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.

It often challenges the status quo and can on certain occasions, potentially challenge the stated strategic goals as those ‘disruptive forces’ have not been addressed radically enough. Innovation often “asks” difficult questions of ourselves.

We keep asking a lot of innovators but consistently restrain them or starve them of essential resources, at the critical times they need them. We seem to get in the way of blocking innovation so it can’t be seen to align with the goals or vision of the organization.

We keep extorting innovators to raise their game, constantly trying to shape their work so it can fit. We are constantly encouraging innovators to abandon their personal judgments, open themselves up to different possibilities to try and make it “fit” with what we have got or already invested into.

We ask innovators to keep resolute and keep trying, keep pushing the boundaries, challenging and sometimes disrupting the established practices and processes, organizations like to keep in place but this is a very ‘uneasy’ and needs courage, belief but most of all alignment. Innovators need to feel confident they are fully supported and encouraged. They need empowering.

The innovator is constantly dealing with ambiguity, managing a far more dynamic process of knowledge learning and investigating. Often this is in direct conflict or tension with the majority of the organizations need to extract the most efficiencies and effectiveness out of the established systems and processes.

Strategic design often does not single out innovation as different, it expects it to comply. It is this lack of recognition that causes much of the misalignment, as it does not conform to the norm.

Yet strategy and innovation have much in common. They are both dealing with uncertainties, attempting to quantify uncertainties and unknowns, working towards a future state that advances the business by identifying and capturing new opportunities.

This is where cascading helps with alignment- consider a model

To achieve alignment, a cascade of better choices is needed that keeps mapping back to innovation activities and strategic need.

This calls for the need for a choice-cascade model where understanding flows through aligned cascading choices. Its aim is to empower firstly, by promoting and encouraging different levels of sound or best judgment, to enable individual choices, so as to allow for a ‘choice-maker’ to push this back upstream. Roger Martin and Hilary Austen have suggested “the art of integrative thinking”.

Choice options cascade down from the higher-order choices. These should set the context for and constrain (help in defining) lower-order choices.

Choices become inter-related and need to fit context and constraints from this higher-level. If there is difficulty in the fit, then the higher order needs urgently revisiting, hence the cascading effect is a constant, dynamic two-way flow.

Today, if we recognize change is a constant, flowing and rapidly changing part of how we do business, by having in place this choice cascading model you can unfreeze part of a strategy that is not ‘aligning’ with a changing world. It makes the decision-making process more dynamic and allows for greater contribution to strategic choices and the innovation process can equally respond and align on a far quicker, adaptive path.

Choice-cascade needs structure and operating principles

Choice makers within this model need to be explicit in the why:

1. Explain the choice that has been made and the explicit rationale behind it
2. Explicitly identify the next downstream choice to make it a joint venture
3. Assist in making the downstream choice happen explicitly
4. Commit to revisiting and modifying the choice based on explicit downstream feedback

To move towards choices that can outline desired outcomes and describe ways and means to achieve them allows for this alignment and flow of understanding.

A cascade must move in both directions

Water flows down but it is the  ‘pushing back’ provides this feedback cascade, where the real fate of change and realization resides is in recognition and ongoing dialogues. To cascade back, clarity or questioning needs a mechanism or process to return to the top. You gain alignment through this method of cascading both up and down organizations in deliberate ways. We are seeking this alignment constantly, it is the lightning rod that transmits the energy to gain fusion.

To encourage alignment, they need to be explicitly linked to key desired behaviors, determined by the needs of the individual organization. Alignment needs to equally map back to a high consistency in core values expected in practicing, as important. I would suggest a good innovation governance design significantly helps this. This is where building the innovation culture, the environment it works within and the climate that is encouraged prompts the dialogue, conversation, and engagement.

Underpinning this alignment within the Cascade’s design and identification, you equally build a ‘belief’ audit. Its aim is to uncover where alignment is achieved, misunderstood and equally highlights where it needs a better bridging mechanism and most importantly, where there is critical misalignment to be addressed at a higher level. This belief audit strengthens the choice-cascade model as it opens up the dialogue surrounding innovation and its strategic (or operational only) alignment.

How can innovation get squared away with strategy?

As I mentioned earlier it is getting innovation into this ‘choice mentality’ on where to play and what seems to be the real wins by providing as much understanding of the judgment of why it contributes to the strategic goals. You align it or ‘flag’ it. To get innovation to align you need to discuss a whole array of gaps. It needs dialogues, engagement and a clear, cohesive set of ‘shared’ objectives of what innovation can make a contribution and deliver a difference.

Clearly, if you lack this deep understanding of how the organization’s strategy was brought together, the thinking behind it, then innovation will often fall short in delivery, as it can’t have enough of the understanding to be aligned. Making hard choices is tied to aspirations of knowing where you want to place your bets, to win.

Often it is within the strategies lies the potential new spaces to play. Strategy informs innovation. It becomes the catalyst of where-to-play and how-to-win and with this, you are giving innovators a better chance to deliver back concepts for those hard choices to be made, designed around innovate concepts that align and feeds the strategic design with winning designs

Having a cascading model in place allows that essential ‘flow’ that connects innovation to strategy but more importantly becomes the connecting point for all within the organization to identify with and…..align too.

Contact me if you would like to learn more.

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The post Innovation has a hard job to align first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Often it is within the strategies that should be outlined, lies the potential new spaces to play for innovation’s design. Yet how often do we fail to connect the innovation’s we design and execute specifically aligned to the strategic need?

We somehow seem to stay locked in the ‘here and now’ constantly repeating and refining the known and established within our domain of responsibility. Is this because innovation is not at the core of the business as it should be? Often we are inherently resisting to exploring change as it becomes risky and far more demanding. A good strategy, well outlined should encourage innovation and gain engagement but it can equally determine how we break down our imposed boundaries by its strategic intent, to encourage exploring and extending on what we know into the what we need to know. Strategic intent informs innovation.

If you have a clear strategic understanding of the needs of the business you are getting more of the understanding of where-to-play and how-to-win in your innovation activities and market investment. It is making these strategic connections that is giving innovators a better chance to deliver back concepts that offer alignment to this strategic need. Investing in this understanding and alignment should never be understated. The time invested, allows for the innovation investments to do their part in supporting the business and feeding it with the growth options required, or highlighting where the possible gaps might be, for additional investment or M&A activity, to accelerate this and bring-in fresh innovating momentum.

We need to close down the issue that Innovation is full of open interpretation by purposeful design

How often have we heard “innovation is important for our future success” but when this is probed deeper there is a huge dissatisfaction on its performance or contribution at all levels within organizations, why is that? Where does the problem lie? I am sure we all have multiple suggestions, some perhaps radical in the extreme but most are confirming this growing frustration with innovation’s performance yet not fully pointing to the underlying cause. This suggests that there are multiple failure points within the management of innovation.

One absolute critical one that needs resolution is achieving alignment and engagement of innovation understanding throughout the organization. It is one of the biggest challenges to resolve, it takes hard coordinating work to sort out of numerous amount of problems that need rectifying.

Frustrations abound up and down the Organization.

Clearly one critical part of this present frustration is a seemingly lack of alignment between the organizations strategic goals and its mission and how innovation is expected to contribute, so as to fuel the growth and deliver many of the essential parts of the strategic need. Often it is left far too open or unclear for individual interpretation. It is often when we have uncertainly, opportunism steps in and attempts to fill the space. Innovation needs a much stronger alignment to strategy, they need connecting far better. One suggestion here is the adoption of the choice cascade model, discussed later as part of the suggested solution.

One of the basic troubles increasingly today is we are not in the world of stable markets, we are seeing increasing competitive intensity and challenges to market definitions that are radically altering how we proceed. Technology has become both the enabler and the disruptor to this. We are ‘reacting’ far more in knee-jerk ways to resolve a sudden crisis and look increasingly towards fast innovation solutions to fill the gap. Some of these solutions create ‘knock.-on’ effects and create a mismatch between solving an interim problem and causing disruption to the longer-term direction.  They also can distract resources away from more critical solutions to solve underlying growth issues within the organization.

This is why I also highly recommend the three horizon framework as part of this discipline of managing the ‘needs of today’ with the strategy of having a thoughtful portfolio of options for the future that requires this different horizon thinking.

Of course much in the future has no boundaries we can determine and evaluate against and this gives high levels of uncertainty but it can be reduced, by being driven by a clearer clarity of purpose or intent. It is this ‘clarity of purpose’ that innovation needs to ‘track, mirror and explore’. If we keep ‘reacting’ constantly to the present we might never arrive at the future.

The strategic purpose ‘informs’ and I think we all have this growing recognition that today’s business model will not remain viable for long periods, as we operate increasingly in fluid and volitile conditions, that require constant adjustment and response. This means our innovation resources must align far more to the direction seen or looks reasonably plausible and ‘shape and form’ around this. Foresight should be governed by beliefs about the future and innovation should be driven in this direction but always with a word of caution, that we equally have to always recognize that the future is a moving target. It is beholden on innovation to explore and exploit this, to pursue an evolutionary path towards understanding and validation.

Taking action in designing your innovation alignment

“Strategy informs”. Knowing where to place your innovation thinking becomes critical; it is knowing where the leadership places its importance, its ‘bets to win’. 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 it’s technology options to leverage knowledge.

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 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 into this.

You need to know what type of company ‘we are’ today and does it need to change: are you integrators, leader, laggards, or best in class, pioneers, or fast copiers. This recognition equially ‘inform’ much of the innovation activity. What types of business model are you working towards, where is the scope to expand and explore from the innovation perspective? What processes and structures would then need to be in place to compliment and align to the strategic aspirations or positioning stated?

These answers become the foundation that aligns strategy direction with innovation activity.

These can only come from formulating strategic thinking between the strategy of the organization (its goals, mission and visions) and innovation, for it to be directed in its efforts to contribute to these aims and growth aspirations.

Then the other, often the unspoken silent part, of any strategic thinking that needs to be drawn out, actually revolves around the ‘creative destruction’ being faced, externally and internally. It indicates the prevalence of change and opens the dialogue up on how innovation will respond to this. Often boards remain in denial or lack the essential relevant understanding of the changes occurring and do not address change or transformation as strongly as they should in any strategic design. Innovation then has a really hard time to respond.

This is the way I recommend to set about this alignment to build an Innovation Master Plan.

It is structured and designed and externally facilitated. Facilitation becomes critical as the external provider can ‘draw out’ all the different views, often highly diverging, where predudices and opinions abound, around innovation. Opinions differ so much, you need to work through divergence to then seek the convergence. It is only when you get a ‘collective view’ you can begin to get that greater alignment of strategic and innovation activities

Here is how I suggest you might set about alignment….

Firstly I have written explicitly on the Executive Innovation Work Mat, making the compelling case and one outline of the framework offering a further alignment view,  as I believe this Work Mat approach becomes a critical framework to communicate the fit of innovation and strategy.  It becomes the “living” innovation document to refer too, engagement with (and improve). I co-devolped this executive innovation work mat with Jeffrey Phillips from Ovo Innovation.

We need to work through The Critical Value Propositions of the Three Horizon Methodology (link to download paper) to clarify our portfolio of options, in the present and in the future.

Within that Innovation Work Mat approach it is designed to allow engagement from the top to communicate and cascade down the organizations, to allow for the growing understanding of how and where innovation fits and what is provided to support this. I believe the “cascading effect” becomes critical to success and often missed out in any innovation thinking This design of the Work Mat allows for a greater connected design of innovation.

Innovation needs alignment- Resources to refer too.

Available is a short presentation on this innovation alignment approach to the choice cascade view, as used in the Executive Innovation Work Mat Framework. Here is a download to its cascading effect approach: Cascading Choices for Greater Alignment (a PDF file)

Exploring the Executive Innovation Work Mat I have equally set up a dedicated section on the Work Mat  under “insights and thinking” as “booklets” in its design and value on each of its components. So can you explore the three horizons here and relate to it further, as essential for managing innovation in multiple ways.

Workshops on the Executive Innovation Work Mat can be delivered as outlined in this suggestion one: (Intervention Approach Work Mat 2017). Each Workshop always has some level of unique design, as each organization is on its own journey of innovation understanding. The framework and its seven components is built accordingly to bring it together as an integrated ‘whole’.

By contacting the writer you can discuss this further as it is designed to bring strategic choice and innovation together in a more cohesive way. It aligns, communicates and engages but it is how we set about this, will determine its potential for achieving greater success and ‘connected’ understanding.

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The post The Essential Connection Between Strategy and Innovation first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Achieving innovation alignment always needs clear framing.

I would argue most problems or disappointment with our innovation efforts can be attributed to a lack of alignment to the organizations strategy and/or its poor governance with our end results.

Here I am suggesting a way to overcome this constant frustration.
Poor strategic alignment can be overcome by working through a comprehensive approach to addressing all areas that impact innovation. One such framework I believe can help, as explained here, through the work mat approach.

I  believe this work mat approach does moderate and organize innovation for greater alignment.  It allows for the senior management to become engaged and shape the direction as it takes a more holistic approach. The work mat contains governance as a specific part of its framing as this can do far more in driving the conditions to innovate.

The intent with developing this work mat approach has been to clearly set out that much-needed ‘greater’ strategic connection through engagement at a senior level, they drive the outcomes, they provide understanding beyond the vision to make the necessary connections, they fuel the engine and ignite the energy that innovation needs.

The work mat seeks out separate conversations on the different domain areas shown above and then combines them. Senior leadership should be articulating what they expect and want from each of the critical parts and then communicate these throughout the organization. The end result of this thinking through provides for a greater ‘common language’, setting innovation in context.

Structuring this well can achieve much towards reducing the multiple interpretations, and the variety of initiatives often described or justified as innovative but definitely missing the strategic mark.

Alignment of an organizations strategy and innovation approach is essential and this needs to flow from the top, but I feel there has not been a suitable engagement platform to gather around and work through, the work mat is aimed at filling that gap.

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. This reinforces innovation as staying locked within its own silo of dedicated people, broader identification can break down.

Far too much time is spent in communication and breaking down barriers and pockets of resistance. We lack broader alignment as well as strategic innovation alignment. Both need resolving. We need to understand the innovation journey.

This framework mechanism becomes the innovation strategic foundation document that articulates innovation and provides the guiding aspects of innovation for others to work through.

Designing a new strategic innovation framework at the top of organizations can help close the many gaps we see today in innovation, especially in the need to achieve a growing alignment to an organizations strategy. You are embedding innovation into the organization core.

Exploring the thinking behind the work mat framework – making the connections.

In a series of previous articles you can explore the thinking and make up of this work mat approach. I would encourage you to explore these, if you want to delve a little deeper. These cover the strategic innovation framework  to set the context of the work mat approach for planning the innovation direction.

I have also suggested using the innovation conversation framework discussed in a recent post for deepening your innovation dialogues. Also covered are the principles to cascade effect for better choices throughout the organization for a greater identification and relationship.

Often we don’t give the necessary thinking time for aligning innovation across the organization, we fail to develop the innovation and strategic alignment conversations the way we should, we are sometimes far too impatient to simply get on with innovation.

The components of the Executive Innovation Work Mat, can promote a common language and set innovation in context, promoting  this “cascading effect for better choices” to flow both ways and move closer to a well-aligned organization that marks a successful business. Its intended deliverables:

1. Provide an overarching proposition for aligning innovation within the organization to the strategic needs
2. Offer the critical parts of this framework and the ‘essential bones’ that ‘direct and inform’ for the innovation activities.
3. Suggest this growing recognition that all the component parts making up innovation do need this clear articulating.
4. Offer through the work mat framework presented that this can become the vehicle for meaningful innovation exchanges, it guides and promotes dialogue. It aligns intent with activity
5. The work mat builds the common language to allow the innovation conversations to flow and ‘cascade’

One of the most pressing needs today is a real alignment of strategy and innovation

The use of any good innovation / strategic framework should aim to achieve a number of key objectives, including:
– A 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 work flow 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 its inspiration, clarity and connecting and becomes a real sustaining source of impact.

The work mat delivers a more holistic innovation alignment

Covering innovation in a comprehensive and strategic aligned and connected manner does take away much of the guesswork, disconnects and often the poor leadership buy-in for investments needed to support innovation. Giving our leadership the ownership of the Work Mat does establish innovation far more into the core of organizational design, something that is often missing.

I believe this can be well resolved by adopting this Executive Innovation Work Mat framework as a well-thought-through approach.

Designing innovation needs to have this ‘connected’ understanding and some specialized external facilitation would greatly help the senior leadership to work through this, to help them connect many of the ‘dots’ they have limited opportunity to complete themselves, without their significant investment in time and efforts.

I am happy to discuss this further if you believe it has real value within your innovation needs.

The post One really big issue is aligning strategy and innovation, right? first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Packed all within a day there was plenty of material ‘fodder’ to feed off of and learn from.
A really good conference but what quickly followed was a strong dose of that withering on the innovation vine.

I read two consulting surveys on innovation

I’ve been suddenly pulled out of my virtual bubble back into the harsh realities of where innovation really is. Just simply how innovation is struggling and that lies far more at the top of our organizations than below, those below who are simply trying to ‘get on with the job’ but with at least one hand (or even two) tied behind their backs.

I have been reading two sets of observations, one from Fahrenheit 212, the other from Innosight and my mood began to change. I’m suddenly back in reality where we have this huge gap between those ‘working’ innovation and those at the top simply not engaging with innovation or still failing to understand it or even failing to connect the dots.

A growing gap at the top in what they need to do to make the connections both inside and outside the organization to manage the changing landscape. One that still suggests we have this consistent failure to align the strategic and innovation activities and provide a more balanced orientation in the mapping to different horizon thinking that is needed. It seems perspectives are totally out of whack.

The Fahrenheit 212 Post on their recent observations left me perplexed.

Firstly Fahrenheit 212 asked 100 chief innovation officers a set of questions around their getting their innovation projects to market. They claim that forty-five percent of respondents said fewer than 10 percent of their projects make it to market.

Fahrenheit claim that was an “eye-opener for understanding the challenges that innovation practitioners have,” where Fahrenheit was suggesting 60 to 70 percent of incremental innovations should be the success rate.

As this view came through the Washington Post under “Corporate attempts at innovation are overwhelmingly dying on the vine” I was not able to view the actual results directly or more of the thinking that went into this and can’t find any further reference on this on their website besides a Facebook entry. I’d like too.

Why? – well surely there are significant differences between projects being managed or piloted at the CINO level than passing through the organization as supportive and incremental? Yet until I can understand the context of these ‘statements’ it is hard to judge this piece of information and its real importance, presently it lies as a “oh yeah”.

As a starting point what is judged as an innovation project from the CINO’s perspective versus the everyday innovation occurring. Are these numbers so “eye opening”?

The whole position and value of the CINO is certainly up for grabs and in a ‘forming’ stage. One really good point made as a quote by Jon Crawford-Phillips, a partner at Fahrenheit 212 was this: “The primary value of the chief innovation officer is the connectivity between the company’s growth strategy and the decisions and focus of the senior leadership team and the translation of that into an innovation agenda”.

Crawford-Phillips was recommending corporations don’t align innovation with their financial interests and suggested establishing this. He comments: “There’s a strategic way in which they allocate resources to core innovation, and there’s clear metrics around the performance of core innovation and a clear understanding of the financial impact of that innovation on the company’s balance sheet.”

I struggle with what I should be getting out of this ‘report’ as Fahrenheit 212’s suggestions because if they are determining clear metrics in core innovation performance and a clear understanding of the financial impact on the balance sheet then it is no surprise innovation practitioners have difficulties in getting initiatives and projects through organizations. Can projects that are in themselves innovative be measured on the same metrics as established known ones?

The comments reported from the survey leave more questions than answers and has this set of observations really helped ‘advance’ innovation? Maybe more will emerge. It seems to fit perhaps with their Money and Magic message.

On the other hand, Innosight and their Strategic Readiness Survey really is the actual eye opener.

Innosight offers an executive briefing on their “Strategic Readiness and Disruptive Change” and this survey throws up some serious worries for me.
The report prompts deeper thinking on how organizations are really having difficulties in transforming themselves with all the disruptive change going on around us all. A real eye opener.

Innosight’s summary provides a good snapshot of the issues:

“Disruptive change is accelerating, driven by the rapid emergence of new technologies, the blurring of lines between industries, and competition from both traditional and non-traditional players. As a result, corporate lifespans are shrinking”.

“How does the shifting landscape affect enterprise strategy and corporate innovation efforts? To see how organizations assess their ability to anticipate and respond to disruptive change, we (Innosight) recently surveyed more than 800 executives across 20 industries. The results shed new light onto the challenges and opportunities that leaders face in crafting strategies to steer their companies in both the near and long term”.
Top-level findings included:

• Fully 85% of respondents say their organizations need to transform in response to disruptive change – yet only 49% say that feel very confident or confident that their organizations are prepared for transformation in 3 to 5 years. That number drops to 42% in a time frame of 5 to 10 years.
• Large companies face an even greater “strategy confidence gap.” 83% of respondents from companies with over $1 billion in revenue agreed with the need to transform, and only 36% say they are confident to do so in a 5 to 10 year time frame.

The confidence gap suggests that organizations lack both the long-term orientation and the tools to plot long-term strategy. The survey bore this out:

• Only 12% of organizations have a formal growth strategy with at least a 5+ year time horizon.
• The remaining 88% either have no formal growth strategy or it is shorter term.

This short-term bias has implications for the ability of companies to develop disruptive or transformational innovations—the kind that open new markets and attract new customers—and which typically require a longer-term perspective.”

What a difference a well-structured survey and report can make.

I would recommend taking the time out to read this report. It signals much of what is so wrong at present in the sacrifice of the future, even the eventual existence of the organization in years to come.

This report seems to reflect a broader trend that this frightening “strategic confidence gap” is a huge one, where senior executives are seemingly being increasingly caught up in the short-term demands.

They seem to have scarce time to re-equip themselves, let alone their organization, for the changing landscape and are simply ‘kicking the bottle down the road’ and taking the pay packet that goes with short-term performance. Surely this has to change? Is it so bad?

This report is indicating it is really bad.

I liked the heading to each part of the executive briefing from Innosight as they do summarize the challenges that need to be faced and resolved.

• The Confidence Gap: The Desire – But Not the Ability – to Transform
• A struggle to Keep Pace : A Sense of Falling Behind the Market
• Strategy Shortfall: Growth Plans Focus on Near-Term
• Process Shortcomings Undermine Long-term Planning
• Technology and Changing Consumer Preferences Expected to Be Most Disruptive
• No Lack of Ideas, But Difficulty Getting Through Innovation’s “First Mile”

The last heading is a clear nod to the topic being explored in a new book. Recently Scott Anthony , Innosight’s managing partner, wrote a book “The First Mile: A Launch Manual for Getting Great Ideas into the Market”.

That first mile—where an innovation moves from an idea on paper to the market—is often plagued by failure, in fact, less than one percent of ideas launched by big companies end up having real impact. The ideas aren’t the problem. It’s the process.

Gaining value from consultants’ insights if it enters the public domain

We should get solid value out of research or insights from any consulting research if it is published. So two of our leading innovation consulting companies, Innosight and Fahrenheit 212 approach knowledge sharing in different ways.

Innosight provides a good depth in their report, although it is perhaps light on final takeaways and conclusions, whereas Fahrenheit 212 reported comments are just, well, simply ‘light’ and lacking the depth I would expect from them. At least their survey should link into their own report. This I simply can’t find.

I finally reflected on what makes good thought-leadership from consulting practices

Take a look at this from http://www.sourceforconsulting.com/whitespace/

What makes good thought leadership?

“The clients of consulting firms are inundated with information and analysis from every direction. Unquestionably, the vast majority are binned or deleted instantly”. So what are the factors likely to attract attention,  Sourceforconsulting.com suggest the following:

• Differentiation – will the potential reader pick up and begin to read this piece of thought-leadership? (If it is actually available even!)
• Appeal – does the writing style and presentation encourage the reader to keep on reading past the introduction and beyond? Where do they go from this?
• Resilience – will the reader feel confident in what they are being told? Whether a client buys into the idea a consulting firm is trying to put across depends on the evidence.
• Prompting action – ( I kept all the guidance within this section in, as it is relevant to the two reports I have focused upon) Will the reader do something because they have read this report?

Good thought leadership takes the reader beyond the ‘that’s interesting’ stage – it gives them the tools and inspiration to identify issues in their own organization or to begin to address a pressing concern.

We ask whether the next steps for the reader are clear. We also check that the material isn’t a poorly disguised sales pitch which would undermine its credibility and chances of prompting action.

A tale of two both working in innovation consulting.

Two innovation consulting firms offering up their insights and I feel the one from Innosight is simply much further down the thought- leadership path, in its linkage of its practice and report around disruptive change. It ‘calls for’ and ‘prompts’ action.

Perhaps Fahrenheit 212’s report should have been rooted far more in what it does, that is identifying, developing, designing and implementing profitable new products and services and then framing this within their survey remarks, as this is the space they play in and by all accounts play well. It would have made better sense to me.

I think we all need to think about why innovation might be withering on the vine. We all need to ensure the contributions we make, into conferences, summarizing reports, writing blog posts or being engaged in innovation activities, as consultants or practitioners.

We need to ensure that we do not lose sight that innovation is still struggling to make headway in the ways it should, with the appropriate messages getting delivered effectively and sometimes we all often miss that ‘line of sight’ on that.

Any thoughts on the observations from the reports or what they contribute into our thinking around innovation?

The post I wonder who is withering on the innovation vine? first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.