Everything we should be aiming towards boils down to the judgement of a ‘successful execution’ or not.

It is this last, hard five yards of all the work that went into something, which can make or break so much of the efforts that have gone into this emerging ‘commercial life’ of our new innovation activities.

We should regard the back-end of innovation as the rugged part

I love the association of the “fuzzy front end” with ideas, brainstorming and all those creative energies bringing ideas to life, but sadly unless that final ‘rugged terrain’ at the back-end is not travelled we never see the innovation come to life in the market place.

To travel the final ‘rugged terrain’ of innovation execution I believe requires fortitude, stamina, belief, a healthy dose of courage and as much commitment from the whole organization engaged in the innovation process as any ‘front end’ or driving it through the pipeline, yet we often fail to recognize that.

Yet resources seem to be peeled away when we get to the final Execution
Resources get pulled away, repositioned back at the front or in the middle to push others through the pipeline, leaving a dwindling, sometimes scarce resource to push that last five yards.

The R&D group feel their role is complete, the new development team finalize the official ‘hand over’ and the leadership for development and growth begins to get distracted away to push more through the pipeline, taking experienced resources with them. Suddenly it is down to a small team to tackle this execution stage and all it means.

Dealing with many conflicting internal wants and needs is complex
When you get into the final stages you really have to take into account all the individual demands such as “why my country is special”, or “we can’t agree on the final selling price due to a different market (evolution)” or “our major client cycle for approval is not for another six months” or the final design disappoints when you are well passed the discussion stage, all can drive you ‘up the wall’ but need carefully handling. Effective execution gets very complicated and the skill of the project coordinator comes really to the fore.

You can suddenly you become ‘stretched’ in catering to those often conflicting needs if you have not constantly engaged or consulted. If you leave these essential conversations late in the development process as you look around for additional help there seems a lack of clear leadership on who determines final execution, it seems to have gone missing in action.

It becomes tough and complicated to execute well, you sense a feeling of growing exposure and increasing frustrations.The great idea within the product might remain but the execution pains undermine much of the pleasure or sense of satisfaction.

Engage early but be crystal clear on what can be accommodated and what can’t. Get all stakeholders involved but seek the clarity of the ‘red lines’ from the senior person responsible and be prepared to escalate issues up the decision chain for the earliest resolution as you can

So what is needed at the execution end?
There are a number of thoughts here but three big traits stand out for me:

1). An overriding bias for action, irrespective of the challenge, problem or issue to be resolved – don’t let it fester. Take them head-on. Keep the execution pedal flat to the floor, so others understand the sense of commitment and personal passion. Let it become infectious, in a positive way.

2) Really tap into all the knowledge out there in the market place, face the client, sell the product, explain the story, hone that value proposition and keep ‘pivoting’ until you get it right. You unblock the roadblocks, you unlock the mind, and you change the dynamics.

3) No pathway of execution is smooth; it is a rough and rugged road. Recognizing and valuing any breakthrough solutions to move them forward is critical. Forward momentum in any execution plan is essential; as issues come in (and sure they will) you will meet them with a commitment and passion to get them resolved. You offer the ‘waves of support’ to others.

Standing in the deployment zone focused simply on ‘executing away’

Offer true leadership that is leading from the front. Be ready to set and live the expectations; you define the critical deliverables, establish accountability and resolve the conflicts quickly. You influence and install the metrics that are execution specific.

You actively seek commitments from the wider team of stakeholders, vested in a good result. You never forget to share all the news, the good and the bad parts of the progress back into the organization.

You set out clearly to communicate accurately and frequently, keeping on top of issues, break down problems, reaching back into the organization for help when help is needed. You offer true execution leadership, from the front.

Just remember it is only realized when this innovation becomes the buyer’s choice to invest in.

Those known to be good execution people are a valuable resource, they bring the results in and that is highly prized as so few have the resolve or ability to do this.

Organizations are constantly lamenting their lack of implementation capabilities. Go blaze the path as you are actually making and leading the changes. It is how you set about the execution of innovation that will separate you from the pack but it

Remember new innovations replace something of the existing.

Innovation does not stop when it goes out of the organizations doors, it actually only just begins, and it has to prove itself, it needs to justify all the hard work that went into it. It got to here because it was seen as worthwhile, expected to make a contribution.

To make innovation work, it is only when it is in the marketplace – judged by customers sufficiently enough to stump up their cash – that we have a successful innovation.

To get there is often travelling over some rough, tough terrain and the more you are exposed, the more you learn. When you execute you need to deploy a significant skill set and dedicated resource to bring home the results.

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Publishing note:  This blog post was originally written on behalf of Hype and with their permission I have republished it on my own site. I recommend you should visit the Hype blog site where they have a range of contributors writing about a wide-ranging mix of ideas and thoughts around innovation, its well worth the visit.

The post The last five yards – the really hard part first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

It is always pleasing to sometimes be on the same track as the Big Consultants, for working on and moving beyond the trends they are spotting and highlighting, into some clear tangible solutions, to help resolve these. Recently McKinsey Quarterly conducted an on-line survey of just under 3,000 executives on issues surrounding innovation.

The report is entitled “Making innovation structures work”- see the link below. They confirm much that I have seen or gained through my research and point very specifically to the key difficulties organizations are presently having around innovation.
This report feeds directly into the solution work I’m undertaking
The results feed directly into the work I have been undertaking on the leadership gap and the suggested framework of the integrated executive innovation work mat that has been discussed in considerable details in the past few weeks.

These have been on this blog site of mine, as well as ovo innovation’s  my collaborating partners, and also on  innovation excellence’s web site, where we had a whole week of featured articles, discussing the work mat component parts, or as we entitled it, the essential seven domains of innovation that make up this work mat.

So what stands out in the McKinsey report?

The innovation structure is evolving; organizations rely on exploring various organizational models to ‘house’ and execute innovation. They work with multiple structural models to drive innovation efforts and often have separate innovation functions, located in multiple locations. It seems there has been an insurgence of structures in the last three years that are currently being worked through.

 Presently there is no uniformed view on innovation organizational design

According to the report, the innovation’s function has shifted in the functions location, in its financing and ownership and increasingly reporting into a C-Level, or even directly into the CEO.

The designs involved include innovation centres, a dedicated new-business development function, emerging business opportunities and technologies groups (often separate) and having advanced technologies institutes as part of the mix.

It still seems where it ‘sits’ partly depends on the time the innovation function was set up. The older structures, set up more than ten years ago 46% of those surveyed report that innovation “sits” at corporate headquarters compared with 65% at the organizations with younger functions. Younger functions also focus more on profit but presently have fewer market successes as they have had less time.

What is the innovation they are working upon?

These are with functional focus on identifying new business opportunities, such as blue-sky innovation and developing potentially disruptive technologies and those report directly into the CEO at around 44% of the functions at present. That maybe the wrong side of the 50% mark I’d like but we seem to be making progress of linking innovation directly to the leadership of our organizations, or are we? Read on.

The factors of success

This is the area of most interest to me. Although it is prefaced by a matter of maturity (whatever that means) there is a ongoing debate on how separate or aligned with corporate strategy an organizations approach to innovation should be.

To quote from the report “What is affirmed that strategy (particularly one that is focused, clearly articulated and integrated) is key to successful outcomes. At companies where innovation is fully integrated into strategy, executives are SIX times as likely as those without an integrated strategy to say their separate functions meet their financial objectives effectively, actually very effectively or extremely effectively”

Equally where there is a successful integration there is a sharing of the organizational elements across the portfolio. This includes sharing strategic priorities and focus, knowledge and insights, research insights and analysis, leadership teams and approach to governance with lastly a good talent flow and exchange.

The challenge for innovation is still around strategy though

Only one-third of the executives report innovation is fully integrated in corporate-level strategies,  and nearly half say integrating the separate function’s strategic objectives with those of their core businesses is one of their functions most significant challenges.

Those that achieve effective outcomes have clear leadership support

Fifty-six per cent of all the executives surveyed identify C-level and leadership support as a driver of success (second only to strategic focus). There is a more than interesting effective outcome split within the report (exhibit 4) that the level of interact frequency with the C-level team makes a real difference.

Surprisingly but fitting with my own observations and research, is the frequency of interactions between the separate innovation functions and C-level leadership. From this report those deemed as “very frequent” is only at 40%.

Can you image the wealth creation, new growth potential that innovation provides yet C-level engagement is only at 40% for very or extremely frequent in discussions? So is innovation that important to the C-level really?  Something is wrong here, badly wrong.  “Somewhat frequently” comes in at 17% and “rarely or not at all” is 22%.

This is the leadership gap we have suggested needs addressing, urgently. Clearly innovation “sounds good, a good sound bite” but is not top of mind for C-level as they would like us to believe, it seems.

Then McKinsey outlines the involvement with separate innovation functions at the C-level as actively involved in the innovation process, from idea generation to commercialization, is only 38%. Those involved in the evaluation and feedback on major innovation decisions, about strategic decisions and priorities of investment makes up another 35%, yet only 26% serve on an innovation council or committee and 14% report that their leadership is not involved with innovation functions at all.

So we are still badly lacking that deep C-level engagement, although the line into them is improving. The need is to get the C-level strategically engaged at least and convince them to provide the innovation framework for others we are proposing, so they do become fully involved and those responsible to work within innovation can conduct their work through the framework we are suggesting to strengthen the C-level engagement and cohesiveness of strategy with innovation activity.

Divergence and philosophical tension in innovation

So the McKinsey report is more than helpful (and timely) on providing a snapshot of practices, successes and challenges but they do suggest there is a divergence and reflection on the struggle and philosophical tensions surrounding innovation. For instance, equal shares of those surveyed, state their function exist to turn a profit, or have no financial targets at all.

Equally there are large splits on measuring individual performance with only 30% having the same performance metrics as the rest of the organization, while 32% have innovation-specific metrics and some (23%) seem to straddle the middle of the two. The lack of leaning to one form of measurement or the other needs resolution or is it evenly split due to the nature of the innovation activity the function is working upon?

The one aspect within the report I find really shocks and disappoints me

The concern lies in the number of dedicated employees on innovation, 35% of executives (out of 2,927) have ten or fewer full-time equivalents working within their function and 30% saying at least 51 full-time equivalents dedicated and working on innovation.

That is staggering low in my opinion for the area that is reportedly consistently within the top three priorities of the CEO. No wonder we have the slow innovation cycles, the poor success rates and the lack-lustre performances from innovation if these are the dedicated numbers working on innovation.

This is appalling. I just wonder how many efficiency and effectiveness people are employed across some sizeable organizations yet innovation seems grossly undeserved by these results. Putting your future into too few hands, to work on breakthroughs, those new disruptive areas means you must be forced to end up with incremental innovation for maintaining performance, and we all are seeing that clearly emerging time and time again, from most organizations not balancing their innovation activity in a well- structured and thoughtful way.

Risk, poor incentive, under-resourcing innovation and fear still dominate. When will stakeholders start asking more direct innovation questions to the boards of organizations?

The last part of the report deals with the difficulties aligning innovation.

The significant challenges in meeting strategic objectives are hampered by a range of difficulties, the highest as a % of respondents was 53% on the competition coming with short-term priorities from other parts of the business, 42% for difficulties in integrating functions strategic objective with those of the core business, 29% in difficulties in defining the functions business case or value proposition to company leaders, with 19% seeing the challenge of being separated from the rest of the company.

The conclusions  drawn from the report.

The report concludes many of these issues are cross-cutting and perennial challenges not just for innovation but for the organizations as a whole.
It reaffirms the absolute need for strategy to precede structure when organizations decide to create new innovation functions and the enabling effect an engaged C-level support brings in driving innovation success. Also it suggests that a real care to tailor the function to existing organization objectives and culture are important.

The report recommends the following:
1)      Organizations should not rely on a single innovation function, it must integrate with the entire organization
2)      There must be first a well-established and clear strategic focus
3)      A clear garnering-in from top management
4)      That C-level support is a key factor for innovation success
5)      The measures should focus more on the performance and success on the functions role in the innovation value chain, not necessarily financial targets as these can be an unreliable measure or guarantee of success.

This report is timely

After the last few weeks in laying out the business case for having an integrated framework for innovation through our executive innovation work mat, this McKinsey report reinforces that we are on the right track.

I feel even more confident that this framework we offer to bridge the innovation leadership gap can make a solid, maybe significant, contribution to reducing some of the issues and challenges that have been raised within this McKinsey report.

The McKinsey report can be found through this link.

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