Rick Johnston

Rick Johnston is a Vice President for ICF Interactive (an ICF International company) in Richmond (Glen Allen), Virginia. He is also the Team Leader for ICF’s association group practice. Follow him on Twitter @rjohnston. Rick joined Ironworks Consulting in July 2005 and helped grow the company over seven years before it was acquired by ICFI in 2012.

Rick has worked on Web strategy with such clients as the American Cancer Society, American College of Physicians, American Institute of Architects, EDUCAUSE, American Council on Education, School Nutrition Association, ISACA, The Nature Conservancy, PBS, National Wildlife Federation, Discovery Education, Dominion Resources, NASDAQ, and the Veterans Health Administration.

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What does innovation look like? Someone recently told me that innovation is hard to define, but you know it when you see it. Does it result in an invention? Does improving something count? Definitions differ greatly but I would offer the following need be true for something to be an innovation… (1) it must be a new concept within its applicable field; (2) it must produce results that are deemed valuable; and (3) participants must be willing to accept the risk of failure.

Why is innovation hard?  Perhaps it is because it works against our natural defensive responses to new ideas.  I often ask innovation teams, “How many of you can sing? Dance?  Draw?” A few hands go up after each question. I then show them a picture of a kindergarten class and ask how many of these people raised their hand? Of course, they all did. So why didn’t the adult group respond the same way?  We all learn to protect ourselves from embarrassment. Our minds are tuned to immediate dismiss any idea that seems silly, impractical, not feasible or too expensive. We barely give it a conscious thought before clearing our mind of this ridiculous idea. These are called associative barriers and they help us survive. If your car goes off a bridge and into the water below, this is not the time to innovate. You hopefully jump right to something you once saw about letting the car fill with water before trying to open a door or grapping that little glass hammer designed to shatter the glass and allow your exit. The time for innovation was well before the car went off the bridge.

Who can be innovative? Since innovation is not a natural or intuitive process, one might deduce that you need to look for creative types within your organization. While it may be easier to people without rigid mindsets to participate, research has shown “nurture” beats out “nature” when it comes to innovation [Behavior Genetics, Vol. 3, No . 4, 1973, “Creative Abilities in Identical and Fraternal Twins” Marvin Reznikoff, George Domino, Carolyn Bridges, and Merton Honeyman]. It also helps to have as diverse a group of people as possible as everyone brings a different perspective from their personal and professional lives. For example, management teams are not usually the most productive when it comes to an ideation process.

How do we get started? Your organization will likely need some help the first time you try to innovate.  But ask that your vendor include a train-the-trainer component for future efforts.  Sometimes you may need consultants to provide some research going into the task or prioritization of the potential opportunities. Set aside a full day for your first session. You may not need all the time but best to reach some closure and sense of accomplishment out of the gate.  And don’t expect to wrap up in a nice neat bow the first day. You will likely need some time to research options for implementation and validate assumptions.

If you accept some risk of failure, you have nothing to lose.  Give it a try.