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The four forces of innovation

A business writer has suggested that companies need to understand the four forces of innovation if they want revolutionize their production.

Mitch Ditkoff also claimed that a lot of innovation writing is like “bad advertising copy for motherhood and apple pie” and has simplified his theory of innovation into parts to help business leaders what it takes to become innovators.

The first force of innovation which Ditkoff claimed that must be in place for new ideas to work is Top Down. He believes that a company’s leaders need to play a “culture-enhancing role” more than in an average business.

Ditkoff suggests that the workers need to know their leaders are passionate about innovation and are ready to change the working culture of a company to make it work.

Secondly, he also said that businesses have to get to grips with the Bottom Up force to become innovators. This approach gets every member of a company to play a part in innovation.

Employees should be encouraged to analyse their own role and look at ways to make it quicker and more effective. This makes the whole company more proactive and energizes each staff member’s passion for their position.

Ditkoff also said that consumers should play a role in innovation – known as the Outside In force. He claimed that innovation is only meaningful when consumers appreciate the fruits of a business’s innovative efforts.

Businesses should find out who their customers are and discover what they want. Develop a process to track changes to your industry’s market and attempt to identify emerging trends. Feedback is the key to perfect products.

Lastly Ditkoff also advocated the Inside Out force – which involves unleashing “the passion, fascination, and inspiration of your workforce”.

He claimed that people are the key to innovation and that they should be given the opportunity to create to make this happen.

Ditkoff said that companies won’t need to “rely so heavily on incentive plans, performance reviews, pep talks, frowns, and punishment” if they engage their staff with the purpose ‘How do we make our services better for the consumer?’.

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