A Bimodal Approach
Many larger organizations recognize the need to simultaneously focus on Sustaining Innovations as well as Path-bending Innovations. However, there’s a growing consensus that those two things can’t usually be handled and maintained successfully by the same group of people. The underlying culture, values, organizational structure, and priorities needed to succeed with path-bending innovations are dramatically different than what’s needed to succeed with sustaining innovations.
The concept of a “bi-modal” approach has evolved to enable large organizations to do both. This often involves setting up two separate areas (or spinning-off an area focused on path-bending strategies) where each is given the latitude to focus on their respective ends of the innovation spectrum. Organizations that do this successfully arrange things so that neither of the two groups is considered more valuable than the other – they’re both essential for the overall organization to maintain relevance and effectiveness.
One example of this at UCI is “Applied Innovation”. They were intentionally created (based on this bi-modal concept) to re-frame the research enterprise in the context of a public university. Look closer at UCI Applied Innovation to understand how they represent a different approach re: culture, values, organizational structure, and priorities.
For OIT – it may be useful for us to recognize our primary strength is around “Sustaining Innovations”. They’re equally important, they tend to be what we do best. When we have truly path-bending/disruptive ideas, we should think about whether they may be more successfully pursued with these bi-modal concepts in mind.