The future of business will demand fearless innovation

Australia is ranked 78th globally for knowledge diffusion and 52nd for knowledge absorption, a reflection of the country’s “dismal innovation rankings” according to the recent Productivity Commission report. The report highlights the multifaceted approaches, mindsets and tools businesses can adopt when trying to be innovative, and the particular need to recognise that for many businesses, innovation involves bringing pre-existing ideas to life rather than creating something otherwise unseen in the world.

This highlights what is evident across corporate Australia — effective innovation can have significant impacts on productivity and a business’s bottom line, and innovation is critical for businesses wanting to stay resilient in today’s fast-paced digital era and uncertain economy. Employees are looking for ambitious leaders, customers are looking for truly innovative solutions, and partners need vendors that are willing to question the status quo.

Why then, is Australia so far behind international counterparts when it comes to innovation? After all, where there’s a will, there should be a way.

In reality, there are still multiple factors hindering Australia’s path to being a global innovation leader, but these challenges are not insurmountable. There are age-old mindset challenges, including the infamous ‘tall poppy syndrome’ which is still being broadly experienced among the entrepreneurial community, and there are newer mindset challenges such as the growing concerns related to cybersecurity, data privacy and changing regulatory requirements. The latter and more prevalent hurdle for boards and executives today is driven by greater caution, and an increased sense of reservation due to the constantly and rapidly changing digital and risk landscape. This has become a major hindrance to driving innovation.

It may seem like fearless innovation is out of reach for most businesses, but this could not be further from the truth. Treating fearless innovation mindfully as the day-to-day goal rather than a pipe dream will be crucial to staying competitive in today’s business and economic environment.

Fearmongering could be hindering Australia’s ability to innovate

On a mission to make Australia “the most cybersecure country in the world by 2030”, Minister for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil and the federal government have announced a range of immediate and upcoming changes to the way Australia will manage and prevent cyber threats moving forward. This includes 116 proposals for change to the Privacy Act, introducing a new National Office of Cyber Security, changing legislation related to major attacks, and more.

For some, these good intentions and promises of change will be reassuring signs that safety and security are top of mind for our political leaders. For others, these announcements combined with the ongoing slew of high-profile data breaches and cyber attacks compound a culture of fearmongering around cybersecurity that focuses more on threats and damage than solutions and actions. Company directors are increasingly joining this latter group, becoming more worried about their own liability than that of the companies they lead.

These resulting mindsets driven by fear are restrictive. They slow innovation and business productivity. As well as limiting the ways in which directors, boards and business executives think about the future of their business and how they could push the boundaries to meet evolving market demands, it can discourage talented candidates from taking on leadership roles at all.

A resilient business is inherently empowered to innovate fearlessly

There is a fine line between courageous innovation and careless innovation. Unfortunately, toeing this line is something Australians are struggling with, particularly with many still believing cyber or financial risks will always happen to someone else, and a ‘wait and see’ approach will suffice. It won’t.

Today’s threats are constant and indiscriminate. Every business and sector are targets. A cyber attack can compromise a company’s intellectual property or sensitive customer data, leading to lost revenue and damaged reputation. This can make it more difficult for them to innovate and stay competitive in the marketplace. Consequently, having measures in place to effectively manage attacks after the fact is not enough.

While the race to innovate started years ago, now is the time for business leaders and boards to reflect on whether their approaches to innovation have kept up with the market. To help businesses effectively foster a culture of innovation, here are some recommendations:

• Create a safe space that encourages employees to take risks to innovate courageously, by recognising and rewarding successful innovation projects and using failures as learning opportunities to improve future efforts. This can ultimately help drive innovation forward.
• Invest in tools, resources and programs that specifically enable and facilitate innovation across the organisation. This can include toolkits that guide employees through the process of ideation, experimentation and iteration.
• Stay up-to-date on industry trends and emerging technologies. By keeping a pulse on the latest developments, businesses can identify new opportunities for innovation.
• Address the people element of building resilience. A robust healthy security culture that prioritises cybersecurity and embeds security-first processes and technology across the organisation can create a safe space for experimentation. Prioritising cyber as part of the innovation strategy and using it as a core competitive advantage, will enable businesses to solve complex cyber problems early in the innovation lifecycle and thereby gain the freedom to innovate fearlessly.
• Ensure every person across the organisation, including board members, is educated about security processes and best practices. This will ultimately enable them to act boldly within a secure environment instead of allowing fear of unknown threats to impede progress. This approach can be a catalyst for innovation and contribute to future-proofing business operations.
• Build strong relationships and allow collaboration with other businesses, researchers and experts to share knowledge and resources and develop new ideas.
   

Moving forward, it is important business leaders recognise that a culture of fearless innovation is achievable as long as the environment allows for it. To achieve this, businesses will need to build a solid foundation that sees cybersecurity as a business enabler and has processes in place to encourage employees to innovate freely and fearlessly.

Image credit: iStock.com/Eoneren