Involving costomer in a service innovations process require both knowledge and leadership. Many times it depends more on specific persons in the organisation if this process works. If this person is a leader there are good preconditions for a strong culture that can lay a foundation for service innovation.
I believe that a culture for service innovation needs to focus on the staff and a bottom up perspective. There are three important aspects to do so:
- a structure that encourage creativity
- preconditions for staff to be motivated and happy
- a strategy and model for service innovation (Gustafsson https://youtu.be/kb30Q8y0CFc)
A strong culture needs a vision and goals so that people know what to do and where to go. One of the biggest motivations for people to work hard is a sence of mening. What is the purpose of our organisation? We have all heard the story of the three brick builders. A man walked by and asked What are you doing? The first one answered I´m laying bricks. The second one answered I´m building a wall. Finally the man asked the third builder, he smiled and said I´m buildning a cathedral.
Perhaps it is possible to work with service innovation without a strong culture, but I wouldn´t take that risk if I was a leader.
I agree with you. Culture is important to be able to work with inovation. But in addition to what you have stated as important activities to be made in an organisation to encourage a good culture, I also believe that it is important to add creative activities that are not related to the work. It can be forum where the employees discuss random stuff or cook together just to use different sense that they do a normal working day. And I believe that these kind of activities should be on regular basis, not only once a year.
SvaraRaderaI love your point Ronja! Thanks!
RaderaYes, I think the culture is an very important factor to develop new services. A leader need to be there with the employees and need to promote the companys culture. This increases the sense of community and the enthusiasm to create something great together. Gustafsson and Johnson shows an example with the IKEA founder Kamprad who visited the IKEA store in Beijing, spent the whole day to walk the floor with the management there and when he went back to this hotel he simply took the bus (Anders Gustafson, Michael D. Johnson, Competing in a Service Economy, 2003).
SvaraRaderaIKEA is really a nice example!
RaderaA company's innovation climate is something of a paradox, since certain types of innovations are disruptive to the organisation itself and its culture. How do you motivate your employees to back such changes, or to produce such innovations themselves? It seems that innovation culture and innovation strategy needs to be layered, in the sense that every instance of an organisation only can be asked to innovate within its own domains. This is why it sometimes takes consultants or customers in direct contact with top management to innovate and enforce disruptive changes.
SvaraRaderaBut could it still be done, that is for an instance of an organisation to do such changes itself? Possibly - but I would say it takes a culture that welcomes changes on all level and that never acts repressive towards innovators.
I think you pinpoint important issues Mikael, the companys climate can "backfire" in an innovation process, and the company may need interpreters or facilitators for a smother process.
RaderaGustafsson, A, and Johnson, in "Competing in a Service Economy" writes about IKEA and Ingvar Kamprad, that the employees have a sence of meaning. They are creating a better everyday life for the many people.I heard from a person working for IKEA that there is the feeling of family in the company. And I read in an article that IKEA is not only looking for culture builders and bearers of culture, but also for "cross-pioneer" who has the power to ask challenging questions and make suggestions for renewals.
SvaraRadera