An increased focus on innovation as a consistent discipline requires significant reflection on what needs changing, what impact this change will have and how do we proceed to implement it. This requires senior management attention because of the significant organisational impact.

The leadership within an organisation provide the linkage into the strategy, provide the framework and set this in the context of the vision and goals needed to be achieved. You, as the innovator, seek out the synergies between strategy and innovation, between innovation and capabilities, between culture, the environment, the process, structure and routines and how it all should be governed.

The compelling value is in having an integrated innovation framework

Having an integrated innovation framework can be summarised:

• The framework or work mat moderates innovation and goes much towards reducing the multiple interpretations and the variety of initiatives often described or justified as innovative but all too often significantly missing the strategic mark.

• There is an overwhelming argument that most people within the organisation and those you are partnering with, would appreciate a greater understanding of the core concepts, principles and direction that their innovation activity should take. To understand what is valued, essential to defend, promote and improve. To clarify what is highly strategic, well describe and articulated to ‘form’ around, helps innovation to perform its required task of delivering new growth that aligns with the strategic needs.

• By having this work mat approach you can frame a formal set of mechanisms and principles for innovation to rise in quality. For instance, in articulating that the selection of high potential concepts are highly valued and prized, and will certainly get ring-fenced and be given special attention, does radically alter the innovation work-to-be-done within any organisation.

• By having this strategic and systematic approach does give a clear ‘signal’ that ‘we’ need to be more of an innovation-orientated organisation. A framework that is offering the signposts and path-finding points in vision, in proving the mechanisms for a whole innovation system transformation, in documentation and by engaging in constant discussions about innovation and its alignment to strategy, you move from ‘aspiration’ into gaining that ‘attraction power’ to identification. You offer a fresh dynamic stock for innovation to feed on.

• The approach of the Executive Innovation Work Mat is to turn it into a living, evolving and dynamic framework, one that ‘cascades up and down the organisation’ so it becomes the reference point, the strategic source that builds the common language of understanding, offers the communicating mechanism and determines the context.

Delivering an integrated framework would be for many, a strategy that is innovative in itself.

The frames intent, its very nature, is that it promotes excitement, growing identification and the chance to debate innovation in a broader, more comprehensive framework. By taking this integrated innovation approach it offers clarification, for those wanting to be involved in the growth and future of the organisation, so they gain a greater identification and sense of involvement. This ‘flow’ and exploring provides a constant input and draws out in the dialogue it promotes, the specific clarification to help all to recognise, associate and contribute in improving innovation activities that align far more.

An integrated approach can significantly provide the support to the people involved in innovating to help build their ability to execute in a cohesive way the innovation activity that contributes to the strategic innovation goals. It provides the framing opportunity for that elusive alignment that is often missing in today’s organisations for innovation to truly align to the corporate goals, aspirations and strategic intent.

• The Work Mat methodology was jointly developed by Jeffrey Phillips at Ovo Innovation and myself, through Agility Innovation Specialists and it provides a powerful solution to alignment and identification between an organisations strategy, its innovation activity and how it integrates and relates for everyone involved.

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The post Making a compelling business case for an integrated innovation framework first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

All too often strategy is not influencing the behaviours and outcomes around innovation, it is simply allowing them to be left to chance.

Innovation is being ‘pushed down’ the organisation for others to interpret and offer their answers. They execute to their own understanding and often the innovations end up as not strategically aligned.

That is plainly wrong, not knowing the strategic objectives it is one of the principle causes of innovation failure and requires fixing.

This poor strategic understanding creates a lack of alignment and directing innovation. If an organisation lacks top leadership engagement it becomes, for many, the reason why they seem to just simply ‘limp’ along in their innovation activity, delivering ‘simply’ incremental outcomes. The more radical innovations can never emerge if these do not have the close alignment to the Corporate vision or objectives and leadership engagement..

It is often ironic that those in leadership positions start expressing their disappointment over final innovation results, yet often the answer simply lies more often than not in their own hands to resolve. Top leadership in organisations need to shape innovation and be more involved in its strategic design.

We need to resolve this innovation leadership gap of misunderstanding. We need to explain what their essential place is and provide the strategic frame to allow it to be understood. Then the contribution for innovation might be ‘allowed’ to deliver far more on its potential as it achieves that greater strategic alignment.

Innovation requires a critical senior executive focus?

As innovation becomes a more consistent requirement rather than an occasional exercise, it must align to strategic goals and become part of the planning and execution cycle.  An increased focus on innovation as a consistent discipline requires significant reflection on what needs changing, what impact this change will have and how do we proceed to implement it. This requires senior management attention because of the significant organisational impact.

This refocus of strategy and implementation takes time and may require rethinking or reworking some existing strategies, plans, structure or culture, or may require the development of new structures and skills.  Our recommended approach will trigger the necessary engagement in this essential set of strategic decisions that cannot be delegated down the organization.

Innovation needs a well-considered framework

Like any other important corporate initiative, innovation requires a carefully considered framework, otherwise, the efforts required to deliver innovation will suffer, resulting in sporadic, unsatisfactory outcomes. Is incremental innovation the best you can hope for? Innovation, in all its forms, incremental, distinctive, radical or transformational needs the full support and engagement of senior management and requires defined strategic goals, structural frameworks and an engaged corporate culture.

While the tactical work of innovation is accomplished by innovation teams throughout the organisation, your executive team needs to clearly establish the climate and the frameworks that will enable your innovators. This requires a clear articulation of strategy and the implementation of a framework that provides the essential building blocks for the organisation to work within.

You provide the linkage into the strategy, provide the framework and set this in the context of the vision and goals needed to be achieved.

You seek out the synergies between strategy and innovation, between innovation and capabilities, between culture, the environment, the process, structure and routines and how it all should be governed.

Today many organisations presently find themselves locked in the innovation incremental trap. Real growth needs a more radical approach from innovation. Incremental innovation often gives a very limited degree of security as others quickly copy or push this just a little bit further, so you end up chasing instead of making those leaps that give clear competitive space where that ‘advantage’ can become a sustaining one.

Delivering an integrated framework would be for many, a strategy that is innovative in itself.

The frames intent, its very nature, is that it promotes excitement, growing identification and the chance to debate innovation in a broader, more comprehensive framework. By taking this integrated innovation approach it offers clarification, for those wanting to be involved in the growth and future of the organisation to gain identification, provide input and draw out the specific clarification to help them contribute.

An integrated approach can significantly provide the support to the people involved in innovating to help build their ability to execute in a cohesive way the innovation activity that contributes to the strategic innovation goals. It provides the framing opportunity for that elusive alignment that is often missing in today’s organisations

There is considerable value in exploring and determining your organization’s integrated innovation framework and this can come through a greater encouragement to wrestle with innovation’s parts and frame this through the Executive Innovation Work Mat.

**Recently I wrote an extensive series of postings on the Executive Innovation Work Mat for the Hype Innovation Blog, just put in the search box “Work Mat” and take a read.

The post I keep arguing we all need to seek out innovation alignment first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Research shows a lack of engagement around innovation by non-managers, also there are claims through studies that 7 out of 10 of employees do not understand how they can make a worthwhile contribution.

The cynicism around innovation has turned it into nothing more than a buzzword for many, not taken with the seriousness that it really deserves for sustaining growth within organizations and achieving broader engagement to make this happen.

Innovation is treated as more the opportunity taken when it fits and works, often toned down when it does not. There is often a total lack of sustaining strategic commitment to innovation.It is just not integrated into the core of the organization.

Even at the top there is a growing gap of translating and aligning innovation that many of the middle to senior managers struggle with articulating where innovation and strategy fit within the wider corporate goals. Innovation lacks a clear identifying mechanism for all to ‘pull towards’. To “connect” all within the organization with the intent, purpose, conditions and goals of innovation we need to align all the factors associated with innovation.

Some three years back I worked in collaboration with Jeffrey Philips of Ovo Innovation to build an integrated innovation framework, that is designed as a strategic part of the corporate boards’ need to deliver and cascade down the organization. The first intent was to bridge this innovation leadership gap, it needed to gain the leaderships attention that they needed to address this; they were the very people allowing a gap of critical understanding to how innovation fitted into the organizations plans.

I am repeating part of our thinking at that time here and I have specifically pulled out the importance of the leadership’s involvement as this should be where the integrated innovation framework should be designed, formulated and debated.

We called this integrated framework the Executive Innovation Work Mat

The concept of a Work Mat is to ‘wrestle’ over it, to debate and then deliver a formal workout methodology that provides the essential framing desired to be understood throughout the organization to align the innovation activities as much as possible to the strategic direction and goals. It provides the basis for a well-articulated innovation framework for the organization to work from.

Explaining the Executive Innovation Work Mat briefly

The Executive Innovation Work Mat approach has seven domains that need specifically describing by the leadership of an organization for innovation alignment.

These are to achieve a clear Strategic Alignment (domain one) as well as develop the context, the communication techniques and encourage an emerging common language (domain two).

Then we discuss the need for having the appropriate Structure, Processes and Functional design (domain three) and the importance of Governance (domain four).

The next two domains are Culture (domain 5) and the Environment (domain 6) and why these need to be worked through.

Finally we have the domain where People align with the motivations and measures (domain 7) for relating and delivering the appropriate innovation to align around this integrated innovation framework.

The intent is to reduce the gaps between innovation and the goals of the organization

It continues to amaze me, no, actually it is depressing, that although our business leaders constantly confirm that innovation is in their top three priorities, they stay stubbornly disengaged in facilitating this across their organizations, especially the larger ones, it is delegated down and that is a huge mistake.

It is our senior leaders within organizations that have the ability to:
• link innovation to strategy, and
• create focus, engagement and passion for innovation, and
• direct funds and resources to good innovation programs, and
• speed good ideas to market as new business models, products and services, and
• ensure the processes and relevant metrics exist so innovation is sustainable and integrated.

In mid-sized and large companies, leadership and engagement from CEOs and senior executives are vital to achieve innovation success and a common sense of identity. We hear leaders want innovation to happen, that what is more consistently, more purposefully and with better result but don’t understand their enabling role in making this happen.

The absence of a well-articulated innovation strategy is by far the most important constraint for companies to reach their innovation targets.

If an organization has no explicit innovation strategy and fails to align this across the organization, then is it so unexpected that innovation continues to disappoint us, failing to deliver into the goals that consistently are developed and circulated across the organization?

Until we resolve this major gap in innovation alignment we hold innovation back

The consequences of the gap are significant:

• Poor execution of innovation goals;
• Failure to achieve strategic goals;
• Limited organizational design to sustain innovation;
• The growth of disbelief or cynicism when innovation isn’t pursued.

Senior Executives fail to fill this vital role for articulating the innovation journey

Often it is the case senior executives fail when they:

• are unaware their vision needs to be framed into a compelling message;
• don’t understand the importance of their role in communicating and motivating;
• miss articulating the value, importance and benefits to both the company and the individual;
• don’t resolve the ‘hearts and minds’ in engagement that innovation requires;
• are unable to set out an overall framework for innovation and define its value creation;
• delegate the role to others who don’t have the power to execute and compromise too readily;
• are constrained in their role due to time pressures and/or competing initiatives;
• fail to shape, inspire or clarify the necessary linkages and synergies across the company.

Understanding the importance of innovation, and the barriers that innovation will encounter, helps define key activities an innovation senior executive must undertake, and what he or she must do to fill the role effectively. This leads to an important question: if innovation is strategically important, and if engaged senior executives are critical to innovation success,

Innovation can be especially challenging because it is so unfamiliar, often intangible, so potentially disruptive, full of possible risk and uncertainty and yet so important. It’s very nature, challenging all that is predictable, planned and complying to effective, repeatable and efficient processes and methods requires this top management’s attention.

Innovation requires change that can impact the status quo and disrupt the firm’s ability to maintain a constant focus on efficiency and effectiveness to achieve short-term financial goals. It can be an internal disruptor requiring different thinking, metrics and risk-evaluations. It is often hard to switch internal mindsets from ‘exploiting to exploring’

Only an engaged, committed senior executive can create a sustained innovation capability or discipline, yet many lack deep experience, awareness of the evolving tools and techniques and the real importance of their role within innovation.

Filling the innovation leadership gap is critical

For innovation to succeed broadly in any company, executives must sponsor and embrace innovation as a core discipline, built with a deep and evolving set of competencies, not as an ad hoc set of initiatives.

Senior executives must become fully involved; they must lead innovation through their own well-articulated vision of how innovation aligns. This informs people within the organization to understand why innovation is important, where they can fit in their contribution and what benefits it holds for each contributor, for the organization and for the customer and provides the potential for longer-term sustainability and the ability to open up the innovation dialogue to allow it to flow and gain increasing identification and organization alignment.

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A series around the Innovation Executive Work Mat was recently featured by Hype Innovation discussing the Critical Aspects of an Innovation Vision, Explaining the Integrated Innovation Framework, Valuing and Introducing the Executive Innovation Work Mat and finally Building a Compelling Business Case for the Integrated Innovation Framework.

The post Closing the innovation leadership gap first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I think the activity behind all of this is actually very encouraging, it shows the current dissatisfaction with what we have and the quest for providing a formula for overcoming this ‘present state’.

I think they are all contributing to a promising future. Yet we need to consider the balance within any innovation understanding or equation to derive its real value.
At least this introduction allows me to work in a few of my own contributions here. If you are interested in them, then click on the link, if not just carry on, simple as that, it is your choice.

Some of my contributions towards innovation understanding

I offered up the innovation pathway curve of understanding that has five learning curves for determining your innovation and the migration path to a different future. This suggests we need to break innovation down into its manageable parts. Innovation does not just have a time axis that the three horizons framework refers too but it has a complexity and scope axis in learning as well.

Then I offered up the “building an innovation framework that has real capabilities at its heart” which argues that a ‘given’ formula of SCA = II + OC + EE + MLC + RNE,  ‘suggests’ this formula as the combination of positive relationships between the following interrelated parts, so as to deliver a far superior innovation outcome. I have to admit I can’t let go of this one!

My third offering was a joint collaboration with Jeffrey Philips, over at Ovo. This is summarized in “Critical aspects of the Collaborative Innovation Framework”. This is also covered off in a dedicated site at http://cirf.pbworks.com.

Jeffrey and I picked up the baton again in a further collaboration on part of the innovation equation with an alignment view, we called this “the Executive Innovation Work Mat” and went into a significant open dialogue on this as we both judged it as critical and important to advance innovation.

I completed a whole series on this and its seven parts. This rumbles on and gathers recognition of its value to making innovation change. This was the piece of work dearest to my heart.

I think I have missed a few but it all depends on how you understand “equation”. Back in 2012 (oh it seems so long ago) I wrote a piece called “Two sides of an equation for shaping innovation” and this is where I want to focus upon within this post: “balancing our innovation understanding”

I really think we need to understand the two sides of the innovation balance sheet

When Jeffrey and I were working though the initial thinking behind the Executive Innovation Work Mat I saw these two sides really clearly.

Actually we captured it in the final framing, we clearly saw these two distinct sides to consider yet are so mutually dependent. My balance sheet thinking.

The left side of the innovation work mat or my balance sheet contains the soft side of innovation, far more the intangibles of culture, climate and environment, whereas the right side is more the hard aspects, the tangibles of process, design, governance, structure and function.

The middle is the place to build the common language of understanding, look for communicating, cascading and setting innovation in its rightful context to clarify how and why that ‘we’ set about the innovation activities in this particular way.

So is it two sides or made up of three? Well each of the sides, the intangibles more on the left and the tangibles, more determined on the right, make up the hard and soft factors and these all make up innovation that contributes into the middle, where the ‘innovation energy’ is confirmed.

The balance sheet construct delivers the equity equation you gain as the trade off or innovation catalyst, it needs presenting in different narratives and supportive actions . As you achieve a clarity of you ‘innovation energy’, based on your capabilities and capacities to innovate, you deliver the understanding and growing competencies, the required effort and contribution that can be achieved from the extraction from the two sides of the balance sheet.

That is why communicating, cascading, building a common language and the context is in the middle, central to extracting the best result from the two sides of this work mat.

At the time Jeffrey and I were looking at the informal mechanisms and formal mechanisms that contribute into these two sides of the innovation balance sheet.

Here is a list of the factors we felt were major contributors (far from exhaustive) to the soft side of our balance sheet that is made up of culture, climate and environment as our brainstorming to move us to the criteria that always lie under the top-level innovation balance sheet and then the ones that make up the harder side.

Some of course are inter-changeable or reliant on each other, but it gives a decent understanding of what makes up the balance sheet needs we all must have in place to have a thriving innovation organization.

Informal mechanisms (the contributors to the left side of our innovation balance sheet)

Those that are leading to improving the softer aspects of innovation or our left side of the innovation balance sheet) that would contribute to its build.

• Uncovering good and emerging practices in innovation
• The value of good leadership & distinct culture creating the linkages
• Targets and partner identification for relating and collaborating
• Skill of working together effectively – team building, encouraging diversity
• Integrating external parties to leverage through networks and relationships.
• Framing ambitions and plans of strategic targets and relating those to individuals
• Engaging the outer peripheries to capture insights and needs to drive engagement
• Exchanging expertise and seeking synergy in exchanges
• Story telling/ narratives- relating and explaining, sharing and extending
• More bottom-up engagement in formulation – sharing and informing
• Seeking individual insights, encouraging an open learning environment
• Developing the agility to quickly react to changes, effective and decisive intent
• Work on speed, external orientation and improvisation, flexible and adaptive
• To promote “doing more with the same”, less rework.
• The CEO acts as the central source of encouragement and determination
• Encourage informally at all levels in exchange

The formal mechanisms (the contributors to the right side of the innovation balance sheet)

Those that contribute to the make-up of the harder aspects of innovation or our right side of the innovation balance sheet that build this part.

• Ingraining innovation as a corporate function
• Determining how you lead and manage this, how you develop this out in its parts
• Identify the constraints, articulate the resolutions, recognise the boundaries
• Optimizing the process and structures, constantly reviewing to improve
• Determining the allocation of funds to offer the balance needed to achieve the goals
• Innovation portfolio management designed
• Type of openness to innovation flows to encourage and drive outcomes
• Embedding technology and capacity for rapid experimentation, and discovery
• Rapid ideas, discard failing ones & triple investment on good ideas
• Distance from Customer – determining the importance and setting about the connecting
• Ingrain as a corporate functionality the need to always be conscious of greater alignment
• Determining how you lead and manage through governance and design.
• Identify the constraints and boundaries, pushing and probing
• Optimizing the process and structures on an ongoing basis
• Determining the allocation of funds into the different framing activities
• Innovation portfolio management, striving for value, impact and return
• Type of openness to innovation flows and external engagements needed
• Embedding technology and capacity for rapid results and early wins
• Rapid ideas, discard failing ones & triple investment on good ideas, experiment and explore
• Involvement from both Customer and other stakeholders within your innovation process

These were not an exhaustive list, (well they are in many ways) they were the framing or triggering points to relate to the different aspects that need to be balanced when you consider innovation.

The essential seven parts of innovation understanding

The whole reason we believed in the work mat construct was the make-up of its seven parts. The left side contains the essential aspects of designing the culture, the climate, the environment and how these contribute into the innovation equation. These are far more intangible, softer but vital to make innovation work as they are more people orientated.

The right side consists of the function, design, process, structures and governance that make up the harder aspects, those that facilitate innovation. These are the enablers that manage innovation.

Each side outlined here contributes to the context, the communication and cascading of innovation throughout the organization.

While the Strategic Alignment links all the innovation activities into the corporate agenda. Its goals, strategies and contributes to the need for investments and achievement timescales.

At the bottom of our work mat we have as our ‘flow through point’ – the motivational indicators and measures to gain and frame the outcomes we want to achieve.

For all this you do need this cascading, this common language and context and this is why it sits in the middle, it is the glue that holds all the work mat parts together, to make it identifiable, to complete our view of the innovation equation we need in place.

Deciding the innovation equation is appreciating the value underpinning the balance sheet.

For me, the equation you decide to follow has to be robust; it has to account for a more holistic view of innovation.

We are moving towards better framing techniques for innovation to advance, it is certainly going to be always be made up of part art and part science, yet by us having a clear balance sheet of understanding to think through, in this work mat thinking, this will offer the underpinning that the innovation equation requires, that is ‘sound’ and ‘solid’ to invest into.

The post Balancing Our Innovation Understanding first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Yet there is incredible sustaining value in achieving a common language. In the work that Jeffrey Phillips and I have been undertaking we see the Executive Innovation Work Mat  and its seven connected parts we really saw language, context and communications, as central to any innovation initiatives to work towards.

Languages unites us or divides us

Language can have the power to unite us or potentially divide us. Developing a language to unite us in our innovation efforts goes some way to reduce disagreements and egos, that can block success.

To create an environment for innovation, to offer within a set of governance, process and functional structures, to build a culture responsive, we need this common cause, this central innovation language, our clear unifying context.

So much of innovation is piecing together many fragmented pieces, strands of knowledge that can be unstructured, can be very ambiguous, yet requires sound judgement.

Innovation builds on shared experience and the quality of its interaction points.

The more we learn to collaborate, the more we begin to share experiences, the more we achieve a growing common language. We need to bring together increasingly the parts that growing specialisation, our limited grasp of all the complexities that can influence a decision.

We need to constantly reconcile incoming information with our own language of understanding, so we need to strive towards improving the common parts surely?

We all have different meaning and interpretations.

Each organization has specifics in meaning that can often end up in results that break down and so deliver results totally different from their original intent.

We think we communicate well but those that receive this often apply different interpretations that confirm their personal views, they often apply subtle nuances and variations, and it is within these different readings we can suffer costly errors, extensive delays and wrong end results in final product or service delivery.

We suffer significant inefficiencies because we don’t pay enough attention to ensuring the correct meaning is well understood, we simply believe our way of thinking is the only way it is conveyed to be understood, and as we all know, this is often far from the reality.

We need to seek explicit language and context to allow innovation to do its final job, of delivering a valuable new contribution that builds on the existing and meets new market and customers’ needs or the jobs-to-be-done.

Innovation becomes highly constrained if we fail to find that common language, that common purpose, the understand of the right context and ended up providing something that was not as good as it could have been or completely off track on the original insight . It somehow got lost in translation.

Translation is one of those keys that can unlock innovation and partly why the work mat is constructed the way it is.

Our reasoning for specifically highlighting common language and context

The reason we called the Work Mat, the Executive innovation Work Mat was that innovation suffers when it does not have total, enthusiastic support and senior leaders real involvement.

The leaders of organizations have the ability to drive innovation across and down the organization, they can build the connections so activities, teams and individuals can identify and gain in their innovation confidence. Today, many leaders fail to understand their vital part in this process. We want to change that.

It is really only at the top you can provide the best framework and design for stronger facilitation, understanding and negotiations to occur around the innovation activity. In organizations innovation must increasingly become totally aligned to the strategic goals.

If you want to achieve this, executive and organizational engagement to deliver on this strategic intent needs an overarching framework.

The outcome we believe comes significantly through the work mat. It can be cascaded down the organization once the top team has worked through its seven essential parts and are satisfied that they do provide a compelling story on innovation.

Then equally it can come back up the organization, so it allows for the further identification and a greater ‘dynamic’ engagement of its connected parts, as the framework continues to achieve this executive and organizational alignment, through its constant encouragement and support, as its central tenet.

Common language is a constant dialogue and exploration

Any innovation common language needs working upon. It needs to be current, relevant, accurate and highly visible throughout the entire organization.

It also needs to be allowed to grow and flourish. A common language equally allows for a knowledge repository to potentially prosper. I refer you to my previous thoughts on where absorptive capacity fits within this, in its steps of acquiring, assimilating, transforming and exploiting but this needs a clear structure and commonality to it, to gain its lasting benefit.

In any common language we need to master the knowledge to exploit it and extract what it can offer. We need to appreciate always its terms, its definitions (and limitations) and the related performance values to improve our performance and achieve others understanding of our meaning.

The more we practice and move towards a common understanding of innovation, we are actually moving towards clarifying and reconciling, as best we can, within the constraints of what common language or context offers.

We give innovation a greater chance to succeed. A common language enables greater transparency, clarity in accountability through its definitions; we achieve greater collaborative dialogues and meet more concurrence than without this move towards a common understanding.

Why should we have a common language for innovation?

I was reading an article from Raj Kumar, a founding director at AIM Knowledge Management Systems, based in India on one of his hack blogs within MIX. Some of his points are specifically valuable and I can see apply here in discussing common languages and seeking common cause and “played back” in my way.

Knowledge more than ever plays its part

In a McKinsey study they argue we need more knowledge workers more than ever. We are all increasingly dealing with increased ambiguity and having to apply increasing levels of judgement and draw even more on our experiences far more.

To meet this we need increasing knowledge interactions. According to one study 70 per cent of all US jobs created since 1998 require judgement and experience and these now make up over 40 per cent of the total labour market in the United States.

I would support this knowledge need. The quality of the required interactions needs to reduce our own often fixed ‘mindset’ and understanding and be open to exchange and understanding.

A common language within innovation can, and does, cut out potential misunderstandings and improve process, assumptions. We can move quicker and be ready to explore generalizations, for finding within these a greater range of more specific opportunities.

We can achieve this by having some greater confidence and trust in how we all share and see ‘things’ that draws often the disparate parts together.

Delaying decisions can help

Also although this can be open to interpretation we often do need to delay decisions until the latest possible time to improve the chances of this being right.

Does that fly in the face of innovation? No, if you are seeking greater understanding, not for the sake of it but for its value to improve, adapt and increase the potential of the innovation activity. The more you are informed, the better chances of a good decision that leads to a better result.

We are being increasingly asked to make better and bigger judgement calls and this becomes one of the reasons you need a clear innovation organizing framework, through the executive innovation work mat  (link to white paper) that encourages, supports and guides your decisions.

Collaboration platforms need a soul or DNA to be valuable

Kumar also brings out an important point that struck me hard. We constantly seek out improved collaboration tools, we push people to self-organize to drive interactions and populate the collaborative platform but he argues this is a form of organization blindness.

The tools we provide are in his words, “akin to sign language”, they do not (yet) bring in the loops of learning, the rich DNA to foster meaningful collaboration as the (present) format ignores much of the conduct and make up to get to a certain point.

He suggests meaningful collaborations are made up of purpose, goals, vocabulary, their assembly, the focus, the product, parsing (the context), the audience and finally the driving energy. We need to capture all of these within any common language for innovation so we have its context, goals and engagement clear. Kumar believes IT is getting closer to aid this.

His compelling energy framework has interesting potential
I like his “compelling energy” framework, made up of compelling adoption, pursuit of truth, communities involved, contemplation time lines, teamwork and trust, commitment, innovation, good governance and seeking a culture of excellence. I’ll leave you to read an extensive discussion on this compelling “hack” of Kumar’s.

He defines within this framework part on innovation and suggests you set up innovation by need definition, thought-evolution and breaking of moulds – that does sound ‘compelling’ to explore more and a basis for a new mind change to move us from incremental to greater innovation advancement and breakthroughs. I’m thinking over this.

A bedrock for sustaining innovation is a common intent, language and context

Common language is the bedrock for how we set about innovation. It cannot be silo driven, unless you want stilted results with incremental innovation as likely, the best you can achieve most of the time within this ‘constraint’.

How we go about our communications, what and who you can connect with and your level of innovation engagement, do matter significantly. It is the ability to find common identity, a real unifying sense of purpose that sends positive signals to all involved and those interested parties, often external to your ‘inner’ innovation process, to engage fully.

A common purpose for innovation, set within clear guidelines and a framework, as we have proposed through the executive innovation work mat, gives innovation that clear ‘voice’. It allows us all to gather around a consistent language of innovation as it places more on the context of why, where and how you want to manage innovation, and can conduct its different parts in a certain ‘fluidness’ that gives shape and meaning to innovation and all its critical inter-connected parts that make up the Work Mat.

Please note: All the executive innovation work mat hyper-links are pointed to different aspects or papers that might have value in exploring this area further.

The post Seeking common cause through innovation first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

“Leadership for innovation can’t simply be delegated”, so tell me how many times have you heard that one? Yet it always seems to be pushed down the organization when you look a little closer.

Running a day-to-day business, reacting to the events, achieving the performance to maintain the momentum, planning the future is demanding but innovation is absolutely central to sustaining and securing the future but does it really get enough of the CEO’s time? I think it should figure more in their time but how can this be achieved?

I certainly don’t envy global leaders in trying to balance all that is crowding in on them, that is making up their daily, weekly and monthly agenda’s.

Something always has to give and innovation is one of those malleable parts whereas other more pressing ‘demands’ are more real, tangible and definitive and  innovation gets constantly squeezed out at the top.

Regretfully for many it does seem innovation ends up as important but not urgent for them to focus upon.

The management of innovation is the management of attention.
I find this an interesting observation. Achieving the management of innovation requires the management of attention was a view outlined by Andrew H. Van, a Professor of Organizational Innovation and Change back in 1986,where it was suggested for management that “the awareness of need deteriorates and their action thresholds reach a level where only crisis can stimulate action as they gradually adapt to the environment.”

I interpret this as Innovation does seems to get gradually pushed back, on the agendas of the CEO and perhaps even the organizations, if the leader is not being actively engaged consistently in it.

Nothing has changed today; we still are not achieving this innovation attention.  It slips down their crowded agenda’s as they deal with countless issues running a business. If their organization is in that crisis then innovation will have certainly have grabbed the CEO’s attention but by then it is often too late. We do need to manage innovation more strategically.

How can we change this?
Clearly what comes towards the CEO in ongoing issues does not go away, it only seems to increase in pace and complexity.  Of course, we can call for the CEO to clear the decks and embrace innovation as central in everything they do. I think this call for his attention is not wrong but possibly naïve with what is on their plate to manage.

Where we can demand in their attention is in providing a deeper personal commitment and clearer insight into their understanding of the need to structure innovation to all its necessary alignment points, so it can deeply integrated with the strategic goals looked for. For that to happen it needs articulating somehow.

Influencing and shaping innovation

What I’d like to see is a way where the leader can influence and shape the core structures required for innovation and provide the building blocks for the organization to work within. Something that sets out expectations of where innovation fits within the growth plans and defines critical areas that are essential for innovation to link into the strategy and organizations vision.

Perhaps you can call this an innovation foundation document; perhaps you can take this even further and shape it in a more exciting, compelling format that frames the linkages and synergies between strategy and innovation, between innovation and capabilities, between culture, the environment, the process, routines and how it should all be governed.

How about a leadership alignment framework that articulates where innovation fits?

Something that addresses the critical aspects of innovation to gain a crucial alignment across the organization that provides the strategic underpinning to performance. Its aim is to promote the freeing up of people by taking away many of the debating points around innovation and replace these with a strategic framing recipe, one that looks for the organization to use it, work within it and operationalize it.

This can be dynamic in that it ‘cascades’ up and down the organization as a communicating tool, it also becomes the meeting point to work through, the common language mediation that innovation so desperately needs for all to identify with, as well as the place to offer improving and evolving leadership engagement and guidance.

Can we ask for more?

The leader’s role is to provide guidance, strategic guidance, as well as to offer inspiration and clarity to capture the real essence of an organizations desire to innovation. If we can secure their attention through this strategic framework then it becomes their commitment document towards innovation.

If we can find a clear way for them to combine both the articulating and nurturing they believe is desired for innovation, so it can flourish, as well as offer specific ways to drive and measure this, we are heading in the right direction.

Then I think we achieve something important. We draw the organization in and build the innovation activities around common and essential focal points.

As we ‘grow’ the CEO’s involvement and attention through this suggested mechanism, this will have a significant impact on identification, commitment and understanding that will resonate throughout the organization and perhaps become more empowering to all.

A goal and its realization

Achieving a framework that builds structure, outlines both the intrinsic and extrinsic aspects and offers the overarching common communicating language is certainly achievable.

Something that is clearly articulated from the top,  then cascaded down the organization for it to be further ‘fleshed out’ within the organization, would immeasurably help innovation in the alignment to strategic goals and required attention.

If we can provide a framework that can align, that can engage, and can offer a common set of references to refer too, clearly provided by the CEO and his team, then this surely would be a valuable contribution? It would bridge that often missing element of conveying the top managements desire and commitment to innovation’s momentum.

This will work down the organization to plug into and generate that much-needed identification, to energize innovation as the ‘force’ essential for growth.

I want to discuss this further in the weeks ahead as I feel we can gain some much-needed traction on this as there is a clear leadership gap on innovation, no question.

I think there is a good solution. Innovation does require a constant communicating and guidance from the top and in providing an innovation alignment framework of how this all is interrelated, we can achieve the attention of management strategically and that could be a huge thing.

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