Campaigns, deals, systems and science: designing the innovative organization

To link invention to innovation more effectively, companies must integrate processes of creation with processes of selection. It is suggested that, senior managers must create a balance between four kinds of ideal-typical games or milieus: the science game based on the lone genius, the game of the deal maker, the game of the campaign, and the game of using the program, system, or technique. American companies focus excessively on the first two. This drives a wedge between the individual and the organization, creating a climate in which innovation is a form of delinquency, leaders and followers undermine each other, and rational techniques are used to mask non-rational processes. To overcome these obstacles to innovation, senior managers can undertake sensibly two developmental initiatives. The first involves understanding and supporting the company's core competence as a way of building up its technical and marketing culture. The second involves using techniques and programs for the rational part of the decision process, but making public the rationale and personal responsibility for the necessarily nonrational dimensions of the decisions and actions.<>