Jeffrey Philips on the Innovation Paradox

One writer I always read on innovation is Jeffrey Philips. He had a post recently on what he calls the paradox of innovation: that the more you think about innovation, the harder it is to do it. In this view innovation happens when you have the right ecosystem. His post said that “If your innovation team is forced to work within a culture and process that is not innovative, then your innovation team will not be innovative either.”

I spoke with Jeffrey a few months ago on the phone about this. The idea of creating the right ecosystem for innovation seems so critical. It is not just about culture. It is about having the right mix of competencies (human capital), building and leveraging the right external network (relationship capital), and also the right processes (structural capital)–am i making the link to intellectual capital obvious enough?

Jeffrey confirmed that many of the companies he sees are focusing on the act of creation and maybe the innovation process. This is obviously important. But there it seems to me that is more to it.