Necessity, as the saying goes, is the mother of invention. As the COVID-19 crisis spread during the first half of 2020, organizations innovated at a much faster pace than they normally could have. Emergency room teams in Michigan rigged ventilators by adding a second tube to double capacity and ventilate two patients at a time. Chinese scientists sequenced the new COVID-19 virus in a record three weeks. Multiple teams from Oxford, London, and Boston developed a potential vaccine and began testing it in less than two months. And the U.K.’s National Health Service built a 4,000-bed hospital in just four days.
Why is it that innovation seems more possible during a crisis? More important, how might organizations sustain similar levels of innovation once the crisis has passed? In our work with both public- and private-sector organizations, we have identified five interdependent conditions that characterize a crisis and boost innovation.