Unfreezing the middle, seeing a different innovating prospective

February 3, 2012Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, Fresh thinking, Improve Collaboration & Communication, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Leading innovation, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

This past week we had a #innochat tweet session(www.innochat.com) around Jeffrey Phillip’s book “Relentless Innovation”( http://amzn.to/xXoHof ).

The chat was framed around a set of questions here (http://bit.ly/Awvh5E ) but basically the premise of Jeffrey’s thinking was “can it be possible to shift from business as usual (BAU) to innovation business as usual”?

He suggests that one of the most significant challenges for innovation is the fact that many firms have spent years, if not decades, creating business models and operating processes that are exceptionally efficient and effective but neglect the essential part that innovation plays.

Equally the middle manager is so focused on the delivery of short term results through effective organization and pursuing efficiencies they have little ‘slack’ within the system to learn and build innovation into it.

I would possibly argue the very people that we are expecting to manage the ‘dynamics’ within organizations, the Middle Managers, are seeking the very opposite- doing everything possible to keep it as stable and consistent as it can be.

So how can this change?

Those disruptive moments when you simply need to let go

January 23, 2012Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, Fresh thinking, gaining innovation momentum, Improve Collaboration & Communication, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

Emotional attachment prompts some incredibly strong bonds, a host of clear affections and different reactions when it comes to our favourite brands or products but then something disruptive happens and these bonds are broken.

When something suddenly ‘disrupts’ this, it triggers a set of mixed emotions that shakes you and stirs up different feelings that take some time to re-order in your mind.

I try to seek understanding and then simply have to let go, even when they so often stare me in the face. Sometimes you still don’t want to finally let go until you are ‘hit’ by such a disruptive event.

The recent Kodak moment is one of those

One of those has happened to me with the filing of bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 for Kodak.

For so many people those “Kodak moments” make up such incredibly important parts of our lives. Stuffed under the beds, in boxes, in cupboards are those images of youth, family, important occasions and holidays that sit happily in the back of our minds waiting to be prompted by those images captured with the help of Kodak.

Hindsight and that regrettable smugness, that seems to always emerge.

A Business Model Canvas Set to Explode

January 13, 2012Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, Fresh thinking, Improve Collaboration & Communication, innovation execution delivery, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

I’d just finished a workshop on Business Model Canvas about gaining clarity in large organizations, when suddenly the flood gates seem to have opened up a day or so later, for me to see beyond and piece more of it together in my mind.

After swirling around in this maelstrom of articles, tweets, new publishing, advanced announcements I had to gain some high ground to recover my breath and think a little more. Catching my breath, here is my clarity take and prediction for the BMC.

Ignoring lots of early warning signs

Maybe I should have seen this coming earlier but sometimes you hear a distant rumble but you simply shrug your shoulders and get on with your own work.

This week it hit me so I spent some time piecing together different aspects around the shifts taking place on the Business model canvas that has been going on in different parts of the world for my prediction:

2012 is the BMC tipping point year

From what I can see is the Business model is about to go through a really important (further) tipping point and cross that chasm (thanks Geoffrey Moore) into mainstream adoption. Why?

For whom the bell tolls

January 9, 2012Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, Fresh thinking, Improve Collaboration & Communication, innovation execution delivery, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

I felt the heavy sound of the bells tolling away coming through two articles I have been reading and it reminded me of For Whom the Bell Tolls a famous novel by Ernest Hemingway.

I read two short articles over this weekend, one was entitled “Avoiding Innovation’s Terrible Toll” written by Spencer E Ante, published in the Wall Street Journal (http://on.wsj.com/zJ9IIT ) and the other by Jeffrey Phillips “When executives talk about innovation, watch out” in his innovate on purpose blog here (http://bit.ly/wpaqWu)

The first was the sad demises of Kodak
If you have not seen the day of Revolution in a small town where all know all in the town and always have known all, you have seen nothing.- For Whom the

Bell Tolls
Rochester may not be the ideal place to live, the headquarters for Kodak but it was the place where thousands of people earned their living by being associated with Kodak. They worked there, they supported it in the community, and they mostly benefitted from it.

What saddens me of course is that they at Kodak did not have that ability to react to such dramatic changes within their industry.

Open Innovation, Technology Platforms and a New Business Model- All-in-One Biggie!

January 5, 2012Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, gaining innovation momentum, Improve Collaboration & Communication, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

Recently I was reminded about one of the most ambitious open innovation projects around- the Innovation Medicines Initiative- set up here in Europe. I think you will find this interesting to pick up upon.

Without doubt, this is one of the most highly ambitious and bold initiatives I’ve come across.

I think anyone seriously interested in the combination of open innovation, the use of a collaborative technology platform built around a novel new business model within such a highly competitive industry of Pharmaceuticals should watch this initiative with growing interest.

It can point to significant changes in the impact and contribution of innovation management.

From its initial concept inception in 2004 and 2005, with the IMI established in 2007 as a Joint Undertaking, it has operated as an autonomous body for approximately a little over two years as I understand it.

Here I provide a fairly concise outline of its evolution and what challenges it is currently facing. It still is too long but it provides the essentials (I hope) on an amazing and bold initiative here in Europe and is worth reading until the end-really!

Background to the Innovation Medicines Initiative (IMI)

The value of having an innovation coach.

January 4, 2012Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, gaining innovation momentum, Improve Collaboration & Communication, innovation execution delivery, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Leading innovation, Polymers, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

Behavioural coaching is big business, by having your personal coach alongside you when you are making a significant change in your role has been invaluable to many executives.

Equally in having external support when someone is either stepping up in the organization or making a significant change in their responsibilities has recognised value to that person and to the organization to manage the transition.

There is significant value in employing an innovation coach in my opinion, let me explain why here.

The growth of the innovation coach
I predict innovation coaching will grow in its recognition, value and importance in the future. Why?

There is a growing sense of urgency around the need for innovation to solve our growth problems. This quest for seeking out growth and new opportunities continues to raise innovation consciousness.

We all are aware that part of the barriers to better innovation adoption come from our existing and constrained mental models, so when you introduce the need for greater innovation you introduce multiplicity- you get challenged more, and your current framework of ‘business as usual’ gets disturbed significantly.

What is called for increasingly is a far more open mind that allows for opening up and gaining greater connectivity on a host of different levels.

The more we connect, the more we see innovation potential.

Re-ordering the organization’s genetic code for innovation.

December 28, 2011Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, Fresh thinking, Improve Collaboration & Communication, innovation execution delivery, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

As we enter 2012, what really disappoints me is that we still have not cracked the innovation DNA code sufficiently to embed this within the organization’s genetic principles, structures or systems for completing an everyday innovating business. Why is that?

I see no reason why innovation cannot be a clear (integrated) management discipline, shared, taught and fully aligned with an organization’s strategic intent and execution.

It needs to have a set of molecules that carry the ‘genetic’ innovation information in logical and a comprehensive arrangement, of its separate elements. These need to be strung together like all living cells by a set of clear rules.

The code order defines the sequence, the “alphabet” of the organization’s ability to innovate. Well, that is how it should look if we want to allow innovation to enter the present DNA of an organization. Innovation cannot sit outside or be run in parallel but it needs to form part of the essential organizational code.

I am convinced innovation can be implicitly understood but I still feel there is an awful lot of conflicting advice being offered that must leave many confused. Let me add to the confusion!

A Christmas Story looking out on Innovation

December 20, 2011Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, Fresh thinking, gaining innovation momentum, Improve Collaboration & Communication, innovation execution delivery, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Leading innovation, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

Jim turned from staring through his microscope, rubbing his eyes, and looking out the window. It was dark and the snow was really coming down.

The lamppost had turned that funny yellow colour, as more and more snow was falling in the car park and building those little domes of snow on top of everything.

It was the Friday before Christmas, the last day in the office for three days.

Jim was looking forward to getting home tonight, so he could share some time with the family after having been on a frantic trip to four different cities, on three continents, in seven days, to meet with his different team members.

This was quickly put together to coordinate the project they were all working upon, compare notes, and set some goals for the coming weeks.

Is innovation within the consulting sector under enough pressure?

December 2, 2011Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Improve Collaboration & Communication, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Leading innovation, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

In a recent study (see below for details) it seems innovation activities need to change within what consultants are offerings as services to their clients.

The study makes for fascinating reading and answers a number of questions I’ve been recently having.

Let me expand on this:

One: there is increasingly less time available within the mid to large consultants to train, research and development for their services so as to differentiate themselves in innovation, in what is actually becoming even more of a crowded market.

Focusing on maximising utilization and containing overheads and costs leaves less time to think and develop.

Two: equally the cumulative experiences of clients in dealing with consultants, especially through the practice of more central procurement, has added more pressure on consultants not to provide added extra or to take more radical approaches to innovative solutions for the risk of being compared badly, not offering clear returns and then screened out of the bidding process.

Innovation is simply in crisis near you.

November 21, 2011Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, Improve Collaboration & Communication, innovation execution delivery, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

Over the weekend I was enjoying my cappuccino and suddenly it started to taste bitter, not from the actual coffee but from what I was settling down to read of us being in innovative crisis.

I enjoy a lot of what Steve Denning writes and his series in nine parts on “Why Amazon Can’t Make a Kindle in the USA” (start here http://onforb.es/oK1Cxh ) has really hit home on the seriousness we are facing in Western countries over innovation capabilities.

He mentions the “decades of outsourcing manufacturing have left U.S. industry without the means to invent the next generation of high-tech products that are key to rebuilding its economy”, as noted by Gary Pisano and Willy Shih in a classic article, “Restoring American Competitiveness” (Harvard Business Review, July-August 2009).

The pursuit of profit is killing innovation