| Newsletter #5 |
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Does your organization have anybody holding any of these titles?
- Chief Innovation Director.
- Innovation Manager.
- Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) manager.
- Product development manager.
- Knowledge and Innovation Director.
- VP for Innovation.
- Director of Quality and Innovation.
- etc..
The world of business is starting an era where the old set of traditional job titles will not be sufficient for knowledge economy and knowledge based organizations.
We must recall many decades back when there wasn't any title like "Information Director" or "Call center director" etc. The time organizations realized the importance of some activity in the organization's competiveness or modernization, the same time a related job title was created. It is a natural evolution to give the right weight to this activity (call center as example) by creating a dedicated senior job title for it.
Innovation is no exception. Modern successful organizations don't miss to dedicate some resources for their Innovation activities. Accordingly their human capital includes a very essential jobs such as one of those in the above list.
The story doesn't end by creating the title and finding the person for it, rather it is about building the right size of resources with the right title that reflects the job. This is important to ensure several objectives:
1- Ensure alignment of Innovation activities with the overall company vision, mission and strategy by having the ownership structure at the highest level and as close as possible to the top of the pyramid.
2- Building the trust level between all staff about the commitment of the organization in all innovation efforts and initiatives.
3- Give the proper separation and dedication of activities in various activities such as R&D, Marketing, Business Development etc. from the common Innovation practices. This will ensure Innovation happens in the right way and across the whole spectrum of the organizational activities.