Enabling Innovation Capabilities & Culture
I work with leaders and teams in corporate innovation groups to establish and improve capabilities and build innovation cultures from within.
Knowledge.
Process.
Tools.
Skills.
Mindset.
Innovation doesn’t have to be a random exercise. You don’t have to rely on luck.
01
We need a dedicated lab to focus on the big ideas.
Six innovation lies, misconceptions, and their truths.
Truth: Labs, CoEs, and internal studios can be effective, but they aren’t required. Too often, they remain siloed and wind up begging for buy-in and exist at risk of being framed as a cost center on the brink of dissolution.
02
We can’t afford resources now to build an innovative culture.
Truth: An innovative culture is brave and trusting. It works on the right problems and devises effective solutions. Innovative cultures are supportive, collaborative, and strategic. The truth is that you can’t afford not to.
03
We’ll need to add to our headcount to make this happen.
Truth: Dedicated innovation-centric roles can be impactful, but so is cultivating the mindset throughout your organization, distributing responsibilities in existing roles, and embedding methods in current processes.
04
We can’t attract the talent needed for innovation.
Truth: Innovators don’t only want to work with organizations that are already doing it well but also with those that have room to grow and where they can make an impact. If you setup an environment conducive to strategy creativity, they will come.
05
We’re trapped in our bubble and can’t get out of our own way.
Truth: You’ve created a self-imposed prison, and you think that the choices you've been making are constants in the equation. They are actually variables, and great things will happen when you internalize this and start challenging the status quo.
06
We’re too far along and too big to be helped.
Truth: Big companies, while often challenged by institutional conventions, also have access to many people and internal resources that can play roles in harnessing passion, making plans, and initiating new programs.
An alternative proposition to the common corporate innovation approach:
Minimally-invasive innovation.
For years, I’ve helped rethink and reset innovation operation models at big companies. If you’re large enough to need or want a dedicated innovation group and are willing to invest and commit to it, you can do amazing things.
But many companies don’t need or want this.
Happily, developing internal capabilities and a broad, innovative mindset can be started simply.
Consider a set of minimally-invasive innovation principles. Applied consistently, they will add up to a lot, and you will start seeing benefits immediately.
For example:
Enroll your core team - not new hires - with a clear purpose and distributed responsibilities. This way, each person plays a role but isn’t carrying the load alone.
Select a doable set of initiatives and connect each to one of the company's strategic objectives. Even if it’s opportunistic, there needs to be a way for it to make sense for your organization.
Ensure each responsibility and initiative is doable and measurable. If it no longer works or makes sense, stop doing it.
Embed new, strategic, creativity-boosting rituals into current meetings and processes. Don’t create new meetings about innovation. Instead, infuse it into existing activities.
Celebrate wins. Be noisy.
Learn from misses and be compassionate. People won’t take shots if they’re afraid they’ll miss.
Of course, these principles just scratch the surface of the how, and you’ll still need to define what you will work on.
Interested to learn more? Follow me and contact me below to discuss you approach to innovation.