Making an organization innovative is not a simple problem, but it seems that keeping it the same is even more complex. In line with the work of C.M. Christensen [CHR 00], we consider the significant risk for the company of locking itself into routines, which constitutes a dilemma for innovation. At the enterprise level, all individuals and sources employed contribute to the production of innovations, as defined by the network actor theory [LAT 05], but it is good to introduce novelty into the system to make it evolve. Improving the observation processes that aim to react to changes in the company’s environment is an important issue, shared by all its stakeholders. The same must apply to activities that generate new ideas and translate them into useful productions. The flow of information, knowledge and ideas should not be too linear, and at times follow erratic and chaotic paths, in a positive sense close to a liberation, an unexpected creation and not the increase of a more important disorder within the processes of the organization (except possibly with regard to the activities specific to the ideation). The mapping and analysis of a product innovation system must be able to provide information beyond a simple understanding that can be provided by the census, the breakdown (section 2.3) and the visualization of frameworks and therefore of territories submitted and generating flows (of ideas, information, knowledge, possible solutions, resources, etc.) (section 4.4.2). It is a question of perceiving whether small flows sometimes also occur, whether traffic does not always occur via the same channels and whether the system has not become fragile under the effect of routines.
In this sense, unexpected environmental change can occur and cause acute stress within the organization. S. Cros and B. True [CRO 18] showed that routines developed within an organization for crisis resolution purposes were a very strong advantage for “classic” crises (the management of a major storm that will affect a city based on the 1999 storm model). In these cases, a crisis exercise does not cause a real state of acute stress for managers and other personnel targeted by this type of exercise. Indeed, they are often very well prepared for this type of rare, but expected, event, because it is present in recent history or is one of the cases traditionally mentioned and worked on in training. The organizational routines used are application routines, i.e. the implementation of procedures already planned. It is necessary to test the management of this type of crisis in order to know whether organizational dysfunctions appear in its management, but this cannot be enough. It is also necessary for the organization to develop routines for adapting to new and unexpected situations. As part of a crisis management exercise for a city, S. Cros and B. True [CRO 18] highlighted the emergence of acute stress in managers who could very well manage a storm, when the proposed crisis scenario was much more original, like that of an asteroid crashing into the city. This explains why Pentagon officials considered it necessary to prepare for a zombie attack on the United States [CHA 14]1.
If, in crisis prevention and therefore crisis simulation frameworks, exercises involving a form of creativity are sometimes called for, the same should apply to innovation systems. The aim would be to anticipate and prepare for environmental changes with significant impacts in order to better react to events of an equivalent nature and thus avoid reacting by applying, in the absence of more relevant alternatives, known routines that are unsuitable for the situation at hand. For the company’s innovation system, the danger comes mainly from disruptive innovations that may appear in its activity sector. However, by definition, as a disruptive innovation, the innovation concerned will go against the habits of the sector. Both the monitoring system and the decision-makers concerned within the company may initially be blind to the emergence of disruptive innovation. As the signals and indicators of its development become more important, information about it will be widely disseminated as an already late “alert”. Nevertheless, decision-makers will only be able to become aware of the reality of this appearance with an even longer delay. If we add to this process of discovering and implementing a process of reaction to this innovation the problem of implementing innovation routines that are not adapted to the new situation, the company will have to face a global crisis situation. We presented the metaphor of air combat as a dogfight innovation space (section 1.3.2) to highlight the dangers for an organization of always acting according to the same rules. If the innovation models and processes implemented are standards, it is necessary to know in advance whether these standards allow rapid adaptation to a new situation linked to the appearance of a disruptive innovation or an equally unexpected rapid legislative change and to the negative and significant consequences.
Moreover, for an innovation system, this type of exercise to be carried out occasionally (once a year or every two years) can help to bring out ideas and solutions that are as original as they are relevant within the organization. It will not simply be a preparation for a situation that may never arise, or only an addition to the knowledge to be stored, and also an opportunity to develop a disruptive innovation internally. As with the exercises of Pentagon or S. Cros and B. True, you can find examples of creative crisis situations in the fields of science fiction and fantasy. So, if you cannot imagine, for example, a disruptive technology, you can replace it with something magical or super-innovative (at least 20 years ahead of its development). Here are some examples:
You can always use a creativity session to imagine the main elements leading to the sudden appearance of a disruptive innovation in one of the markets close to those of your company or institution. The important thing, as we have discussed throughout this book, is to ensure that a form of organizational agility takes place in your innovation processes. As, for example, K. Ashton clearly stated [ASH 16, pp. 246–247], it is necessary to “place action above speech, to discuss less, to plan less and to try different approaches many times, to show more than to organize.”