The Cleveland Clinic’s ‘10 Commandments’ of Innovation
A new book about the Cleveland Clinic distills
what it has learned from pioneering several medical innovations, including the
first hospital-based kidney dialysis unit in the 1950s, the first coronary
bypass surgery in the 1960s, the first successful larynx transplant in the
1990s, and the first near-total face transplant in 2008, among others.Innovation
the Cleveland Clinic Way, by Thomas J. Graham, MD, shares its approach to
innovation and offers suggestions to any organization that wants to take a more
disciplined approach to innovation.
In the following excerpt, Graham lays out the
Cleveland Clinic’s 10 innovation imperatives.
Over the years, a set of tenets has evolved to guide our
innovation efforts. I have distilled them into these 10 commandments:
1. Innovation
will occur when the most creative and qualified people are positioned for
exposure to the most fertile material to inspire creative thought.
This seems like a logical, almost basic concept, but it should
not be taken for granted. Innovation requires the basic ingredients for the
chemical reactions that produce creative outcomes. The basic substrates are
need, opportunity and ability. The catalyst may be the infrastructure that
enables the development of ideas into meaningful inventions, but the pipeline
is stocked by the environment that optimizes the interaction between material
and makers.
2. Positioning
individuals and the organization to innovate requires active strategic and
structural actions.
Idea generation may be opportunistic, but there are forces at
work that enhance creativity. Whether physical, virtual, philosophical or
otherwise, a certain level of engineering can take place that improves the
chances for innovation to occur. Like building a fire in the wilderness, the
appropriate elements can be assembled and the opportunity to “rub two sticks
together” can be enhanced with forethought by organizational leadership.
Whether fostering physical proximity that helps generate breakthrough ideas,
establishing policies that reward creativity, or celebrating “fast fails,” the
ways environments are structured influences innovation output.
3. The
innovator’s time for and intimacy with the commercialization process differs by
individual.
Optimally managing innovator involvement is a key contributor to
the ultimate success of the concept. Ideas are like children, all different,
and inventors are like parents, all of whom have a vested interest in their
progeny’s success. Some parents encourage free expression and exploration,
while others hover. Similarly, some innovators choose to pass along the
disclosure and return to their day jobs, while others desire a level of
involvement that threatens to jeopardize execution. The innovation leader must
be prepared to handle a wide spectrum of inventor involvement with education
and empathy that parallels the doctor-patient relationship. Outcomes are just
as rewarding when good results are achieved.
4. A
commitment to best processes and best practices must be maintained by those
charged with development of intellectual property (IP) for the process to
thrive and become sustainable.
Innovation is a practice that relies on processes and
principles. What decades ago may have been a passive function that waited for
ideas and then led them down individual paths to commercialization is now a
well-tested process and a highly organized journey. Although there is a great
deal of consistency, there is also flexibility for customization. Achieving a
balance provides sustainable success.
5. Innovation
is a discipline that can be practiced, learned, taught and measured .
It has rules and requires metrics and
measurement. In a dynamic environment that consistently brings new challenges
and perspectives, assisting a wide spectrum of innovators and their ideas
relies upon adhering to a playbook of innovation practice.
6. The benefits
of innovation are realized more robustly the more closely the commercialization
system is positioned to the center of the medical universe.
Innovation that is destined to improve and extend human life is
contributed at a prolific pace by physicians who recognize unmet needs at the
bedside and then solve them. Discovery science translates into better human
health more effectively when researchers are in close proximity to clinical
colleagues. Creative output has a much greater chance of finding its way into
the marketplace and the hands of healers if the commercialization function is
closely integrated and geographically proximate to the innovators’ work.
7. Innovation
happens best at the intersection of knowledge domains, so seek and structure
collaborations.
Many disruptive discoveries follow exposure to domains that
aren’t directly related. The innovation leader can catalyze interactions
between creatives by orchestrating collaboration through arrangement of
physical space or virtual interactions. Sometimes intellectual locks and keys
reside in different places and need a little encouragement to find each other.
8. Innovation
thrives best when individuals and institutions are aligned and guided by the
enterprise mission.
Innovation is nonlinear, fraught with failure, and long to
succeed. When the innovators and their organization are aligned regarding its
importance to fulfill the enterprise mission, there is intellectual freedom and
there are resources to produce results, despite the risks.
9. Because
of the inherent challenges associated with innovation, celebrate the pursuit
and process, not just the outcome.
Nothing kills innovation faster than the weight of expectation
and reducing its measure of success to patents granted or dollars earned. If
failure is not anticipated and even celebrated, the innovation culture will be
stifled. This doesn’t mean that innovation should be sloppy, wasteful or
lacking a level of expectation. But even failure has a welcome by-product,
experience. While solving some of the biggest health care problems, stumbling
is to be expected and makes eventual success that much sweeter.
10.
Innovation is not the antithesis of the
academic mission. It is the enabler.
To some, it remains fundamentally contradictory that a
commercialization function could reside within the nonprofit sector. However,
it’s both an opportunity and a responsibility for the minds in healthcare to
bring forth tomorrow’s solutions. Success has the intended consequence of
developing new revenue sources for pursuing core missions, such as patient
care, further research, education and community economic growth.
With the challenges that have befallen our academic and health
care sectors, pursuing revenue from monetizing IP is both logical and aligned
with mission. These tenets locate the ideal site for medical innovation at the
center of the medical universe, where doctor and patient meet.
From Innovation
the Cleveland Clinic Way, by Thomas Graham, MD, reprinted with
permission from McGraw-Hill. Copyright 2016.
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