James March (1991) has distinguished the two tasks that are involved in firms creating new businesses and then running them successfully. One is to exploit effectively the opportunities inherent in the current situation—the basic business model the firm has adopted, the market segments it addresses, the products or services it offers, and the technology it employs. The other is to explore for and develop new opportunities. Exploration and exploitation are quite different tasks, calling on different organizational capabilities and typically requiring differing organizational designs to effect them.
Firms that manage to be both innovative and efficient are rare.
Organizing to support the generation of new ideas is not hard. Research universities provide the model. Get bright, curious people together, give them time and resources and minimal direction, let them communicate with other smart people who will both share thoughts and subject ideas to rigorous examination, and make sure that the people whose ideas are judged best are rewarded in a way they value (not necessarily with lots of money!).
Innovating, on the other hand, is an inherently uncertain process. Moreover, the organizational designs that support it are very different from those that support delivery of current performance.