A recent survey from Harvard Business School suggested that innovation is not really a priority for executives around the world.  Indeed, just 30% of them placed innovation in their top three priorities, with just 21% believing technology trends were especially important either.

Does the annual innovation survey conducted by services firm EY reveal a different story?  The short answer is yes, a completely different one.  Indeed, it reveals that some 90% of executives thought their company’s board was involved in innovation, and nearly 40% thought that the board were the primary drivers of innovation.

It goes on to reveal that around half of executives say that their organization spend over 5% of their budget on innovation, yet this doesn’t appear to be enough, with budget constraints cited as a core reason why these investments aren’t paying off.

Despite this, the executives quizzed by EY suggest that they are happy with the outcomes of their innovation work, with some 75% suggesting that expectations had been exceeded, especially in relation to their peers.  This is interesting, as a similar survey recently published by Accenture revealed that just 14% of companies have managed to secure the return on their innovation investment that they had originally hoped for.

Reality distortion

Perhaps the reality comes a little further down the EY data.  Steve Jobs was famous for his ‘reality distortion field’, and it seems the executives surveyed by EY suffer from a similar affliction.  For instance, nearly 80% of executives thought their company was tolerant of the kind of failures that often result from experimentation and pushing one’s limits, but considerably fewer employees feeling likewise.  Indeed, just 13% of employees from the baby boomer generation thought this was the case.

The confusion continues, as whereas both Accenture and Harvard studies paint a picture of a board largely out of touch with technologies, both in their abilities in the subjects and their support of them, EY’s executives nonetheless waxed lyrical about the emerging technologies they thought would disrupt their business.

“In today’s Transformative Age, senior executives are forced to make tough decisions with practical budgets and aspirational agendas in order to keep their companies ahead of the curve,” EY say. “As disruption continues to take hold, it will be critical for leaders to stay laser-focused on identifying, training and retaining top talent; harnessing the power of emerging technologies; and having strong leadership in place to propel their innovation agendas forward.”

All of which I’m sure is designed to portray a clear narrative, but unfortunately, between the three studies referenced above, the situation is about as clear as mud.