Post-module assignment cover page

“Name JC van Rensburg”

“Student number 10628”

“Company MTN South Africa”

Management of Technology and Innovation
“Programme Learnership”

“Module Management of Innovation”

“Workshop date 23 April 2018”

“Facilitator Isaiah Engelbrecht”

“Submission date 17 May 2018”

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“Signature: JC van Rensburg” “Date: 17 May 2018”

The Da Vinci Institute for Technology Management (Pty) Ltd

Registered with the Department of Higher Education and Training as a private
higher education institution under the Higher Education Act, 1997.
Registration Certificate No. 2004/HE07/003
 MOTI – Post Module
Assignment

Management of Innovation

Completed by: JC van Rensburg

Completed on: 17 May 2018
Due Date: 17 May 2018

Table of Contents

Introduction............................................................................................................................... 1
Why innovation is important to businesses today......................................................................4
Innovation in the Telecommunication Industry..........................................................................5
Barriers for Innovation...............................................................................................................7
Enablers of Innovation..............................................................................................................8
Components of an effective innovation system.........................................................................9
Recommendations.................................................................................................................. 10
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................. 11
References............................................................................................................................. 11
Introduction

“If you can dream it, you can do it.” — Walt Disney.

What did Walt Disney mean by this quote?

This is a very simple quote and like most simple quotes, there is more behind what its actually
telling us. It’s like a duck on a pond, on the surface everything looks calm, beneath the water,
those little feet are just churning a mile a minute.

In my own understanding, the meaning behind the quote suggest that “if you can put the
thoughts that make up a thing together in your head, you can make that thought a reality.”

In my opinion, to make something so powerful in your head come to life you must dream
great, wild and beautiful things.

Once you have a desire as to why you just have to do something, the reason for doing it just
becomes a number game. All you have to do is ask for help and support, share your dream
and it will eventually happen. But first comes the dream.

Having a dream and realising it is a miracle few of us get to experience.

No matter how small your dream is, or what you accomplish in life, always remember you can
do so much more and that someone out there is counting on you.

The same can be said for harnessing creativity and innovation in the workplace. Creativity
plays a critical role in the innovation process, and innovation that markets value is a creator of
performance and change.

Creativity may be defined as “the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns,
relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations,
etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination.”

“There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without
creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same
patterns.” — Edward de Bono.

One of the things I like most about MTN is the idea that the entire organization is actively
doing “something”. By that I mean taking an idea, testing the idea, building it and seeing if it
works and adapting it. We all trying to build a better product. Prove that our existing products
meet the exact needs of our customers’ and to invent new ones. MTN finds meaningful
problems to work on whereby employees have the opportunity to be heard, drawn in and
share their creativity.

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In an ever-changing economic world, we need to challenge our very own way of conventional
thinking in management.

Our way of traditional thinking in how to lead an organization will have to change bearing in
mind rapid technological development, new competitors, globalization and innovation
economy.

Today our customer is expecting innovation and changes and improvement all the time. We
are living in an expectation society where the customer wants more all the time.

Learning how to master the dynamics of innovation may help companies seize opportunities in
the face of technological changes.

James Utterback from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – Sloan School of
Management wrote an article on Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation: How Companies Can
Seize Opportunities in the Face of Technological Change. James explains how innovation
transforms industries by suggesting a strategic model to help organizations to adjust to ever-
shifting market dynamics.

Organizations must accept the inevitability of change by valuing innovation even above past
success. One of management's most essential roles is to find a balance between supporting
new and established innovations. Innovation will be the key differentiator between
competitors.

A business concept called Open Innovation was developed by Henry Chesbrough in 2003 all
as a result of the changes going on. This business concept was designed to help encourage
organizations to acquire outside sources of innovation in order to improve product lines and
shorten the time required to bring products to market.

Examples of Open Innovation Principles by Henry Chesbrough

 Not all organizations have smart people that work for them. Organizations
need to work with smart people inside and outside their organizations.

 Both external and internal research and development is needed to create

significant value.

 Better research for sustainability doesn’t mean we need to profit from it.

 A better business model is needed before going to market.

 Organizations that make use of internal and external ideas win.

 Other organizations that make use of their innovation process, should profit
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 from it and should buy others' intellectual property whenever it advances their
own business model.

Table 1: Open Innovation

Today, many companies see open innovation as a process for sharing knowledge and ideas
with other organizations. Many companies have found that such partnerships generate cost
savings and creative insights.

The following five levers may be used to manage creativity and innovation in an organization:

1. Challenging and stimulating the minds of employees.

2. Granting more freedom around policies, procedures and rules to better serve
customers.
3. Better designed work groups to gather ideas from all ranks and levels.
4. Encouragement and incentives including rewards and recognition programs.
5. Organizational support.

Leaders, managers and supervisors must themselves stay motivated. The figure below shows
that creativity is not only made up of creative-thinking skills, but that expertise and motivation
are also essential ingredients:

Expertise is defined as Creative-thinking skills determine

“knowledge – technical, “how flexible people approach
procedural, and intellectual”. problems”.

Creative-
Expertise Thinking
Creativity Skills

Motivation

“The one component that can almost be influenced immediately by the working environment” is called motivation. It is the
inner passion to solve the problem at hand which leads to solutions far more creative than external rewards such as money.

Figure 1: The Three Components of Creativity

By following these components, this will ensure that people develop the creative confidence;
the self-assurance and belief and the ability to come up with creative ideas and the courage to
try them out, and collaborate to affect the desired changes in the organization.

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In my opinion, two of the most important drivers for innovation are people and their culture
with top management setting the framework.

Furthermore, organizations should be moving towards becoming more dynamic, ambidextrous

and open in order to be an innovation engine of the future, thinking big and constantly moving
forward.

Albert Einstein famously said that “we cannot solve the problem with the same thinking
we used when we created them”.

So, the question we should be asking our self is:

If innovation has this potential, how can you use it as a tool to power our company's success?

The answer is simple…… Create an Innovation Culture!

Why innovation is important to businesses today

Bill Gates once said that “many people are underestimating what we can do in this next
generation." Bill Gates also went on to explain the importance of innovation and why it’s
necessary for an organization to adapt cohesively in order to survive in the business world.

I personally think it’s important to hire people who are smarter than our managers,
supervisors, the leaders in top positions.

According to Annika Steiber a researcher who has been studying Google from the inside for
almost 1 year, tried to answer the question what drives Google's innovation capacity. Annika
Steiber was featured on TEDx Talks published on 24 March 2014 described what Googles
response was.

Google explained what their best kept secret was, “We don’t stick to what works so much. We
actually go out and change – even if it makes people feel unconformable or unhappy in the
short term if we are convinced that it is the right thing for users in the long run.” (interview
2010).

Google is continuously seeking to disrupt their industry.

Innovation and continuous change should start from the top. Top management should
continuously be asking the question why, why is that good enough? Why do we do it this way
and not like this instead.

New technologies change the way we live. The digitized revolution is happening. Some
organizations experience fast and disruptive changes while others evolve slowly.

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To stay ahead of the “revolution”, CEO’s of organizations should be waking up in the mornings
and asking how can they disrupt their own industry before someone else does, before it’s too
late.

Sir Richard Branson has a mantra that runs through the DNA of his companies. The mantra is
A-B-C-D. (Always Be Connecting the Dots).

Similarly, the South African-based Mobile Telephone Network operator, MTN, has its own
campaign slogan; Everywhere we go.

Like Sir Richard Branson’s intonation, MTN is in the business of connecting people. MTN
believes everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life.

MTN’s vision is “to lead the delivery of a bold, new digital world to our customers and our
purpose is to make our customer’s lives a whole lot BRIGHTER."

MTN’s BRIGHT operational strategy outlined below, serves as a compass for all MTNers: it
clearly defines the six pillars on which they focus on to build business sustainably.

Figure 2: MTNs BRIGHT Operational Strategy

Innovation in the Telecommunication Industry

To better understand telecommunications and the role it plays in the global economy and the
lives of humans worldwide, an understanding of innovation is critical to understanding the
global dynamics of innovation generally.

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Mobile phone operators are racing to become broadband service providers. The idea of a cell
phone has changed over the years and have become so much more than just phones, and
data is rapidly overtaking voice as the dominant source of revenue in the telecommunications
industry.

Workplace innovation aims at fostering innovation capacities and it allows for business to
remain innovative and adapt to changes more quickly and smoothly.

Another question we can then ask ourselves relating to workplace innovation: “how can we
actually do it?”

Here are five questions organizational leadership may ask too overcome possible challenges:

1. Why workplace innovation is important for the organization?

2. How workplace innovation will transform the organization?
3. Where to begin?
4. What are the ‘Elements’ of workplace innovation?
5. How to achieve commitment from everyone in the organization?

Why
A system Starting the Guide to the The process
workplace
approach change elements of change
innovation?
Figure 3: Workplace innovation process to change

Building on innovation culture, managers need to make sure that all employees know that
innovation is a job requirement. One of MTN’s brand values is Innovation – being creative,
doing things differently, being original, solution focused.

Innovation at MTN is currently woven into the fabric of the business placed in job descriptions,
procedures, and performance evaluations.

In a Harvard Business Review interview, Katsuaki Watanabe of Toyota said, “There is no

genius in our company. We just do whatever we believe is right, trying every day to improve
every little bit and piece. But when 70 years of very small improvements accumulate, they
become a revolution.”

Toyota's innovation culture increased over a 35-year period.

Not so fortunate for Kodak. Kodak was the inventor of the digital camera and they didn’t quite
realize it. It never went commercial, because Kodak wanted to protect its film business. It
looked backward instead of forward.

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As Bill Gates is fond of saying, "Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into
thinking they can't lose."

To be innovative, you cannot be afraid to obsolete your own products. If you are, others will
obsolete them for you. That is what happened to Kodak and many others.

Barriers for Innovation

“To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can
continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines.” —Steve Jobs.

Barrier in business by definition means “a circumstance or obstacle that keeps people or

things apart or prevents communication or progress.”

For me the barriers for innovation depends heavily on the context of the organization and their
environment.

Let’s begin by differentiating between two types or groups of barriers:

 External barriers (environmental, status quo), and

 Internal barriers (innovation culture of the company, leadership, communication,
managing systems, etc.)

Sometimes the biggest the roadblock to innovation in an organization is the organization itself.
It can be in the way it communicates, how decisions are made, how and to whom work is
assigned and how recourses are organized and managed.

I think the three critical innovation barriers relevant to our organization are:

1. Decision making is centralized – There is a lot said about centralized and

decentralized decision making, how and when to. For many years MTNs decision
making was a function managed through the central office or typically head office.
Every function has two parts; decision-making and execution and each part can be
centralized or decentralized. With it comes potential benefits and risks associated with
both centralized and decentralized approaches.

Potential benefits involving centralized decision-making helps be more consistent,

helps with consolidation where information is stored, efficient processes, decisions
are more likely to be aligned with the overall organizational strategy and its priorities,
lastly and certainly most important of them all is accountability. More clarity on who
owns and makes decisions in the functional area.

2. Information sharing is limited – At MTN, employees depending on their

relationships, may tend to foster a silo mentality. This is vindictive to the business
culture in terms of their behaviour. Instead of looking at information sharing as an
indirect method to transmit persuasive messages, information sharing should be seen
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 as a form of collaborative communication that promotes trust and supports business
growth.

3. Too many policies – Too many policies, procedures and rules are a sure way to kill
the idea of innovation. They suppress employee active participation, creativity and
innovation.

Healthy organizational culture is created when the relationship between management and
staff coexist. The one component necessary for a healthy change in an organization is the
accountability initiative.

Prof. Sumantra Ghoshal delivered a brilliant speech at the World Economic Forum about
corporate environments and the faults of management in creating a positive work place. The
more open culture is, the more energy staff will have and more so how badly they want to be
part of that organization; personal growth, money, whatever else comes later.

Enablers of Innovation

Individuals don’t change fundamentally in who they are without a very serious personal crisis
of some kind. Revitalizing people has a lot less to do with changing people and has a lot more
to do with changing the context that companies, that senior managers create around their
employees.

What is the context? It may be best described as the “smell of the place”. There is something
about the smell of spring in the air. It makes you want to jump, to run, to do something
spontaneous; the essence of life itself.

Some large organizations have created a place where people don’t want to go. Management
complains about how lazy their employees are, they don’t take initiative, no co-operation
between manager and staff, they not changing the organization.

Ultimately, it’s not about changing organizational strategies, its vision or processes. At the end
the issue is how do we change the “context” inside the organization. What is the context we
find in many organizations?

Not from top management level, but form the perspective of the front-line employee, the sales
consultant. Top management creates strategies, but how does it come down to the front-line
employee, the sales consultant – through constraint, compliance, control and lastly contract.

Constraint, compliance, control and contract is the “context” or “smell” some organizations
create. Organizations expect their employees to adapt, to proactively create change, to take
initiative, to co-operate. But, where do we get those behaviours?

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On the other hand, there are a few organizations that has created an environment that is
described as the dimensions of stretch, discipline, support and trust that helps as
innovation enablers.

Herewith an explanation of each:

1. Top management does not create a strategy that boils down as constraints, but rather
creates an exciting set of values, aggressive ambition, all of which create a smell of
stretch. Not stretch we want to be a R100 million company, but stretch in the sense
that every individual is trying to do more all of the time than less.

2. Not compliance or systems that create compliance, but discipline. Where day to day
behaviour is shaped by these imbedding norms of self-discipline. Self-discipline is
more than just meeting the budget for example if a meeting starts at 09:00 AM
everyone is there or when people collectively agree to a decision in a management
committee, even if individually you disagree. You don’t start challenging that decision
or unravelling it immediately outside in the corridor. Agree or disagree, but commit.
People debate and people argue, but at the end a decision is taken, agree or disagree,
but commit – self-discipline.

3. Not control, but support. The whole role of senior management changes when they
are not seen as the exercises of control, but as those who exist with one purpose only
which is to help individuals with their access to recourses, by coaching and guidance.

4. No contract, but trust. Trust in the sense of one staff member may be in Nigeria while
the other in South Africa, the two have never met, but because they are assigned the
same role as the other, it can be good enough for management to trust them both in
knowing they will carry out their duties without pause and its business as usual.

Management shouldn’t intellectualize these words, rather try and sense the “smell” that can be
created if those are the norms of behaviour. It is possible to create the “smell” in an
organization and there are organizations that have created the “smell” for example Google.

Where management may create the “smell” and protect it over long periods of time. That is
assertion one; it is possible to create and protect it.

Assertion two, it is also possible for determined management that has inherited the “context”
to transform or convert it to the new “smell”.

Ultimately, what’s the test of quality of management of a company? Performance we know is a

very noisy measure, this to our minds is a real test of quality of management; the context
managers create that shape the behaviours of people creating the stretch, discipline,
support and trust.

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Components of an effective innovation system

The characteristics of innovation systems are:

– To recruit and retain highly skilled and trained employees.

– Allow direct access to knowledge.
– Encourage and enable them to think and act innovatively.

Any organization’s bottom line suffers when access to information needed to perform their
jobs are restricted. Knowledge share should be at the top of any organizations priority lists.
Whether there lie heaps of unorganized knowledge or whether there is a knowledge hoarding
problem, many organization will fall flat when it comes to knowledge management.

The amount of information out there that may be beneficial towards the organizations future
state may just surprise us all.

Knowledge sharing increases social interaction in the workplace. This may give rise to
creativeness, collaborative problem solving, preserving pre-existing knowledge avoiding loss
of valuable information when employees retire or move on. It may also enable every
department to access the information they need, when they need it.

An organizational culture that values innovation encourages their employees to think

differently, take calculated risks, and challenge the status quo.

These are in essence the lifeblood of innovation systems.

Recommendations

Every mobile phone network provider needs to create a culture that encourages and rewards
innovation, starting at the very top.

It also needs to identify and design differentiated business models that are based on its core
competencies and enriched by insights from other regions and organizations (open
innovation).

It needs to integrate its technological and business infrastructure to create next generation
networks and operations that provide the flexibility it will require to close the collaboration gap.

Lastly, top management must be held accountable. Employees must never be afraid of failing,
rather be encouraged to share ideas.

Only when it has accomplished all these things, will an organization truly be in a position to
realize the many exciting new opportunities it has for profit growth from next-generation of
innovative services and business models.

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Being passionate and having a sense of urgent necessity making innovation a visionary and
strategic and a systemic lever to effect business breakthroughs, changes, competitiveness,
growth and value enables organizations to prosper and flourish in the age of disruption.

These organizations will use innovation as the disruptive change mechanism to outperform
their competitors, and create new markets by creating improved customer experiences.

Conclusion

Throughout this paper there was talk of understanding organizational culture and its benefits.
A positive culture can help attract and retain loyal and committed employees, which, in turn,
can strengthen relationships with customers and other partners.

It can also help reshape the face of the organizations future state as long as leaders create
buy-in among all stakeholders and nurture enthusiasm for change.

“In short, an organization’s culture can be supportive of – or hinder – the

implementation of new initiatives and the achievement of its overall goals,” as noted by
Desson and Clouthier.

In order for an organization to reach this state of collaborative working relationships amongst
employees, the support needs to start from the top down.

Lack of accountability within organizations plays a major role in employee retention – loss of
particular skill sets usually to the competitor. This is one of the biggest issues for the
workplace of today.

Finally, in order to create a culture of collaboration, upper management must be seen as

ownership takers and willing to accept failure while being a role model. Accountability begins
with leaders acting like leaders.

References

Totterdill, P, Dhondt,S & Boermans, S. Your Guide to Workplace Innovation. (n.d.)

https://www.jeffgaspersz.nl/dl-23740-1-8845/download/your_guide_to_workplace_innovation.p
df (Accessed on 8 May 2018)

Utterback, James. Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation: How Companies Can Seize
Opportunities in the Face of Technological Change. 1994. University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign's Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership Historical Research Reference in
Entrepreneurship. Available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1496719 (Accessed on 15 May
2018).

Deichmann, D, Rozentale, L & Barnhoorn, R. Open Innovation Generates Great Ideas, So

Why Aren’t Companies Adopting Them? 20 December 2017. Available at:
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https://hbr.org/2017/12/open-innovation-generates-great-ideas-so-why-arent-companies-
adopting-them (Accessed on 15 May 2018).

Amabile, T. 1998. How to Kill Creativity. Harvard Business Review. September–October:

76–87.

Rickards, T., & Jones, L. J. (1991). Toward the identification of situational barriers to creative
behaviours: The development of a self-report inventory. Creativity Research Journal, 4, 303
316.

Tanner, R. Ten Organizational Barriers that Limit Innovation. 12 May 2018. Available at:
https://managementisajourney.com/ten-organizational-practices-that-limit-innovation/
(Accessed on 17 May 2018).

Rhatigan, C. 10 Simple ways to foster a work culture of accountability. 17 August 2016.

Available at: https://www.tinypulse.com/blog/work-culture-of-accountability (Accessed on 17
May 2018).

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