Therein lies the dilemma, because even as we shunt aside innovation in favor of more immediately gratifying business initiatives, most of us know that innovation—the ability to develop novel and useful ideas with a business purpose—is what will really drive growth and carry our organizations into the future. It’s, therefore, imperative that we better balance how much time we spend working internally on ways to make the status quo more efficient with time we spend examining what’s changing externally so we can start questioning the status quo altogether. We need to accept some risk, because innovation requires taking risks. We need to find ways to develop and support a culture that makes room for innovative insight. A company mired in complicated processes and short-term results is simply not in a position to encourage innovation, no matter how many new programs its leaders talk about or implement, or how often they demand innovation from their employees. It just won’t work. To create the company of tomorrow, you must break down the bad habits, silos, and inhibitors that exist today. That’s why you have to kill the company first. It’s probably the most innovative thing a leader can do.
Scott Peterson on 28 Feb 13Two important new developments in access to public funded research, the FASTR Act that requires copies of articles done under NIH research to be deposited into PubMed, and a White House directive for federal agencies to develop public access policies for research and digital data.
