In fact, the word innovation is present in everything we do and there is innovation for all tastes – we have technological innovation, social innovation, we have books, courses, lectures, videos, posts about innovation – all in huge quantities, and available in different sectors (Government, Municipalities, companies, media).
There are also varied typologies of innovation – incremental, disruptive innovation, marketing innovation, open innovation, closed innovation, processes and, of course, social innovation.
The term innovation is so embedded in the mentality of post-industrial revolution societies, especially in the West, that “Being an Innovator” is not only considered a key skill in the job markets , almost like a cult characteristic, which serves very well in the construction of a “hero’s journey” narrative, for many speakers and professionals, who function as models that our young people adopt, as references of what they are o “successful men and women”. Even today, people like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and others are a kind of Pop Stars, who were able to see and bring to the World what no one else did.
As with almost everything, there needs to be some moderation, here too. Not all problems are solved with innovation, just as not all innovations are successes. There are problems that continue to be resolved with common sense, just as there are needs that only depend, to be satisfied, on what has always worked. If we look, for example, at problems of mental and emotional health, isolation, social alienation, what works is basically what has always worked – empathy, affection and support networks. There is no mystery.
There is also, on the other hand, a confusion that identifies innovation with inventing new things. Solve a complex problem generated by a solution that already exists (be it from a company, a government or a municipality), using different processes and approaches, which have not been used before, or which They were even used, but in a different way, it is also innovation. And nothing is being invented. The perspective is changing, looking from another angle or even with another look.
This confusion is the same one that leads us to say that we are not creative, and, as such, we cannot be entrepreneurs, because we are not capable of, or have difficulty, coming up with new or disruptive ideas. Once again, we have to see this from another angle – it is creative, and therefore innovative, who creates something that was not there the moment before. In other words, anyone who today decides to go to work via route B, instead of via route A, is innovating just because they introduced a small change that could change the course of their life – or because he crosses paths with someone he wouldn’t otherwise cross paths with, or because, while stopped in traffic, he pays attention to an advertisement that gives him an idea for a business he’s going to open with his wife, and You don’t even know it yet!
Innovating, in this sense, is therefore much more related to an attitude that, in the world we live in, of increasing complexity and multiple interconnections, assailed by a huge and dizzying torrent of information, must be cultivated. Innovation is, essentially, good, just because, as António Damásio says, evolution is in our DNA. We are designed to evolve. And to innovate is to explore different possibilities for evolution.
But how do you cultivate this attitude? Cultivating 4 key behaviors:
- Keep an open mind, and available to receive impulses and stimuli from all sides, without prejudice;
- Feed a systematic sense of curiosity;
- Focus on changing routines and small daily habits, with the repetition of which we run the risk of crystallizing;
- Develop active listening skills – which is the same as turning off the brain’s “egometer†and “complicometerâ€.
However, not everything in innovation is rosy, and there are, in fact, some risks of a certain obsession with innovation, especially at the level of innovation processes in companies. What are they? I think it’s important to talk about these risks, not because I’m exactly an old man from Restelo (despite living in Belém) – in fact, I dedicate my life to Innovation, albeit social – but because I believe that we must consider the negative impacts of everything in which we invest our time and resources. This is a great lesson that social entrepreneurship, and the responsibility that is inherent to it, taught me. I would say that the main risks of an excessive obsession with Innovation are, essentially, two:
- The potential creation of artificial needs that, instead of adding to quality of life, can diminish it – a good example is the obsession with cell phones. Each new version of any brand of cell phone brings a series of small new technological improvements, which do not, in most cases, add solutions that people really need to solve their life’s needs. Instead, they add even more dependence on the digital world, creating a greater disconnection with the real world, and a decrease in the quality of social relationships.
- The potential to discard traditions and learning from the past, forgetting the circularity of time, in its ascending spirals of historical evolution that, never returning to the same point, nevertheless reproduce similar contexts, in different times, which often call for the so-called “wisdom of experience” and the so-called “best practices”. That’s why you also hear a lot, these days, an expression, which could be considered a paradox, used in innovation processes, which is the following: “We’re not going to invent the wheel “. Which is the same as saying: Let’s be innovative, but only to the extent necessary to achieve better results, maintaining what needs to be maintained. Even to avoid waste. In this case, knowledge.
Where I think lies one of the biggest differences between traditional Business Innovation (or Innovation as usual), and Social Innovation (namely Corporate Social Innovation), is precisely in this question of defining what are, or are not, these better results that the innovation process seeks to achieve.
In business innovation processes, the results intended by the innovation processes are, above all, results that are better for the subsistence and/or growth of the company itself (with possible positive results for the quality of lives of its stakeholders, but without this value necessarily being the end in itself of innovation).
In Social Innovation processes, the results we seek to achieve are always, at the beginning and end, the improvement of people’s situation, their quality of life, eliminating or mitigating obstacles systems that are currently preventing or restricting it. Even when we talk about environmental problems, the ultimate objective is people’s well-being and quality of life, integrated into healthy and prosperous ecosystems.
And, therefore, in Social Innovation processes there is no risk of creating artificial needs. Because these processes always start from an exhaustive diagnosis of existing and real problems, and design solutions aimed at the most disadvantaged segments, where these problems are felt in a more evident and dramatic way.
And, if Social Innovation processes are well designed, they also do not run the risk of discarding learning from history or the past, because Social Innovation must necessarily start from a respect because of what is already very well done on the ground, or what already works in a given context. There is a huge focus on empathy, and on real knowledge of what already exists, so as not to waste abundant resources. Because social innovators are not tied to their ideas, they embrace all existing resources and focus on achieving impact. The final change.
Now imagine if companies combined these two processes – product/service innovation, process innovation, traditional marketing, to increase the efficiency and performance of your organization , with specific solution design processes that solve real problems of its stakeholders (customers, suppliers, employees, partners), through its products and services, its assets (knowledge, equipment, technical models , people), creating new markets, more loyal customers, more capable and loyal suppliers, and more satisfied employees. This is the competitive advantage that the so-called Corporate Social Innovation can bring to companies.
Sustainability, and the inherent efficient analysis of the positive and negative impacts of a business, in the context in which it operates, and in the communities with which it interacts in its operation, are already, and will be, crescent form, the norm. Regulated and sanctioned. Companies can no longer differentiate themselves in this way.
The real differentiation will therefore come from those who understand that investing now in Social Innovation within their organizations will mean pioneering a business model that I believe will be the model of the future. A model in which it will not make sense to talk about social business, because all businesses will have already integrated this chip and will work to generate income and profit, but also towards social, environmental and economic transformation of its value chain which, in the long term, will also guarantee the relevance and economic subsistence of the business itself. A world in which it will not make sense to invent a new cell phone model, without thinking about how it can be used to solve specific problems of needier segments or how creative economic models can be created so that these segments can have access to these products, in conditions suitable to your ability to pay.
A world, in short, where the obsession with Innovation will correspond to an obsession with creating better lives, and not just more money.
