the other in all their differences (intellectual, cultural, generational, etc.); making sure that if the previous steps have been successful, the group has not "over-merged" to the point of closing itself off from the outside.
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