Managerial Issues: Innovation and Stability

Good manager have to be balance in managing paradoxes in management world: innovation versus stability

Innovation and managerial implications

In the contemporary world change is rapid in terms of consumer wants and the external environment is turbulent. The rapid changes are related to technological changes, social changes, natural environmental changes and political changes. As well, due to global market and its impact on competition. If an organization do not innovate products and services rapidly compared to its competitors the organization will not survive and grow and add value in the short and in the long term. Innovation also is important because it expand in to related fields, which are more value adding compared to the risks involved. In this context, managers must be able to enhance the capacity of the organization to innovate continuously so that it meets customer expectation swiftly and in a timely manner in comparison with its major competitors. That is innovation must be an important priority of managers goals and objective.

However, if innovation is rapid, it means change often in the processes and practices of the organization often. There fore, it has the potential to increase instability. In other words, innovation can cause problems to the organization in terms of the degree of stability needed to operate effectively. As mentioned above, innovation is vital for competitive advantage but it affects the stability of the organization.

There fore, if management of change is not implemented and planned well, it may not be effective as expected due to the problems of stability it causes. The instability is causes by resistance to change by managers and staff if they are not communicated properly and the objectives of change and purpose is not clearly perceived by staff as beneficial to them. In this context, managers must be able to develop strategies to overcome resistance and reinforce within the management that change is accept able to all stakeholders. It is also necessary to phase the change in consultation with all the stakeholders and as far as possible a participatory process.. As well, the managers must increase innovative capacity, which benefits as an organization as a whole. It must not be beneficial for a division and in the same time not beneficial to the organization as whole. It must also be sustainable.

It is obvious from the above discussion, the effectiveness of innovation is dependent on many factors including the rate of innovation and how the changes have been managed by the management team or managers in general. However, in the contemporary external environment innovation is a necessity as a competitive weapon to grow and survive. In other words, for managers it is a balancing activity and to reduce instability of innovation by appropriate managerial policies.

Stability and managerial implications

If the managers in an organization value stability, then innovation may be slower because they may resist change vigorously. That is, they have to trade off innovation for stability. However, if stability is overly valued it may looses the competitive edge in a rapidly changing external environment. It also become a barrier due the fact that it may not accept change because it becomes an entrenched culture. If change is not welcomed, then it is very difficult to implement any change program to innovation effectively due to excessive conflicts and longer period to innovation and product development compared to its competitors.

However, innovation for innovation sake produces unnecessary instability within the organization and it may be counter productive to the organization because it may be difficult in the future to implement change due the negative past experiences by the staff and they may resist change vigorously than before. In addition, innovation may produce conflict between staff and management and cause industrial relations problems if not addressed properly particularly if they are unionized work force.

As discussed above, stability as valued by mangers have consequences for innovation and innovation if not properly managed. may produce industrial relation problems.

The managers must balance between innovation and stability by considering the purpose of change and innovation, its effect on staff and how it is perceived, negotiation with managers of staff, implementing appropriate training and re-training of workforce, review of reward structure, provision of variety of work for the staff and participation in decision making regarding any change proposals and innovation projects and other ethical and equity issues related to change proposals and innovation. If innovation is ill considered, it has the possibility to become counter productive in the future to innovate due to the excessive instability. As well, the dynamics of change may not be effective.

As discussed above, innovation and stability is paradox for managers. Good managers must balance between these two opposing management concepts or ideas in a contextual manner considering the the complexity of innovation, its effect on stability and resistance to change, the dynamics of change, the profile of employees and their motivational factors, communication methods, organizational culture, diversity, industrial relation and ethical issues relevant to work patterns and the benefits of innovation to stakeholders. It is also important to note, the balance may differ form one organization to the next and also may differ from the size and complexity of innovation proposal. The managers also must ensure the innovation is not beneficial to a part of an organization than the organization as whole and must adopt a system view of organization.

As well, innovation become an important element of competitive weapon for most organizations, it is vital that managers pursue sustainable innovative programs which produces minimum instability and effective management change methods processes to maximize the benefit of innovation within the organization. It is also important as discussed above, that stability must not be pursued for stability sake and this behavior make the organization become non risk taker and miss valuable opportunities to grow and may develop a culture, which is not an environment favorable to innovation. To devise effective balance between innovation and stability, also must consider an element of creativity on the part of the managers, which is invaluable to decide on the balance between these opposing concepts or management ideas.