How to Innovate: Drop the Incentives

We've been talking a lot lately about innovation, after President Obama called on the nation to innovate its way out of the recession. We looked at the history of U.S. innovation and its future, and how we'll get there.

At ScientificBlogging.com, Andrea Kuszewski looks at how to actually make innovation happen at the company level. The upshot, based on science: Managers should "cut back on restrictions and rules regarding output, and stop offering incentives for work produced."

Okay, it's not quite that simple, but some say there is a disconnect between what science knows and what business does.

"In tasks that involve focused, clear objectives and goals, incentives do work," Kuszewski writes. "However, in tasks that involve creativity, innovation, and generating original ideas, offering incentives actually distracts from the mind's ability to freely think outside of the box and be open to creative insights."