How To Really Drive Innovation And Reignite Economic Growth

Earlier this week, Peter Kyle, the Labour Party’s shadow secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, pledged that if victorious in next month’s U.K. General Election his party would act as a “partner that can unlock potential” rather than be a barrier to innovation. The statement — made while visiting the robotics and carbon capture research facilities at Imperial College, London — is indicative of the importance all parties are giving to economic growth.

Given the reluctance of any to be drawn on raising taxes, this is perhaps inevitable. But it is striking that politicians are becoming so explicit about the role innovation plays in expanding the economy. For example, in an initiative announced last March and updated in November, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak set out a plan to “cement the U.K.’s place as a science and technology superpower by 2030, alongside a raft of new measures backed by over £370 million ($473 million) to boost investment in innovation, bring the world’s best talent to the UK, and seize the potential of ground-breaking new technologies like AI.”

Such promises are easy enough to make. And governments and their would-be replacements are not alone in making them. Businesses of all sorts are constantly stating how important innovation is to their operations while often failing to make much progress in the area. One man with an insight into how both the public and the private sector go about innovation is Frazer Bennett, chief innovation officer at PA Consulting. From the firm’s Global Innovation and Technology Centre in Cambridge, he leads a team of 300 scientists and engineers helping clients in industries as diverse as medical devices and manufacturing equipment develop new products and processes.

While he works largely in the private sector, PA does extensive work across the government and Bennett himself was seconded there during the pandemic specifically to help deliver the ventilators that were so crucial to saving lives. Government officials were determined to learn from a project that supplied about 10,500 ventilators in approximately 10 weeks, compared with the three years that would be more typical. And Bennett believes there are widely applicable lessons.

“The right leadership is essential for driving innovation success,” he said in a recent interview, adding that there were certain behaviors that could demonstrate and accelerate innovation. He has identified three key principles for success.

The first is the need for conflict. “Creative tension or dissonance are undeniably part of innovation. You’ll struggle to be innovative without these … It takes a bit of grit to make a pearl.” He added that the challenge for the leader was to create an environment in which there was the right amount of disharmony for innovation to flourish. Encouraging collaboration between competitors can be part of this and PA has been instrumental in bringing together companies from such varied sectors as food, drinks, pharmaceuticals and packaging to pool resources and knowledge in an effort to reduce the amount of single-use bottle and blister packs. Last month, one of the participants — the drinks company Diageo — announced plans to trial paper-based packaging for one of its products, Baileys Irish Cream Liqueur.

The second is having an experimental mindset. “Innovation is not about so-called ‘failing fast’. But rather we like to think of everything we do as an experiment or series of experiments.” A prime example of this is the work PA has done with Hubly Surgical to transform neurosurgery. The process of drilling holes in the skull is extremely difficult, with about a fifth of procedures resulting in irrecoverable brain damage or death. Through testing a wide range of potential solutions, the consultancy helped Hubly to design a drill that effectively eliminates the risk of over drilling that makes the procedure so dangerous.

The third principle he calls “maximal constraint”. Bennett is a great believer that innovation does not necessarily depend upon a surplus of resources. Rather, he suggests that “the most effective way of fuelling innovation is not to fund it.” He explained: “If people truly believe in a product or an idea they’ll work on it despite a constraint of resources.”

This is something whoever ends up leading the U.K.’s drive for growth come July would be wise to bear in mind.