Crisis innovation - another innovation song

Time for another innovation song....This formed part of my keynote session with Tim Minshall at the R&D Management conference last week.  Their title was 'Innovation in an era of disruption' and Tim and I were exchanging ideas on how we might learn from the many innovation responses to the current pandemic crisis - and carry some of those lessons forward.  Cue for a song to distil some of the key messages......You can find a transcript below:Innovation’s always been about surprisesThe game’s no fun without thatJust sometimes you can have too many surprisesWhen they come all at once they can knock you flat It’s worst when they come at you from different directionsAnd then seem to land all at onceYour carefully planned innovation systemsStart to buckle with the force of their punch There’s the one’s that sneak up on you, unawaresAnd the ones that jump out in plain sightThe ones you see coming from over the horizonBut you think, I’m OK, just sit tight  If we can just keep our heads down, somehow muddle throughThen we’ll get back to what is normal and niceLet the dust settle, relax into our armchairsAfter all, Lightning never strikes twice Which is fine - until the next time those alarm bells start ringing And the panic stations buttons getting pressedIt’s then we get to wishing we’d done some more preparationSome way to help avoid the stress So how can we innovate out of a crisisCan we prepare ourselves for the next wave?What kind of lessons could we carry forward?How can we learn to behave? Chorus We need imaginationWe need collaborationKnowledge integrationMobilise what people knowFocused inspirationImprovisationLots of explorationTo get some innovation to go If we want to stay alive, we’ve got to learn to duck and diveThere’s lots of things that we should try and doLoosen up our minds, leave certainty behindBeing agile’s what is going to pull us through Learn to work with what we’re given, frugal innovationSometimes it’s the case that less is moreRapid prototyping, probe and learn’s the right thingThere’s lots of different roads we can explore If we listen to the crowd, broadcast the problem far and loudAnd listen to the answers coming backGet them looking at the problem from their different perspectivesWe might just find the answer that we lack We need Re - combination, Re - configurationRe - framing everything we knowRe-evaluation of our final destinationPivoting’s the way to go So next time a crisis hits you and you wonder ‘what can we do?’Here’s some innovation thoughts to bear in mindUse your creativity, build a capabilityDevelop routines for the non-routine - it’s got to be worth trying We need imaginationWe need collaborationKnowledge integrationMobilise what people knowFocused inspirationImprovisationLots of explorationTo get some innovation to go If you'd like to explore more innovation stories, or access a wide range of resources to help work with innovation, then please visit my website here.You can find a rich variety of cases, tools, videos, activities and other resources - as well as my innovation blog.Or subscribe to my YouTube channel here