7 - Should Innovation Be Managed?

Summary

Even as a romantic conception of innovation – emphasizing its uncertain and serendipitous nature, for instance – might suggest that it is inherently hard to manage, the brute fact of the matter is that most innovation, in most organizations, is managed. In this chapter, we look into what happens to innovation when it is subjected to management, paying particular attention to the unintended and second-order consequences of those efforts to manage. Management can surely “get things under control,” but the interesting questions relate to what happens next, to what also happens when things do get under control. The first three readings provide three different angles on that. In the first, we read about a pretty neutral-looking management technique and think through why it might not be so neutral. In the second, we are shown how innocuous things like accounting numbers can drive innovation strategies. In the third, we are introduced to the dynamics of hidden innovation projects and think about what formal management actually gets to manage and the limits of managerial influence. The final reading zooms out and asks what happens when organizations actually lean into the unmanageability of innovation and attempt to be less organized and to manage innovation less.