After a series of conversations around the Executive Innovation work mat, Jeffrey Phillips and I decided there was a need to add one more to the series, one that makes the business case for the work mat, one that is more from the leaders perspective.

In this video conversation of around 13 minutes, we explore why the leadership of organizations needs to get deeply involved in the innovation activity.

The reason top leadership needs to be fully involved

How many of our organizations are not looking to search for new ways for organic growth, improve their profit margins and create differentiation? This makes innovation central to this CORE need.

Leaders need to close the gap between aspiration and execution, and it is through building a robust, comprehensive innovation capability that gives them that chance to turn rhetoric into proof.

In many ways, their success requires innovation; it is wrapped up in their destiny. How often are they missing the strategic mark due to their inability to find that innovative pathway?

Leaders are constantly worrying over what is valued in the market, what products and services are essential to defend, those they need to promote and improve. This understanding does not come out of “thin air”. It comes out of having an organization that is market aware and innovative in responding.

One of the most critical aspects for a leadership team is to achieve a greater sense of identification and involvement from all within the organization. Innovation is one of those creative, forward-looking needs to build as central. Central needs to be sustaining and systematic, giving this ability to grow and ensure ongoing involvement and providing a consistency of purpose for all involved.

The work mat provides real value.

Firstly the work mat offers an open design that gives a framework for a comprehensive dialogue of what is central to the make-up of innovation.

Today we are in far more open organizations that need to connect and form new entities with others.

The rise of Ecosystems and platforms requires a more effective innovation mechanism, a more holistic, whole innovation system that can transform.

Handled well, the work mat gives focus, engagement and passion. It allows you to compare with others you want to form a deeper relationship with within any ecosystem design.

By pursuing innovation, you constantly have the opportunity to build a fresh dynamic “stock” for innovative ideas to feed off.

You draw out differences to either narrow the gaps between innovation approaches or find new ways to combine, to improve what each, as individual entities currently have.

You require a dialoguing framework to relate, build-out and constantly update and validate. The Executive Innovation work mat needs to be a living, dynamic framing tool to work around and through.

I believe there is a real utility of purpose in this open design.

For me, the work mat is more relevant today than when we, Jeffrey and I, worked it through together ten years ago. It addresses the core fundamentals and roots of innovation that are needed, today so much more to understand and bring together.

We need to build innovation capability broader and deeper, in competencies to innovate and find the capacities far more today than previously Why?

As I mentioned earlier, if growth is essential to achieve, then you need to constantly search and find new profit opportunities (profit pools) you need to design clear differentiation in product and services, then, innovation must be CORE to what you need to have running through the very fabric of your organization.

Ignoring innovation or designating it down the organization is abdicating the leadership role, it can limit your success and your tenure becomes shorter as you avoided risk, searching for holding on to what your have

If you are not seeking out a different, more disruptive or new business design, then you are eventually serving your shareholders poorly.

The leadership of an organization are the only one that has this mandate to decide the course to be taken, and then the market decides.

The CEO who takes the safe route to squeeze every bit of efficiency and productivity out of the very marrow of what gives vibrance and creativity to an organization is handing over a “reducing shell of an enterprise.” It is harder to revive or effectively compete in today’s highly competitive global world.

If you reduce your capacity to innovate you eventually have no sustainable future, without destructive forces needing to be applied, often when it is too late.

Innovation is fraught with risk, it is messy and unpredictable in discovery to design to execution, but it gives massive opportunity.

To help, you need to apply a living, evolving and dynamic framework to bring a commitment throughout the whole organisation to innovate.

We would argue, the Innovation Executive Work Mat gives alignment and creates a central tenant to a growing sense of pride, identification and belief, that the organization has a future understanding of purpose by its engagement in innovation.

Constant innovation compels movement, generates momentum through shared understanding and dynamism, in evolving the work mat constantly.

Making contact with us

Both Jeffrey and myself would be pleased to discuss the value of the Executive Innovation Work Mat with you at any time or stage you are at in your innovation journey.

The five dialogues on selected parts of the Innovation Work Mat

If you wish to view the five elements of the conversations we had recently, here are the links. These have covered

Convergence & Divergence– The opening outline of our discussion to the series seeking the need for alignment through the Executive Innovation Work Mat.

Strategy – we discuss the relationship between corporate design and innovation.

Governance – we examine how to govern an innovation project and why this work requires different governance models from other projects.

Function/Structure/Design – we examine how innovation should “work” – design and processes – and why it is vital to focus on an innovation capacity.

Common Language/Communication – we look at the importance of having common definitions, common language and regularly communicating about innovation.

We trust you find the time to listen or equally real each of the posts I have written to support these in the last few weeks. Just put into search “work mat dialogue.”

We feel the Executive Innovation Work Mat makes a compelling case to be deployed and widely used.

The post Building the use of the innovation work mat as a compelling business case first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Central to any organizational innovation building, the enormous value of having a consistent common language is paramount; it is essential to gain identification and understanding that all can relate to; it provides the backbone to a clear, united “sense of purpose”.

Building upon this common language gives a greater chance of effective communication to place the innovation activities into their appropriate context.

In the fifth of a series, I am working with Jeffrey Phillips, a long-term collaborator on “all things concerning innovation” we have been discussing the different domains of the Executive Innovation Work Mat we propose as a framework to provide a great chance to bring all the various aspects of innovation together.

We explore why each factor is essential to innovation in the videos we’ve created. These have covered

Convergence & Divergence– The opening outline of our discussion to the series seeking the need for alignment through the Executive Innovation Work Mat.

Strategy – we discuss the relationship between corporate strategy and innovation.

Governance – we examine how to govern an innovation project and why this work requires different governance models from other projects.

Function/Structure/Design – we examine how innovation should “work” – design and processes – and why it is vital to focus on an innovation capacity.

Common Language/Communication – we look at the importance of having common definitions, common language and regularly communicating about innovation. This post discusses and builds on this.

I think the videos allow us to explore each of these. I think you’ll find them helpful if you are starting to build an innovation capacity or improve your innovation activities or outcomes. (Jeffrey Phillips Innovate on Purpose posting site)

Common Language, Communications and Context- the focus here.

So we have just had the fifth conversation, found here and below. It is about 16 minutes long, discussing Common Language, Communications and Context.

Within our Work Mat, you can see where this fits, as it is the glue that hangs the activities together in the middle of the mat.

The strength of the middle holds all the parts together

I firmly believe placing common language, communications, and the context in the centre f the Work Mat provides the glue and enables flow.

The flow here means as we talk, communicate and set objectives, this needs to “cascade “across to the other domains and up and down the organization.

A comprehensive, coherent and consistent innovation message resonates and connects all the others involved.

The various stakeholders can determine their role and contribution if it is well understood (common language), communicated well and placed in the context of what is being attempted to be achieved. In my view, it aligns the parts and forms the whole.

Why is Common Language, Communication and Context important?

Innovation is grossly inefficient if it has to start again and again, and new designs, processes, and cultures must be built, hopefully on some established practices or approaches. The ideal is we should create a common, repeatable, scalable approach to innovation. Management wants this.

Equally, those involved in innovation wish to have clear guidelines, rails and frames that allow consistent measuring. We need to reduce the variables that help provide consistency and pull in knowledge gained to be put to regular use.

Today we talk of ecosystems, platforms, network effects, openness, transparency and sustainability.

Having this work mat in place and central to it the common language, communication and context, you achieve a more robust platform; you avoid many fragmented pieces.

You can also gain those network multiplication effects by establishing the common ground and project spanning criteria.

This builds connectivity and connections, giving greater scope for partners, as they can see and relate to your language, communicating style and context clarification.

This can also determine a simple “in or out” and determination of what additional value can they bring. It opens up for greater transformation built on a more transparent understanding.

Having an excellent communicating set of mechanisms raises confidence, offers certain reliability and the exchanges of comparability.

If the environment for a group of dynamic, ongoing exchanges can be achieved, you feel that “hands-on”, interactive and immersing sense where good ideas can emerge, build and flow.

Innovation is a role where you need to raise confidence constantly, encourage reliability, encourage an ongoing shift from vested interests into advocacy, identificatîon and not self-protection but shared purpose.

We all recognize that the nature of innovation is messy and how we organize it is critical. The more we engage with others, across borders or departments, gaining consensus takes a long time.

We need to avoid mental traps or fixed mindsets that confuse, frustrate and provide misunderstanding.

Achieving a good common language, strong, regular communication, and a constant reinforcing of the context you can operate and work within helps bring these tensions down.

How we can reduce individual interpretations and variances in definition needs a common place to come too. Again the work mat can be that very place to resolve those consistent issues.

It is called a work mat for a reason, as you can wrestle issues, debate, discuss, push up and down the organization in a way that frames differences and the mechanism to find the solutions to them- that wrestle to the mat.

Why we see Common Language, Communication and Context as important

It aims to do away with pockets of confusion and inefficiencies; It attempts to reduce that fragmented energy in differences and understanding.

A work mat approach strives to minimize unproductive capital and resources allocation. Also, it can tackle and reduce down the need for different standards and narrow variabilities within innovation management. The aim is to attempt to stop the inordinate reinventing and duplication, if not set up well.

The T-Skill thinking in the design

Leaders need to take the lead in this part of the worn mat driving their vision and needs into the organization to react and respond, most through a new activity, including innovation. The leader in this communicating work needs to frame, communicate, and build the corporate innovation identity and provide the belief in innovation into its context and needs.

For me, this is a necessary T-Shaped Skill Senior Executives need to develop for innovation. Executives should be good communicators.

Executives have the big picture in mind and the intent and vision of where they want the organization to go. Executives are responsible for explaining this so this understanding can be put to good innovation use by driving their commitment down and throughout the organization.

There is no better segment of the work mat for the Senior Executive to engage with than in shaping and focusing on the need to build a common identity. Gaining identification across the company comes from communications and building that shared language for common purpose. An innovative common language needs to emerge and the communicating of ambitions for others to identify with.

In this communication, a level of clarity needs conveying. Putting ambitions into the context of what, where, why and often how they see innovation making a contribution gives it meaning, that context for others to relate to and form around. That could encourage risk, exploration, and looking for distinctive, game-changing or new business model alternatives conveys the “where to focus.”

Common language is shared.

The organization’s leaders do not need to own this part of the work mat, but by being highly visible and active, they can encourage it as the “melting pot” for a flow or cascade mechanism, from the top-down and bottom-up.

To do this, they need to be highly active, constantly looking to engage and shape innovation into the future needed in highly visible ways. They can provide depth and breadth to where innovation fits. Executives can drive the “sense of purpose.”

The need must be recognized that leadership does look for a repeatable, scalable, and commonplace innovation to thrive and respond, and the opportunity to reinforce this comes through good communicating and being given a common identity and language.

The work mat is a powerful framing mechanism to make that happen sustainably, dynamic and never static.

Finally, here I provide a prompter for placing language, communication and context into the value, potential triggers and outcomes.

Concluding the series

So we have concluded the five-part series, and those can be viewed independently or in association with these posts All videos and written follow ups gave been provided on this posting site. These have been written over the past few weeks, so they are easy to find.

One separate discussion video session will discuss the leadership role and why they should be the owners of the work mat.

Together these videos and posts give richness to the Executive Innovation Work Mat concept- it has a great value to explore.

You are welcome to get in touch if you want to take this framework into our organization, more than happy to help.

The post Providing the glue in the common language, communications, and context needed for successful innovation first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

In the fourth conversation between Jeffrey Phillips and myself, around parts of the Executive Innovation Work Mat, we took on several different issues around the design, function, structure and process needs for innovation.

The conversation lasted nineteen minutes, and for some reason, I lost sound briefly at my end a few times, which was a pity. So I hope I can help fill those gaps and explore the what, why and how of having a dynamic functioning design and structured process to meet today’s demanding and highly energetic world of constant change.

This specific conversation (LINK here) is about 19 minutes. It is all about the fit of innovation and the tensions between the design, function, structure, and process needs to manage innovation management. We relate this specifically within our Executive Innovation Work Mat.

It is always our intention to offer some different thrôughts about the balancing of function, design, process, and structure and giving it equally the creative dynamic attention it needs

If you would like to listen to the three previous conversations, these are here in the links that take you to youtube.com. The first was setting the scene for these conversations on the “fundamental building blocks for innovation success” (LINK) and then the second into “the essential alignment of innovation to strategy” (LINK). The third (LINK) was on “managing governance within innovation”.

I have written supporting posts to these conversations, more to flesh out many different pointers to add more value and awareness of the importance of having a clear, integrated solution for innovation in the solution we offer, the Executive Innovation Work Mat.

I would start by saying innovation should always be in “creative tension”, and as we operate and manage innovation, this tension should also apply within any design. It should have a specific “bedrock” or foundation of needed stages or steps. Still, its need is to be far more fluid, adaptive and agile in what it processes and manages, especially in today’s challenging world, adapting to today’s challenges and working towards the future.

The ability to manage innovation  design, function, structure and process

Starting with a simple definition of D, F, S & P. what you do needs to cover the entire “end to end” process of innovation, its workflows and all the associated roles required to achieve successful outcomes

As a word of caution, it does not start at the idea. The idea needs to “form, from observation, listening, engaging and data insights. This not just comes from the research and development lab but far more to listening and observing customers, the market shifts and trends, to having customer conversations, gaining insights into potential gaps or opportunities in the marketplace or through those that have this market-facing role inside the organization.

We gain from building the inside-out perspective and drawing in the outside-in one.

Today working in more open, highly collaborative environments, we are building ecosystems, networks and a rich diversity of partners who all can bring ideas, knowledge, diversity of opinion, different expertise and insights.

We need to remain “open” to what and how we process this. Having rigid structure or processes and many good observations or concepts can be screened out far too quickly due to “imposed” metrics or a defined idea of how “anything” gets captured and evaluated.

By having some basic building blocks, you can accommodate.

By having some level of operating mechanisms, you can establish a business process. Yet, it is how flexible its design and function can allow a more prosperous environment to draw in, work through and evolve into final proposals that can make a huge (competitive) difference.

The importance of a “dual” perspective of thinking

We need both informal mechanisms and formal ones. For instance, some opening prompters.

What we know today

There is an increasing and radical redesign call of the function, process and structures. Innovators are being more challenged with the rising demands for more innovation. The dynamics are coping with the pressures coming from the top, demanding more growth and impact, controlling the risk, ROI’s and resources in ways that often seem at odds with the needs to grow a business.

This pressure from the top often conflicts with the bottom-up, who struggle in pushing for recognition of ideas, concepts, resources or support. The importance of good governance and the proper functioning structure and the process can help absorb and translate these tensions.

Often you see or hear the lingering fears of wanting more radical innovation but the worries of the upheaval this brings. The “we want predictable innovation but radical enough to make sure we grow”. Often to accommodate conflicting issues needs this strong innovation practice, one that is connected, well defined and worked through.

The Executive Innovation Work Mat can contribute to that.

Achieving a well-designed design, function, structure, and process is utterly dependent on the organization to translate the innovation needs and aims, define the workflow that ‘this will follow and how and where this will occur. Then it needs full support and resourcing.

Today we need to think about innovation outcomes differently.

The higher demand from innovation requires the system to respond quickly to breaking opportunities.

Innovation needs to have a system that is constantly adaptive and flexible. Most of the rigidity needs to be designed out.

Organizations require structures and processes that are far more agile and nimble, constantly recognizing speed as the essence of today’s competitive world.

The challenge to address is replacing a linear system with a spiral one. You constantly loop back to refit your innovation understanding into the idea-to-launch system from the new knowledge you are gaining. The design needs resetting around shorter bursts of high-intensity activity that factor in risk-based contingency, are encouraged to keep exploring and adapting.

To have the capabilities of resetting needs a core design to meet different challenges and demands. Different innovation activity that can range from incremental to distinctive to radical through to entirely new business models needs adapting and adjusting, yet ALL innovation flows through basic designs and flows across the organization.

Innovation should NEVER and ONLY come from ONE originating source; it emerges everywhere. This emergence from everywhere is why innovation needs to be core. It is all within an organization aware, having innovation as part of their job.  ready to recognize innovation potential, pursue it and know where to go for help, finding those who can help them work through the idea into a concept into an outcome.

The balance and creative tension

In a world where agile, adaptive and accelerated innovation is “demanded, we get frustrated that our process and structure are too linear, too rigid and far too planned and managed. Finding the balance in evolving the function, design, process consistently, and structure will always have this Creative Tension.

It is not easy to design a suitable model, but it is wrong to apply one alone, rigid and tightly controlled as one. Sustaining innovation, having repeatable elements does require a defined structure and the broader connecting into the whole innovation function.

Try the work mat; it enables and brings a greater cohesion to innovation in needs and design.

Further resources can be found here in this posting site, in the insights-thinking pages, where you will find the original White Papers, Booklets of previous posts and articles. Equally, you can contact Jeffrey or me directly.

The post Balancing Function, Design, Process and Structure for Creative Tension first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I am working with Jeffrey Phillips, a long-term collaborator on “all things concerning innovation.” We have just had our third short conversation of a five-part series on Innovation Governance.

This specific conversation is all about the fit of innovation governance within our Executive Innovation Work Mat. This is the link on Innovation Governance to the conversation, just under 14 minutes to listen to. Hope it gives a different set of insights to this area of innovation alignment.

If you would like to listen to the two previous conversations then these are here in the links that take you to youtube.com  The first was setting the scene for these conversations on the “fundamental building blocks for innovation success” (LINK) and then the second into “the essential alignment of innovation to strategy” (LINK).

I have written supporting posts to these conversations, more to flesh out a number of different pointers to add more value and awareness of the importance of having a clear integrated solution for innovation in the solution we offer, the Executive Innovation Work Mat.

Link to the first post “Getting back to the future about innovation”

Link to the second post  “Innovation linkages to Strategy is vitally important”

This builds out conversations Jeffrey and I are having on a series of discussions around the value and necessary alignment through the Executive Innovation Work Mat that we feel offers a good solution as the dialoguing and assessing framework for innovation to have a more comprehensive approach.

Listening in to the conversation on Governance

The link to this third conversation is here, it is about 14 minutes and looks at one of the most important aspects of why innovation governance

Often innovation governance gets caught up in the (life-threatening) aspects of governance’s need to have reporting, metrics, reporting and accountability dominating. For me, that often the heavier structure and process needs can, over time, take over and dominate. That can so often drain energy and life out of the creative needs of innovation, it becomes more “rote and uninspiring”. Innovation should never be dull or lack fuel for the inquiring mind.

Jeffrey and I believe we need to get the “lighter touches” into Governance that reflect what innovation needs to be. A Governance environment is not heavily regulated but encouraged and given the freedom to explore but aligned in achieving innovation that relates to the organization’s needs and vision.

I want to attempt to answer three critical questions here to add more value to the need for  Innovation Governance

1. Why we should focus on Innovation Governance?
2. What can a good Governance model resolve?
3. What should a Governance frame (?) deal with?

Why we should focus on Innovation Governance?

The conversation Jeffrey and I had was basically around this first question and most of our discussion covers this. I  encourage you to go and spend that valuable 14 minutes listening to this. Here I am adding to our thoughts and exchanges.

Governance for innovation needs to recognize its unique positioning.

-Innovation is about risk– if it is not dealing in riskier ideas or concepts then you are unlikely to be undertaking innovation, that builds and drives towards new growth and impact potential or reinvigorating the business.

-You always face many unknowns and uncertainties within innovation as it is about discovery, exploration and figuring out something that is different and exciting as it builds on what we have got or know.

-Often our innovation activity is hard to defend, as it is often entering uncharted territory or we lack “hard” quantifiable data to seek more money, additional resources and justify it. In any prototyping or learning stage we can move knowledge understanding along but to keep believing and pushing is simply hard. Having those rules of the road or guiding principles really helps.

-Any governance design needs to be clean, robust, open and transparent, not opaque and closed to a selected few as this opens up to criticism, cynicism or favouritism.  Good governance is seen and valued.

-Governance always has guidelines and measurements, I would argue these need to be sensible and adaptive, not just restrictive and prescriptive. Having flexible, realistic measurements might sometimes “open the door” for different interpretations but pushing the “famous envelope” brings out the greater potential for compelling innovation.

-Lastly here, organizations have “given mindsets” for quantifying returns and you can’t avoid two aspects that need a deeper clarification of what they mean to innovation.  ROI dominates, Time dictates. Innovation spans different time and returns horizons and these need clarification and being fluid within any Innovation Governance and how these will be handled. Look for fewer justified exceptions, build more common approaches into approaching innovation across different horizons,  through emerging, evolving practice and growing acceptance.

What can a good Governance Model resolve?

Let me provide a list here to trigger what it needs to recognize and attempt to resolve

• Resolves conflicts that constantly come upon innovation
• Allocation clarification of resources
• Be the warning point of change- be that in scope, markets, delays or changes.
• The meeting point for ambition- the organizations understanding “flows” through this Governance function
• The central place that alerts and informs a focal point and required passing through point for  everything around innovation
• Has and provides a clear line of sight
• Being the point that constantly positions innovation- bringing it to ALL stakeholders and parties for awareness, status and knowledge.

What should a good Governance function deal with?

For brevity sake let me keep to a list. It is not a definitive one but provides the important aspects of its function

• It is at the centre of funding and managing the risk portfolio
• It shapes the scope and success, it fills out vision and ambition
• It establishes targets and priorities
• It clarifies the time frame approaches needed or recognized
• It offers flexible, realistic measurement settings to give clear coordination, and clarity to innovation activities often over a diverse environment of different innovation needs
• It encourages agility, adapting, being fluid and dynamic in the way to undergo innovation
• It provides good reporting that conveys innovations importance and impact
• Constantly establishes a set of evaluation metrics that reflect different challenges, stages and maturity of what innovation is providing
• A resource centre that can call upon, build and enhance capabilities, capacity and competencies that can be deployed or identified as needed.
• A primary role is to stimulate, not dictate and take or encourage action, it needs to orchestrate and lead.
• It offers project empowerment, leveraging and steering ideas, concepts and ambition.

Being bold, ambitious and determined to build the best Innovation Governance is worth the effort.

Having a comprehensive framework to help top management develop the overarching values, policies and initiatives needed for a corporate innovation need, so as to always build out innovation governance. It is a place that reflects, defends and pushes the innovation activity.

I do recommend a really excellent book, brought out in 2014 that provides a really detailed look at Innovation Governance. It is called “Innovation Governance: How Top Management Organizes and Mobilizes for Innovation” written by Jean-Philippe Deschamps & Beebe Nelson.  Jean-Philippe Deschamps is emeritus Professor of Technology and Innovation Management at IMD in Lausanne (Switzerland) and a large part of his work focuses his research, teaching and consulting activities on the management and governance of innovation.

I wrote a post some time back on “The role of Governance needed in Innovation”I feel it adds to this post here.

Governance of innovation in a comprehensive manner, that is well-designed is essential for innovation today. This functions as the nerve centre for innovation to thrive, contribute and have its rightful place within the core of any organization.

We are in a more complex and demanding world being faced in our organizations and the ability to have a clear, dynamic innovation governance reflects where innovation sits within the business on managing their innovation activities.

The post Why we should focus on Innovation Governance first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I have just finished the second of a planned series with one of my favourite long-term collaborators Jeffrey Phillips.

The link to this conversation is here, it is just over 15 minutes long. as a conversation between us, where we emphasise the important linkage between innovation and strategy. You might believe this is a no-brainer but you would be really surprised that this ‘tight’ linkage is often lacking.

Our first conversation called the Fundamental building blocks for innovation success (13 minutes), links here, introduces the series and the areas of our focus. I wrote a post supporting this “Getting back to the future about innovation”

All of these short conversations are drawing out the value of having an integrated approach through the Executive Innovation Work Mat, our central theme of the series and solution to integrating innovation.

In this latest conversation, Jeffrey and I argue most problems or disappointment with many innovation efforts within a business can be attributed to a lack of alignment to the organization’s strategy, resulting in poor growth and impact from innovations contribution.

We need to resolve that issue within any innovation activity, it needs a “tight” linkage to strategy.

Achieving innovation alignment always needs clear framing.

You do need a clear framework for innovation and Jeffrey and I believe this can be achieved through the work mat approach. This series is all about the different components of this work mat approach.

Alignment of an organizations strategy and innovation approach is essential and this needs to flow and connect from the top, but I have often felt there has not been a suitable engagement platform to gather around and work through to build a robust, well-connected innovation capability.

It is through this work mat we regard as our solution aimed at filling that gap.

In the video conversation with the link to this conversation here, Jeffrey and I discuss a number of helpful points of strategy and innovation linkage.

We argue many organizations seem to have alignment problems

A majority of people within the organization seem to struggle to connect innovation with their own place and contribution and this often both ‘contains and constrains’ innovation, they lack a mindset for it.

Having a distinct framework mechanism linking strategy and innovation becomes the innovation strategic foundation document that articulates innovation and provides the guiding aspects of innovation for others to work through.

Making that real alignment of strategy and innovation provides a good base

• Greater cohesion and consistency of purpose in your innovation activities
• A framework that raises the visibility of innovation as well as reduces risk and misalignment.
• Provide the mechanism for improving the workflow making innovation more dynamic and interconnected throughout the organization
• Deliver a greater connection & confidence that builds for lasting identification
• The use of frames becomes the organizing point for alignment of activities, measurement, compensation and recognition
• From this, you can derive inspiration, clarity and connecting and becomes a real sustaining source of impact and motivation.

The establishing of innovation within any Strategic thinking is becoming even more important today than ever.

Innovation drives the momentum towards 1) goals and visions, 2) it is the major catalyst in providing the growth and impact needed and 3) it builds the creation and potential towards new business models that can sustain and build your business.

To achieve the right innovation it does need framing and we speak of two framing activities specifically we see value to recognize.

Any construct of a Strategically designed innovation plan needs to work through different concepts and tools.

Two we mention in this conversation are the Three Horizon Model and the investment Portfolio structure over different times.

We use a specific image of the three horizons within the conversation but by simply typing “three horizons” into the search bar on this site you do get to an extended resource around the 3H.

The importance of the three horizon methodology has for me been a central aspect of how I focus on innovation building for years and you will find plenty of resources and references on this posting site. This includes White Papers and Series papers in the “Insights and Thinking” resource on this site as well

The other one we cover is establishing a Portfolio need across the three-time horizon points of your business; today, tomorrow (midterm) and the future (the 3H thinking framework)

Possible Three Horizon Investment Portfolio Allocation.

This is one  example of allocating appropriate resources

In this example above, as the knowledge of the market grows and the emerging understanding of the technology you have different horizons to invest in, to allocate your funds and resources but I feel this is a very “slow burn” allocation and the market might be changing faster than your response.

In many cases today the active portfolio is more pointed towards the future so allocation of funds, resources and time could be 20:40:40.

If you are in a highly dynamic, changing market it might look like 10:30:60

Keeping a very active portfolio in where to place funds and measure their impact is critical. Portfolio management should never stay still or static, it needs to adjust to the latest understanding and outcomes to reallocate funds and resources it is a fluid undertaking. 

Taking action in designing your innovation alignment

“Strategy informs”- it has to be explicit in its goals and intent. Knowing where to place your innovation thinking becomes critical; it is knowing where the leadership places its importance, its turning bets into likely wins’.

We have to keep asking those essential questions that link strategy and innovation in understanding.

• It becomes important to know if the growth is going to come through the acquisition of capabilities and competencies that fill critical gaps.
• What are those ‘perceived’ gaps? Can they be filled by shifting the innovation competencies, capabilities or capacities?
• If you are not ‘informed’ by strategy, you are simply ‘second guessing’ and here is where alignment breaks down by not having this understanding.
• Often the designers of strategy omit the essential details of “how we believe we will get there” and what are the primary resource levers to commit to this.
• This might be in having the need for a richer user engagement experience, a more robust futurist product portfolio to test, learn and explore potential options.
• It can be where it plans to invest its technology options to leverage knowledge.
• The strategy/ innovation dialogue is a constant probe; to clarify and adjust, to reshape and refocus.
• Strategy, like innovation, is dynamic, it is influenced by market conditions, internal needs and ambition.

Today we have even bigger, pressing issues that require this tight linkage between innovation and strategy. 1) We are faced with some very uncertain times, 2) there is a greater push in shaping new disruptive solutions, 3) we are facing increased time pressures to scale, speed and solve challenges and finally, 4) technology is becoming a dominating part of any solutions and innovation needs to link into this.

Today, we also need to consider a more sustainable future and preserve critical resources and this requires this tight linkage within organizations that innovation and strategy are working towards these goals.

Achieving innovation alignment always needs clear framing and the tighter the linkages to strategy gives a greater potential that innovation in outcomes is related to business, and more importantly, to market needs from the evaluations that have been undertaken.

Our next discussions will cover Governance, then Common Language and Communication and then one covering Structure, Function and Design, all drawing out the value of having an integrated approach through the Executive Innovation Work Mat, our central theme of the series.

The post Innovations linkages to Strategy is vitally important first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I have just finished the first of a planned series with one of my favourite long-term collaborators Jeffrey Phillips.

Here is the link to the recording. In this series, planned to be only of 10 to 15-minute conversations, we are picking up on many of the fundamental building blocks of innovation.

Jeffery and I go back within the innovation space a long way. We have actively collaborated and designed tools and frameworks over the years that we believe had some of our insights “baked” into them to offer valuable reference points to help us all work through connecting innovation in hopefully better ways.

We have often got into frequent discussions between us on the basics for innovation, those that we deem as central or the core. We will attempt to focus on one of these in each short video produced.

We started with Divergence and Convergence as our framing part

We both find the value of Divergence and Convergence thinking as not just a practical place for brainstorming but for allowing a conversation to firstly diverge and then converge in different ways to resolve and focus opinions.

I have used it many times in different workshop environments; here is a post of mine on this to bring opinions together and give a collective focus to build out a more collaborative future.

This approach can bring out the building blocks of an emerging understanding. You become more collective, selective and decisive.

Today diverge/ converge is actually on a continuous loop

We believe diverge/converge is today on a constant loop. As you finish converging to produce a final result, the chances are you are already on the diverging path of discovery for the next one. A new diverge/ converge set of discussions that promise to converge by opening up your thinking.

The importance of gathering all the different opinions, experiences and insights as you explore alternative options and diverse opinions get shaped. The shaping is influenced by insight, exchange of knowledge, not one dominating opinion.  Eventually, what emerges becomes visible in new exciting options, where collective decisions on choices can be made on intelligent data to prove a potentially new exciting innovation offering.

Then you go back and start again as nothing stands still; it is constantly evolving and looking for new points of value and growth.

Jeffrey and my opening discussion was outlining the series to come

The conversation series we are planning intends to discuss weak linkages across innovation and provide an organizing mechanism to bring these into a clear framework based on the work we have completed on the Executive  Work Mat approach.

We both have written extensively on this and its enduring value is planned to be drawn out in these coming discussions.

We touched on different issues and topics that will come up in our future conversations.

We have linkage gaps between innovation and strategy. Often innovation fails to map back into the strategic intent, which can fundamentally weaken the business in its plans for growth and new value.

We believe C.E.O’s and senior executives play a vital role in the success or failure of innovation. Unfortunately, those roles have often not been well-defined, and sometimes they are rarely well executed. We call this the engagement- alignment gap. Only an engaged, committed senior executive team can create the means to build a sustained innovation capability or disciplined approach by defining innovation’s role and contribution.

We are always in pursuit of alignment. To achieve alignment for innovation, we need an overarching strategic design to reduce the ‘disconnects’. Innovation needs constant alignment. One essential need is to provide a well designed strategic plan that will allow the connections and reconnects needed. We need to seek out alignment through clarification, through talking to each other, to working explicitly from the ‘same page,” the need to move from divergence to convergence.

Our second focus topic is where so much of our difficulties can go back to; having a lack of a common language for talking, applying and communicating innovation. We plan to discuss finding a common language that flows across an organization and out into its network of collaborators that gives meaning and context to what is being undertaken.

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, to qualify individual interpretation or bias, often a critical inhibitor that can block a team’s success. It lays in a common foundation. It builds confidence and understanding.

Thirdly, Governance is becoming “super important” across organizations, and it is equally necessary to have strong innovation governance. It has become doubly important when we are focused increasingly on building a resilient and sustaining organization. Both resilience and sustainability should drive much within innovation today.

Our fourth topic centres around Structures and Processes. We often strive to improve a given process and sharpen the structures to undertake innovation, but we badly miss the point here. Each innovation activity requires different thinking, process and structure. Working increasingly with other companies in more of an open environment of collaboration, one process imposed simply can constrain.

We do have a reasonable need to understand the basics required in structure and process and their delivery needs, but this requires a highly adaptive, fluid and agility in what we wrap around the “idea” or concept to build it out successfully in both efficient and effective ways.

I wrote in a past post, “The solutions of fluid, agile and adaptive are aiming to develop highly flexible and responsive organizations as an attractive answer to manage in more uncertain times as the way to move forward.”

Each of these four focus areas is essential to building an effective innovation capability. The frame itself offers seven dimensions in it

Our conversations aim to recognize how a reasonable organization frame gives you those vital basic building blocks for innovation

The structure we will discuss offers individuals, teams and organizations a framework that provides four fundamental points of value:

•  It offers you a necessary innovation shape
•  The dialoguing mechanism for intervention and exchange
•  The framework for clear linkages that need to fit together
•  The communication tool and essential building blocks for all to converge upon.

Jeffery and I feel all of us do need to go back to the core, often revisiting all that is central to all innovation activities. We hope to peel away the layers, undo much of the tensions and confusions that so much layering can do.

We need to grow and scale innovation, but the foundations of any innovation work need to be on rock solid foundations that give confidence to the individual, team and organization, of what innovation truly offers- the pathway to the future.

Jeffery and I hope you find a really good value out of these short exchanges and all the material you can explore that support this part of our thinking.

Here is the link to the recording. In this series, planned to be only of 10 to 15-minute conversations, we pick up on many of the fundamental building blocks of innovation.

Watch out for future episodes; we hope these provide you value.

The post Getting back to the Future about Innovation first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I have been virtually attending the Siemens SPS Event this week taking technology, inspiration and connected innovation to a new level. Siemens does do these events well. I have been associated with Siemens for nearly four years in an external influencer group, #SIEx. This association provides me with a significant focus on what they are doing in a rapidly changing market for mobility, smart infrastructures for cities and grids, and their digital industries business.

The evolution (perhaps transformation) of Siemens in these last few years has been a significant one. Siemens has separated or spun-off companies, such as Siemens Healthineers and Siemens Energy, and reorganizing the remaining core businesses around these three core areas of mobility, smart infrastructure and digital industries.

The SPS Event

This event, the Siemens SPS virtual experience event, focused on a digital enterprise portfolio. You can’t fail to learn of several new concepts or innovations within this portfolio offered.

Under the motto “Infinite opportunities from infinite data”, Siemens showcased solutions from its Digital Enterprise portfolio that enable companies to consistently digitalize, automate and make intensive use of the resulting data.

When you enter the Siemens virtual trade fair experience, you discover all highlights in a virtual 3D showroom, auditorium event program and Tech Meetups. Register here: sie.ag/3b1jZJH, as you can watch the event for some weeks to fit your schedule. You miss out on tech talks or contact an expert after finishing tomorrow, Thursday 25th November, 20201.

The opening session by Rainer Brehm (@rainer_brehm ), the CEO of Factory Automation touched on different parts of the SPS event. For me, it was the expanding range of innovative concepts that are emerging.

Here I only want to provide a short glimpse into three I found exciting

My three exciting takeaways from the event were:

The continued integration of the Industrial IoT stack between OT & IT is where app development connects IT/ OT into the cloud, at the Edge, and finally onto the Shopfloor. This stack holds great promise for integrating the IIoT process.

The launch of SiGREEN provides and drives decarbonization throughout the extended supply chain by focusing on high levels of carbon qualification through the use of Blockchain to keep data secure and confidential, offering an open industry solution to define the product very precisely carbon footprint.

The solution provides a trustworthy aggregation of an overall Product Carbon Footprint across the supply chain without compromising the partners’ need for supply chain confidentiality.

Extending the Industrial Edge concept of 2020 into a new Industrial Edge Marketplace, where partners together can have a platform to exchange and find collaborative value in providing greater solutions for industrial applications.

Already established partners will now benefit from a more open marketplace platform approach to expand their own solution in collaboration with a growing attraction of a wider network looking to build applications that are related to specific IIoT needs and build out interfaces and attract a broader, more diverse community of providers and developments.

I want to explore these innovative solutions in deeper ways. Still, I simply wanted to briefly “flag” how Siemens is making rapid progress in offering a Digital Enterprise looking to build sustainable industrial solutions that have a growing resilience and collaborative trust built into them.

More to come…..hopefully soon.

I want to get into a deeper dive in separate posts either here or more likely on my dedicated posting sites on ‘given’ topics covered briefly above for ecosystem and sustainability developments or my innovate4industry or digital4energy posting sites depending on the focus I take.

The post Technology, inspiration and connected innovation first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

No energy transition will be achieved without invention and innovation,  yet we are failing badly at present to fund research, development and deployment. We are losing the race to stop our planet warming as our innovative human endeavours are not at the level they should be, or we simply lack the “will” to make the changes we so desperately need to undergo to protect our planet.

My focus continues to get deeper and deeper into the Energy Transition from my innovation perspective, it is highly critical to our future.

I provide different perspectives and thinking, firstly on my innovating4energy.website for my offerings of service and a dedicated posting site for energy, innovating4energy.com  that provides a decent mix of thought leadership, news and awareness, for the Energy Transition.

Do visit these sites if you are curious and want to understand more about the Energy Transition we are all undergoing (really all of us in the World). Also, I can only encourage you to get in touch to see if we have areas of some collaboration opportunities.

So let me get back to what this post is about, providing critical reference points on technologies we need to improve and innovate.

One really rich reference site is the Internation Energy Agency, the IEA who provide some incredible, in-depth knowledge for “Shaping a secure and sustainable energy future for all.”

On their extensive site, they provide constant updates. This site is primarily a place I go back and constantly check when it comes to the progress on the technologies that need to be researched, developed and deployed.

Having the insights and their knowledge helps knowing if we are on track and going to be successful in transforming our Energy Systems. And make the dramatic contribution level for us to achieve the net-zero pathway we need to have in place by 2050.

Let me briefly reference different sections of the IEA website

Here the value is monitoring progress that is essential to achieving climate and sustainable development goals. However, it is also vital to know where we are starting our voyage. The IEA’s Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario lays out the narrow but achievable pathway to net zero emissions by mid-century. We all need to reach that goal, but not every country will do it in the same way – a reflection of the structure of each economy, its legacy energy mix, and other factors such as climate and geography.

Then we have  The ETP Clean Energy Technology Guide is an interactive framework that contains information for over 400 individual technology designs and components across the whole energy system that contribute to achieving the goal of net-zero emissions.

Each of these technologies includes information on the level of maturity and a compilation of development and deployment plans, as well as cost and performance improvement targets and leading players in the field.

You can choose a sector to explore progress in very considerable detail related to Buildings, Energy Transformation, Transport, CO2 infrastructure ad Industry to explore facts, data and detailed reports.

The IEA also provide a Clean Energy Transition Annual Report.

Since the Clean Energy Transitions Programme (CETP) launch in late 2017, the IEA has significantly expanded its work to help accelerate energy transitions in major emerging economies. The CETP plays a critical role in supporting clean energy transitions, putting sustainable development at the heart of economic recovery measures and further strengthening the IEA family.

The CETP Annual Report 2020 highlights the programme’s main activities, presenting significant outcomes and areas for further work and planned activities for 2021. It also summarises IEA activities related to clean energy transitions globally and introduces new and innovative analyses and resources produced throughout the year.

The report initially provides an overview of the CETP’s objectives, then presents highlights of activities and achievements for each priority country (Brazil, the People’s Republic of China. India, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa), each priority region (Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia), and globally.

One final point of reference for me is the Energy Technology RD&D Budgets: Overview Page.

The stark facts – where we are.

The post We are falling badly behind on our invention in technology for the Energy Transition first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I recently wrote a post, “Affordability versus Sustainability – a cause to be addressed.”

That post looked at the shifts that I felt were underway in moving from a society that accepts where it is heading, in expecting “affordability” is changing as our “choice” gets constrained.

I argued there is this growing recognition that a consistent amount of crisis points are causing growing anxiety and stress, and these tensions and pressures are not sustainable, they are shifting our attitudes.

Are we appreciating that there is a fundamental change happening, and we have to have an increased sustainability focus, one that is becoming a much larger part of our thinking in the future?

So how do you vote?

So if you are voting for a continuance of affordability expecting an abundant world, then our innovation stays locked into incremental improvements to keep forcing the price down and demand up. But we are deluding ourselves.

Presently we drive efficiency and effectiveness but progressively into a crisis of our own making. Demand outstrips supply. We are consuming more than we can sustain, and something, really soon, will have to give.

Choosing Sustainability then innovation has that real chance of being radical, distinctive and providing breakthroughs that can revolutionise and change our world. It can allow us to begin the pathway back to getting our planet and its limited resources into some semblance of balance.

The question raised today is can we adjust to the realities that our planet is finite and only able to “sustain us” by a radical change in our behaviours and consumption habits.

We need to appreciate that all around us, in nature and our environment, needs our attention. We need to fully understand in new ways and recognise that we, as humans, are wreaking havoc on an increasingly fragile planet.

Sustainability must become the core of all we do

A problematic journey of changes will be confronting us- Will sustainability make the case?

Consumers recognise the world is entering different moments of extremes; in weather, in political hostage, in economic concerns, in a planet that is in trouble from many aspects of health, wealth distribution, political tensions, migration flashpoints, and much more. There is growing awareness.

Shortages and rapidly rising prices are suddenly happening and certainly grabbing our attention. Today we are caught at a crossroads on currently expecting abundance and affordability versus accepting a sustainable one, where choice and prices will challenge our present acceptance of availability and convenience, in a rapidly depleting world of resources.

Sustainable innovation needs to shift our thinking

Presently sustainability stays that concept that makes sense but is not yet embraced and accepted by the vast majority. Crisis, what crisis? What will drive any change?

For many consumers, saying yes to environmentally friendly products means saying no to something else that is presently cheaper, and that “difference” still makes that essential decision-making based on price!

We simply, it seems, don’t get the arguments that Sustainability is central to our future as this is shifting our existing habits and mindsets; I mean, why should we change? Yet the question becomes a growing imperative of “when is now.”

Making honesty and transparency central to any relationship

For years to come, honesty and transparency are becoming super-critical to build that lasting trust-based relationship with principled customers. The sustainability story will be driving this.

Narrowing the gap between simply affordability with a new compelling, logical value proposition of building an inclusive, sustainable future where demand and supply become more equitable, is shifting and finally altering awareness. It recognises we need to put back proportionately more than we take out.

Purchasing behaviour recently went through a fundamental shift.

Purchasing has radically altered in the past eighteen months. Choices have been forced upon us due to lockdowns, corvid, supply chain disruptions; we have not been free to choose, travel or socialise as we have in the past.

Add in this seemingly escalating set of global tensions of politics, environment and social upheavals. We are in a state of flux, and often this leads to fundamental change.

The perception of a negative impact on our personal environment is forcing a rethink to reflect on making changes in jobs and careers, where and how we live, who we want to spend it with (or if we can), what and how we spend our free time and most importantly forcing us to question where we are going.

Was this period simply a pause, then we carry on, or a trigger to fundamentally rethink what we value, what has impact and worth?

The shift has its impact and implication. That “being worthy” judgement

The recognition that social responsibility and environmental sustainability factors are rapidly becoming part of the world’s agenda will be driven by the forces of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors in portfolio selection and management. it fits with consumer demand and a “life choice” surge.

The invest, divest, walk away or joining a more sustaining lobby for lasting change is shifting the past, more “passive” consumer into a more demanding one. The moment has come where all providing products and services are being judged as “being worthy.”

Think about that. “Being worthy” is very powerful; this is shifting the dynamics. Consumers, investors, employees, employers, our products and services will all be judged on “being worthy” of our support; they have to earn it, if “we” are going to change.

A time for sustainability is now.

The language, the lexicon, the context and the why all need to make the connections in any sustainability narrative.

In a world where anyone can check and validate in simple google searches, those narratives provide a fertile ground where collective intelligence can check and validate many sustainability claims and challenge them if they are based on flimsy evidence or misleading information.

Today there is a need of being transparent, open and honest, so openly providing that where they are today, gives clarification, and where any journey needs to go si it is to be worthy of having that sustainable tag is super-important.

I suggested in a recent post, “reshaping the core of your business through a focus on sustainability,” and suggested ” you embrace a new set of principles of governance that bring the planet, people and prosperity far more into the thinking.

What would that mean in the magnitude of change and where innovation becomes central to undertake this sustaining journey?

Is the onus on the brand to make the case?

The problem today is most corporations are still internally validating Sustainability and not making the value case to their customers; they are often still too caught up in making the business case internally.

Consumers want to see their issues qualified, not the internal case for showing shareholder value business credentials. Corporations are in real danger of missing the “wave” in surfing and peeking consumer interest they do not achieve a very high level of market engagement.

Innovation can drive this in new, highly imaginative ways.

Those who embark on a sustainable journey need to build a credible narrative; one that embraces and offers services that clearly state “we are problem-solvers and solution providers.”

The clarity needs to be made on how this all fits into a sustainability story that builds out their current offer or how they are actively and visibly working on it. Transparency will gain trust build repour.

I would argue we are in a time and place where being transparent and candid in communicating is extremely important.

Any sustainability values and positioning need to be crystal clear not just internally but in “all things” externally to Business

Otherwise, we as a society, living on a connected planet, as final consumers, do not make the move that is needed or the connection into the reasons for sustainability, one where it is central in our lives going forward.

The post Applying innovation thinking to Affordability versus Sustainability first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Disruption is all around us; it never seems to go away; it simply appears in a different and often entirely new form. The result is the same; it disrupts what we know and often in how we suddenly need to set about doing it differently.

Much of the innovative disruptions seem so obvious; you wonder why we were not doing these before. They connect up lots of the “dots” we have previously been focusing upon and make them blur into one bigger dot that becomes the new norm. Think Amazon, Airbnb, Uber. Think China.

Many of these are defined today as marketplaces, where innovation has pushed the boundaries and stretched thinking to combine aspects of multiple transactions into connected and seamless ones.

Let’s realize that most of what we undertake has been “disrupted” in recent years. We have marketplaces that have gone horizontal and vertical in the way they have sought out connectivity and brought it onto one platform.

Just stop and think about how we undertake transactions around our homes, cars, jobs, travel, deliveries, and how we can all become freelancers. We have so many on-demand services, products, fashion, groceries, cosmetics, food, banking, wellness, lifestyle, health and eyewear choices online, all changing our past ways of life.

Many previous and known innovation boundaries have been pushed through the changes that digitalization brings, all capable of building a different value chain and customer proposition and experience.

The effect has been on changing the way we go about our lives and attracting risk capital from venture capitalists, as this has become a tech-driven bull market.

Nowhere is the pace of disruption stronger than in China, where Alibaba, Meituan, Pinduoduo, Didi Chuxing, JD Health are among the most valuable world marketplaces in their trading valuation.

We are seeing such forces, trends, technologies that are enabling these and in some very distinctive ways, we are seeing many more radical concepts emerging from China first.

Any company today is undoubtedly forced to rethink its digital strategy. A company can remain an island or become part of a set of multiple chains, often not limited to one platform offering to connect with its customers.

Why does China have a natural advantage?

I previously have tried to capture the Ecosystem Dynamism in China and Asia in a previous post on my ecosystem posting site. I had evaluated this previously in another post Dynamism in Chinese Ecosystems and Platforms. Both are useful background reads on China’s continued dynamism.

I concluded ” There is a lot to learn and understand in exploring the approaches that the Chinese are taking in their thinking about what makes their Ecosystems and Platforms work. This is in delivering value, in extending reach, scope, and scale; speed is of the essence but they are constantly evolving and pushing the boundaries of what is known and accepted into the connected. Understanding the ‘possible’ boundaries and learning to build and compete in Ecosystems is a global competitive imperative”.

*China has a vast connected consumer space that is comfortable to trade, link and correspond online. The investor has this immense pressure to scale fast. Otherwise, others will take the idea and give it a different spin to undercut these nascent businesses. China is a highly dynamic and changing society, in constant change.

*China has such a population size, but this is rapidly evolving into the world’s most extensive digital ecosystem that encourages disruption through the combined use and thinking of technology and innovation.

*Through the government’s encouragement (possibly lesser today, think Alibaba), the on-demand economy has thrived through the sheer force of technological enablers, e-commerce and the nature of the distribution culture of the Chinese in a country of such geographical size.

*The whole social life of living in China is becoming governed by your smartphone. You transact your life on your phone. Services are virtualized, digitalized and revolutionized.

In the West, much of this connected behaviour is hard to imagine.

The argument goes that you are giving up all your freedom, personal liberties and individual freedom of choice. Perhaps there is a lot of merit in this.  Each of us in this world is caught up in some form of “forces” that can suddenly bring disruptive change to our lives.

Living in multiple challenging countries, like I have, over thirty-plus years that can constantly challenge you, you gain by learning, avoiding and staying within that country’s (accepted) boundaries. At times I was left very uncomfortable and challenged, but there are “counter-forces” that can resolve flashpoints and reduce confrontations.  We are in a world where we can all get that “knock on the door” that spins ourselves.

China has several traits that are offering these “counter-forces”. They provide an environment where nimbleness, skills and agility can propel ideas into concepts but can suddenly have that “cloud of uncertainty” that quickly hover over you if you go beyond certain limits.

The Chinese environment permits organizational and operational capabilities that can extort and be excessive but can equally provide and build opportunities to break out and realize something better in equal opportunity or time for many.

Recognizing the Darwinian forces at work

The seeming ruthless ways of gaining traction and reaching scale does have many Darwinian forces at work. I wrote a piece some time back, “Our innovation era is it creative destruction or destructive creation.”

I argued, “Schumpeter saw “creative destruction” as the renewing, through innovation, society’s dynamics that would lead to higher economic development and welfare levels. At the same time, recognizing that this destroyed a few of the incumbents to benefit many more newcomers and increase value creation for broader society.”

Today we are in a destructive creations world, I further offered this view: “Today, we are caught in the reverse of this- the process of “destructive creation”- which benefits a few rather than the many. This destructive creation sets out often to destroy or greatly diminish the usage value of existing products and services before it is optimal. In the process, it often incurs significant costs not taken into account at the time. These unforeseen issues have consequences that negatively affect parts of society not foreseen or contemplated at the time.”

My conclusion was the shift had emphasized the role of destruction rather than creation in driving innovation activity.

I went on to say, “This is becoming the game for a few to make money, corner markets, dominate and want to achieve monopolistic positions, and not worry over the wealth creation aspects of creating jobs, building communities, and cherishing certain values.”

Does this apply to China and its quest for innovation and disruption?

The Chinese are good at blurring the boundaries, in this case between strategy, organizational boundaries and execution.

A new force is possibly coming into play,  of finding a new balance between delivering new business model innovation and the concerns for social well-being.

Yet will the present “way of life” constantly need to build scale and deliver momentum-changing forces that propel China onto the world? If so, growth and innovation are inevitably interlinked to a digital and technology ecosystem.

Then for China to continue to succeed, it needs innovation, and it needs to constantly “tear down”, making those disruptive forces central to its business and social model.

The forces behind marketplaces

I come back to marketplaces; they are a place that we all can equally play; these are disruptive forces, no question, but if they can provide better services to society, then great.

Yet if they become the Western alternative in monopoly,  in counterweight forces that take over the role of shaping our lives in ways that can distort, tear down old habits, patterns and connections within communities, then no thank you.

We see the undermining (up to now) of past accepted values; then we are indeed moving within my question from “creative destruction to destructive creation.”

My biggest fear with unleashing innovation as a destructive force and not disruptive is this:

“The quicker we adapt, the sharper we suffer declines somewhere else.”

For example, we need to balance technological choices and social consequences- new gadgets vs decline in privacy. Yet the natural industry consequence of one party dominating in “destructive creation” is only seen that much later on, when that total deterioration cannot be halted or reversed.

How far are we prepared to push innovation boundaries through technology? A digital economy needs to be inclusive, sustaining and balanced in the changes innovation can bring but in so much more in providing fresh economic value to our broader society, not to a selected part or few.

The post China the story of innovation and disruption. first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.