The Analogy of the Soda Can: Overcoming Innovation Fatigue in Your Innovation Community

In our newly released book, Conquering Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, July 2009), we offer guidance for innovators, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and policy makers. Today I’d like to speak to leaders of teams or organizations where innovation matters but seems to be less effective than it should be. Innovation fatigue can set into an innovation community for a wide variety of reasons we discuss in the book. When that happens, the solution is not necessarily to punt and discard your team. The first step should be to look within and identify the fatigue factors that may have left your would-be innovators feeling disconnected and empty. Has there been a breach of trust that needs to be rebuilt? Are there barriers that keep your innovation community out of the loop and disconnected from the needs of the market place? (If so, see our chapter on the Horn of Innovation!) Are there steps you need to take to recharge your innovation group with the energy and innovation fizz they used to have?

My short video clip below uses an analogy with aluminum cans to help illustrate the problem and recommended approach. It’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I hope it makes a point. OK, it’s a bit lame and amateurish – just trying to make a point in a round-about way. No trick photography is used.

From http://youtube.com/magicinnovation: “The Analogy of the Cans: Energizing Your Innovation Community.”