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.