The Cascading Effect Needed for Innovation Success

April 3, 2013Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Fresh thinking, gaining innovation momentum, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

Getting innovation through any process of understanding is hard. Knowing what is required to generate innovation throughout an entire organization is even more so.

We need to deploy the cascading effect on innovation

Often we fail to understand our role in contributing to innovation, we need a cascading effect. For me the “cascading effect” for innovation is “a sequence of events in which each produces the circumstances necessary for the initiation of the next”.

It is the presenting of an idea, a concept, prototype, a piece of knowledge that provides the catalyst to be exploited in a broader community as the next step and so on. It cascades. It is where we fit within the innovation web.

Innovation often has to go through a set of stage gates, or cross thresholds, set by others or judged to be the essential cross over points. When you achieve these cross over points you induce more resources, more attention and momentum.

The more it successfully progresses, it eventually gains a higher resilience and then the innovation picks up more for this “cascading effect”.

Strike! Innovation is on strike!

March 27, 2013Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, gaining innovation momentum, Interests, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

Many years back to sell newspapers, sensational headlines were conceived to get immediate attention so people would buy the paper. It went like this “Strike! Innovation is on strike! Read all about it”  Today innovation is actually on strike! Just take a look at this:

We are in the middle of an Innovation Strike -source Nesta.org.uk
We are in the middle of an Innovation Strike – source Nesta.org.uk

A strike of declining investment, of a lack of confidence, of not sharing in the belief innovation offers a solution to our continued problems of wealth creation, of economic growth, of galvanizing society.

So for many, innovation is actually on strike, we are not investing as we should according to a series of reports and analysis, focusing specifically on the UK economy, sponsored by Nesta. Nesta is the UK’s innovation foundation and they help people and organisations bring great ideas to life.

They do this by providing investments and grants and mobilising research, networks and skills. They operate independently but are very central in shaping innovation thinking.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Innovation is on Strike!
Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Innovation on Strike!

You can “read all about it” through these links offered, firstly an Executive Summary and the downloading the full report from their site.

Determining our culture governs the greatness within our innovation efforts.

March 25, 2013Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, Improve Collaboration & Communication, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

Managing a fluid, rapidly changing culture that promotes innovation is complex. So often it is left to chance, left to individual experiment and interpretation, far too ad hoc in its design and progress.

We certainly need to find better ways to encourage and obtain a higher commitment to our approaches to building ‘culture’ and all it covers in our thinking if we want to really have innovation deliver on its potential.

Unless the values, norms and beliefs are not clearly thought-through and consistently reinforced daily through a consistent flow of initiatives to change, to explore, to learn from, any movement can simply wither and die from this lack of ‘total’ dedication.

The question we need to ask of our management is this: “if you are wanting innovation then we all need to work through the determinants that encourage innovation together” and then set about communicating these that are highly valued and expected throughout the organization, so as to encourage them to support and make innovation happen.

Often we can’t self-disrupt as we feel constrained

March 21, 2013Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Foster Performance, Fresh thinking, Improve Collaboration & Communication, Innovation strategy, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

In the past few days I enjoyed listening to a webinar by Clayton Christensen and Max Wessel for the Forum for Growth and Innovation, a Harvard Business School research centre initiative that confirms to me we struggle to self-disrupt often and become constrained in ourselves.

The Forum for Growth and Innovation seeks to develop “breakthrough theories to help businesses become more successful innovators and create new, robust sources of growth”.  The webinar was all around surviving disruption but discussed also “looking beyond the horizons”.

The Theory of Disruptive Innovation

To offer a quote from the Forums own website (www.thefgi.net.):  “Disruptive innovation describes a process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves ‘up market’, eventually displacing established competitors”.

“An innovation that is disruptive allows a whole new population of consumers access to a product or service that was historically only accessible to consumers with a lot of money or a lot of skill.

Characteristics of disruptive businesses, at least in their initial stages, can include: lower gross margins, smaller target markets, and simpler products and services that may not appear as attractive as existing solutions when compared against traditional performance metrics”.

The webinar raised in my mind many unanswered questions.

Reorganized, delayered and downsized – goodbye trust it arrives fast.

March 18, 2013Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, innovation execution delivery, Leading innovation, Polymers, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

So who has not faced one of those moments when it is announced that there is a reorganization about to take place. It often has the habit of freezing what you are doing; you begin to put things on hold, waiting to understand what this latest reorganization has in store for you.

The questions build up in your mind, it starts to block you. Creativity begins to be lost. Certainty suddenly gets replaced by growing degrees of uncertainty, as rumours begin to feed rumours.

Management has simply stopped innovation in its tracks, until they unfreeze it with the new organization, as long as it makes sense. If it is clear and logical then its effect is not as disruptive as it might have been initially feared, innovation can return quickly. If not and when it is badly described, planned for, executed then it’s a different story.

Equally when reorganizations are allowed to extend over those sometimes intractable time periods, dreamed up to ease the pain, you can say goodbye to innovation for weeks, months, even years. You actually might even never get your ‘innovation mojo’ back again.

Exploring, explaining and amplifying innovation

March 7, 2013Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Fresh thinking, gaining innovation momentum, Leading innovation, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

In my innovation travels, I’ve always liked to explore many of the less understood sides of innovation. I have set about trying to explain them.

I’ve tried to relate them to the aspects of everyday innovation, give those novel and logical frameworks or some method and structures to approach them, so they can be integrated into this work.

Some have worked better than others. I believe we do need to constantly push the boundaries of innovation, experiment and explore to advance the management of innovation and its understanding.

Getting innovation into the organization’s mainstream
We do need innovation to enter the mainstream of our everyday thinking, to be something we all feel naturally comfortable undertaking, as part of our make-up for our growth or prosperity.

New report: Improving returns on your innovation investment

March 3, 2013Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, gaining innovation momentum, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

I highly value the studies that are undertaken by larger consulting firms. They have the C-level access and geographical reach to give us some critical insights into the progress of innovation.

Recently Arthur D Little provided their latest innovation excellence study, its 8th Global Innovation Excellence Study, into what companies can do to achieve a better return on their investment in innovation management. The report can be downloaded or viewed here and outlines in their opinion what really works in terms of managing the innovation process.

They offer some good pointers and understanding of what differentiates top innovators within and across industries. It also suggests that it provides new insights into what companies can do to achieve a better return on their investment in innovation management. I think it does fall a little short on a depth to support and validate these claims in my opinion, but it does still provides sound insight.

They specifically attempt to focus on understanding what differentiates top innovators from other companies in different industries. Drawing on over 650 responses, the study sheds new light on the basic key question: what innovation management techniques are most important in achieving a better return on innovation investment? The results they suggest are important for any company that wishes to stay competitive.

Thinking about scalable engagement

March 1, 2013Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, innovation execution delivery, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

I wrote a piece sometime back on “people don’t buy the product they buy meaning” and was prompted on this again fairly recently around the need for engagement in all we do.

See http://tinyurl.com/chvu2la for this.

It is funny how this triggered a series of different thoughts which I’m going to try to explain here as I struggle with some disconnects on where we are going on engagement.

I first start out with engagement

There is an awful lot of disruption occurring all around us. Old behaviours, many well-established ones that we were somehow seemingly comfortable with, are being suddenly replaced.

We are being pushed far more today to search for achieving a greater personal meaning through a different set of connections, more remote, arguably more empowering and get offered in this deal the technology to make this happen, with ease and convenience in its place. What are we losing in this grand deal?

These shifts are changing our behaviours, they are seriously challenging many of our (past) accepted practices, because as we suddenly feel more in charge, to do the things we want to do, simply when we want to do them, we depend less on others.

Taking ownership for innovation – the litmus test.

February 21, 2013Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, gaining innovation momentum, Improve Collaboration & Communication, Innovation strategy, Leading innovation, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

There is always a healthy debate on who has ownership of innovation within any organization. Often it can boil down to where the innovation concept is along the pipeline or who has been designated with manoeuvring or piloting the innovation through its different stages.

The reality of lasting ownership is much tougher; there are huge, often yawning gaps, in innovation accountability. The right answer should of course be everyone but making that statement on its own is a little bit of a cop-out, an easy answer to a complicated dilemma. So let me offer a connected way.

Working through the Executive Work Mat , jointly developed with our friends at Ovo Innovation, this Work Mat was designed for many reasons but principally to gain leadership engagement within all things involving innovation.

One of its overarching principles was the quest to gain alignment from the top, at the board level, through its interconnected structure and their strategic inputs so as to establish and make the critical connections all the way down and throughout the organization.

What we needed also was putting in place a fairly rigorous ‘litmus test‘ to establish if this is achieving the positive reaction required and the Work Mats intent.

Mapping innovation across the three horizons

February 18, 2013Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, gaining innovation momentum, innovation execution delivery, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

One of my most exciting areas within my innovation activities is applying the three horizon methodology, for working through the ‘appropriate’ lenses for different innovations and their future management.

Let me outline the rationale for adopting this within your organization.

Clarifying our options requires multiple thinking horizons
For me, the three horizons have great value to map different thinking and possible innovation options over changing horizons.

You can frame innovation in alternative ways by using this approach. Innovation has multiple evolution points and working with this framework allows you to significantly improve innovations contribution.

It goes well beyond the present value of ‘just’ fitting your existing innovation portfolio and directional management into a one dimensional, viewed in the present, framework.

You can see opportunities completely differently beyond the existing mindset and activities, it takes innovation from tactical to strategic, to foresight in your evaluations.