The world is a fast and dangerous place. To survive a company must innovate. Many organizations look to their innovation teams, but to thrive, the whole of an organization needs to become an innovation engine. Businesses that understand that dedicated innovation teams are grossly insufficient to maintain market leadership will ultimately shape their respective industries.

当今世界变化迅速，风险无处不在。为了求得生存，企业必须创新。许多公司都寄希望于他们的创新团队，但要想繁荣发展，一家公司需要在整体上转变为一个创新引擎。如果企业能意识到专门的创新团队远不足以使其维持市场领导地位，它们将得以最终塑造各自的行业。

Creating an 'innovation capability' has become increasingly necessary for companies to simply survive. Many companies have experienced the disappointment of following the popular innovation-mill recipe:

仅仅是为了生存，企业也越来越有必要培养自己的“创新能力”。许多公司都经历过采用大众化创新做法所带来的失望：

1. Assemble the organization's best and brightest employees.

1. 将公司里最出色、最聪明的员工聚集在一起。

2. Provide a modest amount of funding.

2. 提供适当的资金支持。

3. Place this group at the edge of the organization by exempting it from many of the corporation's most innovation stifling policies and processes.

3. 让这个团队获得优势，使其免受对创新最为不利的政策和流程的影响。

4. Label this group as the firm's hallowed Innovation Team.

4. 将这个团队视为公司神 的创新团队。

The problem with this common 'Innovation Team' approach is that it is based on a profoundly inaccurate assumption; namely, that only a select few in an organization can be innovative. The recipe lacks ingredients. Perhaps it's understandable though, as most firms' employees have struggled to innovate over the years. And when there is a market disrupting innovation, it is often the product of a small group of people, with a big idea, and the ability to execute. Unfortunately for large business, these disruptions tend to come from small startups, very often out of areas like Silicon Valley, Boston, or Beijing.

这种建立“创新团队”的做法很常见，其问题在于它是基于一个极度错误的假设：那就是一家公司里只有精挑细选出来的少数人才具有创新能力。这种做法缺少实际要素。或许这也可以理解，因为近年来多数公司的员工都难于创新。每当出现对市场具有颠覆性的创新，通常都是一个小群体的成果，他们能够产生大的创意，并且具有执行力。对大型企业来说很不幸的是，这些颠覆式创新通常来自于小型初创公司，经常出现在硅谷(Silicon Valley)、波士顿或者北京等地方。

Why are the small startups seemingly more innovative than big business? They simply operate much like a larger firm's innovation team. Smart people focused on an unmet need. With no constraining processes and policies, usually a startup's greatest obstacle is attracting investors.

为何小型初创公司的创新能力似乎强于大型企业？这些小公司的运作方式与大公司的创新团队非常相似。聪明的人专注于未满足的需求。初创公司没有限制创新的流程和政策，他们通常面临的最大障碍在于吸引投资者。

Imagine if they only had the deep pockets of big business.

试想一下如果他们的资金实力像大公司一样雄厚会是怎样的情景？

Large businesses can become natively innovative, across the whole of their enterprise. Instead of a dedicated innovation team, however, it requires a firms' leadership to have the guts and wherewithal to fundamentally change the organization itself. Thus, a new recipe is offered:

大公司也可以变为在整个企业内部具有原生创新能力的公司。但这无法通过建立一个专门的创新团队来实现，而是需要公司的领导层具有胆识和必要财力，来对公司本身进行彻底改变。那么可以采用以下这种新做法：

1. First, prepare your organization's policies and processes by aggressively eliminating anything that doesn't directly assist in the creation of customer value. A small amount of corporate compliance seasoning is appropriate, but should be added with great care.

1. 首先，准备好你公司的政策和流程，大举剔除任何对创造客户价值没有直接帮助的政策和流程。辅以少量的公司规范是适宜的，但在添加这种规范时要非常审慎。

2. Add a generous helping of disruptive leadership. Mix into the organization the ideals of:

2•添加一个将有很大帮助的颠覆式领导层。将以下理念融入到公司中：

Questioning. Challenging the status quo

质疑。挑战现状

Observing. Understanding small details, and looking for improvement

观察。了解小细节，寻求改善

Networking. Gaining radically different perspectives from others

交流。从别人那里获得完全不同的见解

Experimenting. Employ the scientific method; test hypotheses

实验。采用科学方法；检验假设

Associative Thinking. Drawing connections from unrelated areas

联想。在不相关的领域之间建立联系

3. Infuse courage and reward the lessons learned from failure. Be careful to extract all elements of fear at this stage. Add incentives that reward ideas and risk taking instead of preserving the status quo.

3. 注入勇气，奖励失败得来的教训。在这个阶段要小心提取出所有担忧因素。添加激励措施，奖励创意和冒险，而不是维持现状。

4. Season with 'gameful engagement' to inspire others to follow in their example. Optionally, increase temperature by adding ways to measure peoples' innovation reputations.

4. 增添“游戏式对抗”，激励他人跟上他们的榜样。可以有选择地添加衡量员工创新声誉的方式，以此来增添创新气氛。

5. Enthusiastically stir, heat and serve. Present with the champagne commonly served at successful business launches.

5. 充满热情地加工、培育和落实这样的做法。拿出通常在庆祝企业成功启动时准备的香槟。

The idea of grassroots innovation, where the whole of a firm becomes an innovation ecosystem, is not a new concept. Also not new is the utter failure of most firms to create any meaningful innovation capability, let alone one that exists enterprise-wide. If firms would address the structures and the innovation-chilling examples of leadership by policy - the overhead and bureaucracy associated with large firms could yield to a culture that is not only willing to change itself, but entire industries.

基层创新理念（整个公司变成为一个创新生态系统）并不是一个新观念。同样，多数公司尝试培育有意义的创新能力都彻底失败也并不新鲜，更不用说在整个公司范围建立这种能力。如果企业通过政策来解决结构问题和领导层不利创新的方面，那么大公司的日常管理开支和官僚体系可能会让位于一种新的文化，这种文化不仅愿意改变自身，还将改变整个行业。