Building the capacity to innovate in our organisations : some facts, myths, snake oil, and straight talk on innovation

There is a vast amount of talk about innovation in Australia at the moment. This article provides an overview of the facts, myths and what often looks like snake oil from the perspective of building the capacity of people to be innovative on the job. It's two main arguments are that: talking about innovation does not make you innovative; and that if you want more innovation, stop talking about innovation and focus on what people are doing when they are innovating. There are two problems of innovation or change. There is the challenge that needs solving or creating and there is the challenge of managing collaboration effectively to solve the first problem. It outlines several methods of improving innovation skills and processes to help in solving these two problems.