创新文化的要素

武夷山

2015年10月14日的《科技日报》发表了该报驻美国记者田学科的报道“创新是一种文化——中国旅美科技协会第23届年会侧记” （http://digitalpaper.stdaily.com/http_www.kjrb.com/kjrb/html/2015-10/14/content_319722.htm?div=-1），其中介绍了美国工程院院长丹尼尔·莫特的一段话，讲得很好，照录如下：

创新是一种文化而不是目的

 美国工程院院长丹尼尔·莫特指出，创新是一种致力于新的成功现实的文化，要把创新与发明、科学、技术、工程和创业区分开来。他认为，创新文化主要包含七个特征：一是要有致力于创新的坚强领导层，这是创新文化七要素中最为重要的一点；二是决策环节最小化；三是具有可传递性，没有传递就没有创新；四是对不同人才和创业精神进行评估；五是对“点子”、创造性和非常规进行评估；六是行动迅速、准备充分；最后是甘于接受失败。

他强调，创新组织的文化必须将各个方面能够产生相互利益的要素联系起来，特别是要关注极其重要的全球发展问题。

对照一下我国的情况。第一条其实说的是领导是否重视创新。在国家层面上，可以说是前所未有的重视了，提出了创新驱动发展战略。在大学、科研院所、企业的层次上，领导是否真重视，就不好说了。第二条，我国普遍做得很差，国有单位尤其严重。为了维稳，为了所谓“不出事”，动不动就要层层签字盖章，不知多少个环节，没有效率可言。第六条的“行动迅速”，与第二条“决策环节最小化”是紧密联系的。决策环节太多，就快不了。“怕出事”成了习惯，成了信条，自然就不可能接受失败，一些领导会将政治上、安全生产等方面“别出事”的要求“自觉地”迁移到其他方面，因而极其厌恶风险。而创新肯定有风险。

风险投资专家Evangelos Simoudis今年6月1日写道（https://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/94053/seven-signs-corporate-innovation-culture/），公司文化是由领导者驱动的。拥有浓厚创新文化的公司都有7点共同的价值观念和行为方式。

    ·Hiring the best（雇佣最优秀的人才）: Today, more than any other time in the past, there is a war for talent going on in every industry and among organizations of every size. Companies with a strong innovation culture are great at identifying the best talent; offering the right incentives to attract these individuals; and providing the right environment to keep their employees motivated, productive and well compensated.

· Trusting（相互信任）: Corporate employees, from the CEO down, must accept the fact they need help in achieving their innovation goals (be it sustaining, disruptive or continuous), and all goals for that matter. Employees need to trust their colleagues regardless of rank and feel certain they will do what is appropriate for the company to achieve its goals rather than what is good for the individual.

· Embracing risk（接受风险）: Several types of risk are inherent in venture-backed companies, such as technology risk and management risk. These companies raise capital in order to address such risks. Their investors understand this reality and help them in the process. IVCs further realize that despite their best efforts, a startup may not be able to overcome its risks and ultimately fail. Corporations may consider these risks unreasonable or imbalanced, but they must be prepared and willing to deal with them. Ultimately they must understand which type of risk they are willing to take. Embracing risk also implies looking at different areas and favoring outlier ideas in order to identify the disruptive opportunities.

· Accepting failures（接受失败）: Failures are a natural consequence of embracing risk and pursuing innovation. As such, corporations must come to terms with the fact that in the same way that most startups fail, so too can their own innovation efforts. Innovation-related failures should be seen as opportunities to learn rather than as excuses to avoid trying something new or as times to criticize and assign blame. Consider the vast difference between concepts such as Minimum Viable Product that is embraced by startups, and Zero Defects used by large corporations in order to understand how much the typical corporate culture must change in order to be accepting to disruptive innovation. For this reason it is important that corporations seek to understand and establish the failure rate they are comfortable with.

· Moving fast, experimenting with new ideas, iterating（迅速行动，根据新创意开展试验，反复试验）: Corporations must understand the importance of experimenting with new ideas and pushing their boundaries. They must also appreciate doing so with a sense of urgency. Startups thrive on experimentation, pioneering concepts and models, and moving fast. These characteristics impact their ability to disrupt. Learning how to set up an experiment is as important as the experiment itself. Sometimes the experiment is too ambitious and its results are not adequately beneficial.

   可以看出，他和莫特的看法有不少交集。

相关阅读：

武夷山，创新的三重文化氛围，光明日报，2011年11月21日，http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1557-513148.html