Innovation Needs a Formal Governance Structure

CIO Insight’s piece on innovation led me to try to find some gold nuggets. After wading through the article I did! Page 4 reveals a comment about governance models when talking about FedEx:

“You won’t find FedEx’s innovation-driven culture at most companies. McKinsey’s research points to one obstacle to innovation: While a vast majority of corporate executives say innovation is one of their top three priorities for boosting growth, the lack of coherent governance practices tends to curtail their efforts.

When surveyed last fall about the ways in which their company oversees innovation practices, more executives (36 percent) pointed to an ad hoc approach than to any other. Still, 34 percent said governing innovation is part of their regular agenda, but only one in 10 said there’s a corporate innovation group or leadership team devoted to overseeing their practices.”

Why executives think that lack of management of innovation somehow fosters innovation is a mystery to me; it’s shocking that an executive would say that their company values innovation without a management structure to formally support it. The companies that succeed in the innovation area, like FedEx, have formal processes, organizations, and an innovation culture.

Do you think innovation is more of an art than a science? Should formal organization structures and processes be put in place to enable innovation? Do you have examples where innovation occurred without these types of formal structures?

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