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.

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

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

Some of my contributions towards innovation understanding

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The essential seven parts of innovation understanding

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

At the top of our organizations they ‘require’ innovation but will often not want the potential disruption this might entail.

Yet the organization today is being challenged like never before, it has gone from managing the predictable business to responding to the unpredictable, more opportunistic and alert to change, a place innovation can fit within the need to respond to this different environment.

This is the final post in the series that has focused on the innovation work mat components

Within this final post, I look at why innovation needs to align into the organization. Innovation seems to be in conflict and tension within so much within our organizations. Innovation is challenging the established order; today’s world is also demanding a new organizational design.

The Executive Innovation Work Mat offers a framework to gain a higher level of strategic focus around innovation. Innovation requires engagement throughout the organization to deliver in today’s tougher, more challenging world.

In this series of articles I have looked at the seven components to raise questions, to probe and prompt the necessary thinking that needs to be made in organizations around building innovation that sustains and delivers to the strategic need.

Adjusting our innovation systems to the changes happening all around us

I certainly believe there is an awful amount of change occurring around innovation.

Organizations are attempting to integrate innovation far more into their existing practices.

I think many of these attempts will fail. Existing practices often are not innovation-friendly!

The old organization model built on efficiency and effectiveness, operating in predictable conditions is being destroyed, we are in the world of the disruptor. Innovation needs to be more central to organization design to counter this challenge. Innovation thrives well in networks, it gains from ‘being connected’

Innovation is at the core of a new battle for securing an organizations future, in its relevancy and importance, yet our organizations continue to struggle with where to box this.

If innovation stays a side-show the organization faces a slow demise, as it hangs on grimly, determined to continue to work in ways it has become comfortable with.

Those ‘old’ ways that values controlling in prescribed hierarchies and through rigid plans are simply struggling in today’s more connected world.

We are in uncomfortable times where past systems and structures are not fit for purpose. What is valued more today is “guiding coalitions” where iterations and co-creating thrive.

Strategy and execution are highly interrelated and it is the power of a connected network, working on common cause within innovation that can generate powerful results. ‘Connected’ and ‘collected’ intelligence gives us fresh capacity and far more promising futures.

Innovation is operating in this growing organization world of the designers’ dilemma.
The middle of our organizations continues to focus upon constantly looking to achieve efficiencies and effectiveness to deliver that more predictable result that the top really prefers.

Much of middle management is working with yesterday’s tools and techniques. Innovation is caught up in this middle kingdom and continues to be in conflict. This needs changing.

The innovator themselves, those beginning to roam around the organization, are seeking to disrupt, to challenge, to alter the established pattern as their remit is to bring new innovations into the world. They often face considerable resistance from so many antibodies to this new way of managing.

Organizations have to face this constant ‘tension’ around innovation and where it fits in design, function and structure. Innovation is today not the most comfortable space to work within in our organizations. It often seems to ‘rub’ up against much that seems immovable, innovation generates often unwanted heat and conflict.

Yet innovation is essential, it ‘must’ reside, so we need to manage this ‘creative’ tension to achieve real value out of innovation, results that have lasting impact.

Moving through this disruptive and tense world calls for a more radical response.
Organizations want to see well-defined processes and coordination happening across the functions undertaking the activities of innovation.

It wants innovation to fit within existing organizational design.

This struggle that innovation has with this ‘need to fit’ is a tough challenge. The resolution requires senior management attention to work this thoughtfully through.

It is through this designing of all the essential parts that make up innovation, that will give it the functioning fit for ‘innovation purpose’ but this takes time, engagement and dedicated energy. It needs integrating and coordinate throughout the whole organization.

Innovation is certainly no different from other functions specializing, it does need to be well-designed into the organization but it needs carefully managing, piloting through the organization and that attention to its needs has to come from the top, as it can challenge many established practices that need resolution.

Innovation requires a well-designed system, this is where risk can be managed and defined. This requires having in place a well-designed innovation framework that accounts for and builds around all that good innovation needs.

Designing an integrated innovation system that can ‘pilot’ the activities safely is critical. Organizations will not permit undue risk unless they are in desperate situations where radical actions need to come into play, regretfully these are often too little too late.

How do we design innovation into our organizations systems?

Innovation over time will become more of the core of an organization.

To do this it needs to be well-defined, fully resourced and valued.

It constantly needs to demonstrate value creation.

Organizations need to set about building distinct set of capabilities that deliver on the essentials to provide the future health of the organization.

Innovation offers ‘much needed’ fresh oxygen that allows an organization to thrive and grow. If it starves the organization of this oxygen not only innovation dies but over time so does the organization and it will die.

Innovation must fit somehow into an organizations thinking, find a way to be worked into the routines and practices to do its job of creating the growth, the advancement in new products, services and business models to compete effectively with others to attract the customer to buy.

It needs to balance risk and opportunity; to deliver both efficient and effective results, be highly visible, organized and able to deliver on its future promise.

The design of the organization’s innovation engine room is the place for managing future growth. It needs examining and managing carefully.

As the current organisational tensions are being navigated through with new organisational designs emerge, Innovation has the potential within its possible design and management that could significantly contribute to this new emerging organization order.

Every organization has some clarity in their design, function and their innovation process yet it is constantly constrained by these tensions within organizations. Today there is a need for a new architecture of design for our business as outlined here, a post relating to designing new business models.

The call is for a well-designed innovation framework.

Within this series around the Executive Innovation Work Mat, we covered the different components that make up this work mat. The overarching aim of the work mat is to address one of the missing links we face in innovation today.

We need to achieve a clear alignment and engagement on innovation with the top through to the bottom of our organizations, where a strategic innovation document or framework lays out the integrated thinking for innovation and its contribution to the strategic needs of the organization. This can provide a clarity and purpose to unite behind.

This intent is determined by aligning innovation with the strategic needs and business outlook from the Chief Executive downwards.

In conclusion to the innovation work mat series.

In my view organization engagement comes from adopting a framework that prompts identification.

By working with an integrative innovation work mat it outlines innovations critical aspects to be worked through across the organization, to gain this greater alignment to the strategic intent of the business.

Any design and engagement needs to be highly dynamic, where the learning taking place will flow throughout the organization, top-down, and bottom-up, to make innovation alive and all connected.

This endeavour starts creating a thriving innovation ecosystem. One that is fuelled by energy and organisational commitment as all can see the connected parts and their contribution to this.

Can the Executive Innovation Work Mat be the catalyst needed? I think so.

The post Organizations are in a constant dilemma of the innovation fit. first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Organizations are struggling to forge a new path in innovation function and design that captures opportunities fast and also exploits the increasing need of being adaptive and flexible.

Organizations are looking at structures for their innovation activity that are taking a more agile and focused approach, wanting to push for constantly accelerating the process. New practices are emerging.

This is demanding more radical redesigns of the function, processes and structures around innovation. Innovators are being more challenged.

Against this need for new, more radical designs there still lies that underlying concern, often at the top of our organizations, on how to manage innovation risk without significant organisational disruption.

There is this lingering fear that pushing for more radical innovation can create significant upheaval within the organization. Innovation is being challenged by the view of “we want predictable innovation but radical enough to make sure we grow.”

Innovation has to manage within this conflicting message. It is through the well-designed system, processes and function that this can happen but this needs redesigning fairly radically to adjust to today’s world of wanting innovation faster than ever.

This is the sixth post centred on the executive innovation work mat

Within this post I focus upon the function, design, structure and processes needed for successful and sustaining innovation within organizations. In a recent series of articles I have looked at the seven components to raise questions, to probe and prompt the necessary thinking that needs to be made in organizations around building innovation that sustains and delivers to the strategic need.

The lexicon of today’s existing management of innovation needs rebuilding.
You can read an incredible variety of advice on designing the innovation process.

These can include managing through idea management system software to reverting to simple ‘pen and paper’ brainstorming environments and spreadsheets.

Simply having in place some structured processes is essential to managing innovation. These can become very complex that go from idea all the way to final execution.

Then we get into the approaches to designing a portfolio to balance your innovation activity, the use of stage-gates to manage this, the whole product life-cycle process, the need for robust pipelines and well-designed platforms all enter the lexicon of managing innovation. It has become part of the lexicon of the innovator but not yet the common language we speak of, that a whole organization can talk and gather around.

Many of these systems we have become comfortable with, by working with them every day but I believe there is the need of some radical challenging and redesign needing to take place around these. Much within the innovation system needs designing out.

We need to rebuild a new common language surrounding innovation that is broader and more inclusive to all within our organizations. We need to recognize the changes taking place in competition, the need for a sense of urgency for growth and a ‘breaking out’ of the incremental mindset, that is still prevailing in many organizations.

There is a new chase for growth and even more through purposeful design.

This end choice is not which system or process has the best functions, the sexiest piece of software or the coolest design for its platform.

The choice is about going back and asking the basic of basic questions to the organizations top leadership: “what do you want innovation to achieve?”
You will get the simple answer: “growth” and also “innovation delivery needs to speed up in new products and services”.

You will also get “we need to outperform or at least keep us competitive in the market place” and then perhaps “innovation is expected to deliver what the market wants”.

These statements are all helpful but quite simply not enough. To deliver on innovations ‘promise’ you need to go deeper. Besides having a clearer strategic vision, for innovation, there needs this greater alignment to the strategic aspirations. For that, innovation needs explicit links and all of these points back to the strategic needs, goals and visions. The innovation work mat aids this exploration.

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 take place. Then it needs fully supporting and resourcing.

Today we need to think innovation outcomes differently.

The higher demand from innovation requires the system to respond far quicker 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 are requiring structures and processes that are far more agile, nimble, constantly recognizing speed as the essence of today’s competitive worlds.

The challenges that need to be addressed are replacing a linear system with a spiral one, where you constantly loop back to refit your innovation understanding back into the idea-to-launch system from the new knowledge you are gaining.

The system needs resetting around shorter bursts of high intense activity that factor in risk-based contingency, are encouraged to keep exploring and adapting.

The criteria to measure innovation passing through development, needs to become more open-ended. This can allow greater discovery periods to go where it is needed and not what the system is forcing it squeeze through a gate. The ‘go/kill’ criteria needs to change.

The system becomes a learning process to reduce uncertainty but keeps advancing on improving insights and physical demonstration that what is being investigated. This is through constant prototyping exploring and meeting customer or market needs with these stakeholders involved. As innovation discovery advances, the outcomes become more tangible, risks reduce.

We need to reduce where Innovation often sits waiting.

We need to challenge the constant waiting within the development processes for innovation.

This can be achieved through better designed systems of management perhaps a more value-stream analysis, accelerating by overlapping stages, encouraging concurrent activities, ensuring dedicated teams are assigned to properly resource projects.

We need to challenge and reduce the built-in slack within the innovation development system, wherever we can.

Today the emphasis is to maximize speed, working really hard on scoping the front end in greater detail really helps, and asking key questions on where the right track is and what this needs in resource, time and development and committing dedicated teams to the tasks.

We need to find better ways to incorporate lean principles, even six sigma into reducing the non-added value out of our innovation system. We need to provide succinct deliverable packages that tell the ‘advancement’ and learning story as the innovation concept moves along its development path.

Changing the milestone dependencies by using canvas techniques has exciting potential
We need to reduce the dependencies on financial milestones and make these more physical, with constantly evolving and functioning prototypes that demonstrate new value, so stakeholders can understand and provide even greater inputs on ‘seeing’ new value creation.

The principles that are being built up around the Business Model canvas within our business organizations offers much to be re-evaluated within our development life-cycle.

The introduction of new thinking such as the value of starting with a complete blank canvas or allowing the radical reworking of existing canvases of innovation concepts can offer new concepts to begin to be tested and evolve for products, and services as well as new business propositions.

The physical activities of testing, validating, and clarifying a more integrated design across all the parts do allow for exploring the uncertainties and risks in potentially imaginative ways. Taking a different design thinking to the development process can challenge old assumptions and processes.

We can constantly determine the critical but evolving assumptions and then work at delivering updates that can advance the development process through a dashboard approach of informing when critical assumptions or learning change.

We can take a more imaginative approach to the business model canvas to adopt many of its emerging tools and methods but this calls for a completely different mind-set in larger organizations in my opinion to their whole development process.

We are in real need to reinvigorate our innovation systems.

As I have stated in past posts, our legacy systems are holding us back today. We need to challenge our innovation functions, our existing design of the structure and processes to bring innovation into the core design of the organization, to align its value to present business conditions, where growth is required.

These do need to be more agile, adaptive and accelerated to meet the challenges and uncertainties organizations are facing. Innovation needs to step up to the plate and respond differently than in the past.

Innovation must be applied as a must to rethink and challenge what we have

Our processes and structures to manage innovation have become too linear, too rigid and far too planned, grinding through the innovation system.

Rethinking our innovation in function and designs calls for a more integrated approach offered in the Executive Innovation Work Mat.

Each of the seven components needs carefully designed to bring innovation far more into the core design of the organization and fully understood by all.

The post Are you evolving the innovation function and design first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

People disconnect because they lack what is needed to connect!  Innovation thrives from the knowledge and you need to make sure this is allowed to flow.

To achieve those essential knowledge connections, you need a shared understanding of innovation, that common sense of purpose as a framework. This will though, always stay a work-in-progress.

You need to begin to build a common language of greater understanding. We need to unite around innovation. Imagine if you work consciously to put knowledge in the hands of people willing to make innovation happen, what the potential might be?

Give people the power of the context for their innovation engagement and that shifts everything to give them a clearer shape and meaning. You are laying out the conditions, criteria and circumstances, giving innovation its foundations.

Connecting the seven parts of the Innovation Work Mat

In this series of articles I will be looking at each of the seven components within the executive innovation work mat to raise questions, to probe and prompt the necessary thinking that needs to be made in organizations around building innovation that sustains and delivers to the strategic need.

This is the fifth post in the series, here I’m exploring the essential need to build a common language, gain growing identity through knowing the context for your innovation activities by communicating these to build a lasting innovation connection and organizational awareness. This flows from the top and cascade down the organization to make the essential connections and alignment.

Giving people space through communicating the common understanding

What would happen if you allow people to openly invent, to brainstorm, to generate initial concepts and prototypes because they understand the strategic innovation framework. One that lays out a vision of meaningful innovation that would be valued as it is more aligned to the strategic direction.

For me, the executive innovation work mat moderates an organizations innovation. It can go much towards reducing the multiple interpretations and personal agenda’s of a variety of initiatives often described or justified as essential innovation but constantly miss the strategic mark.

If you have in place a clear innovation framework you offer a communicating mechanism to guide innovation activity. The framework can establish a common language, a growing sense of common cause for this to ignite innovations focused activity.

You can cascade this down the organization and actively look for the cascading effect to flow back up in new ideas, a sense of engagement and purpose.

You are looking for everyone involved to understand ‘the bigger picture’, to look towards the communicating platform so they can move their innovation activity back and forth within the structures, processes and systems designed for innovation to align them to the organizational strategic need.

Innovation becomes increasingly more connected as it is more integrated in its designs, use of resources and outcomes, to meet the more complex challenges being face in a competitive world.

Engagement can become the behavioural footprint needed for change 

If you give each person a sense of meaning, that explicit and implicit encouragement because this is coming to them in an integrated message- the seven components of the executive innovation work mat – it can shift their mind, it can direct their energies. Engagement can become the catalyst for exciting innovation if there is this sense of trust, continuity and the identification is well-constructed and makes sense.  Organizations do need a commonly shared framework that moderates innovation

There are so many aspects to get right in innovation. These can be ensuring the culture, climate and environment for innovation are working well, it could mean setting up processes, well-designed procedures and structures, it can be providing innovation governance.

Each part has a vital part to play in being combined for innovation, so it can function but these are not the core. Our identification with innovation is that core.

Working on innovation needs a deep commitment

We need to work hard to communicate that innovation is different than ‘business as usual’.

The fact ‘we’ are building something different and we need to build this together.  A counter to existing processes, the commitment need is to overcome practices honed over many years.

This needs thinking through in its value and importance.

If the Senior Executive is not totally involved in creating the imperatives needed in innovation then the organization lacks the context. Signalling the kind of innovation and breadth of impact – delivers the vital aspects.

Well stated innovation objectives can shift the focus of the organization substantially. It generates collective building capacity.

Incremental to Disruptive require different engagement points – actions send signals to the organization and having clear governance provides guidance to risk, principles and the mechanisms to manage these two ‘extremes in innovation and all in-between.

By providing a strategic innovation framework you provide consistency in purpose, you are aligning innovation to strategic need and by actively engaging across the seven components, sharing their conclusions, these can create the dynamic aspects and sense of growing identity. You need to send a compelling set of messages throughout the organization.

Innovation engagement needs a common language, a clear sense of purpose of innovations context and the mechanisms to communicate and cascade these intents throughout the organization to bring people onto the same page.

Obtaining a ‘given’ flow for innovation

Designing a new strategic innovation framework at the top of organizations helps close the many gaps we see today. There is a flow for improving innovation performance. If we don’t frame the business context how can we compare and contrast?  How do we know what we are missing or what it is meant to be achieving? When we go about seeking out opportunities we need to understand the context these are placed in.

Educating, informing, clarifying constantly simply helps formulate understanding and aids execution. We need to find ways to communicate a common language, a common way to frame the needs expected from innovation.

When we work together we can move mountains

You can eventually achieve a common identity that begins to move ‘mountains’ through collective achievement, one that is both distinctive and unique to your organization. A clear uniqueness that can never be copied, one that allows you to stand out as true distinctive innovators, admired and even envied.

We get closer to achieving a consistent, more vibrant innovation as it becomes more routine and embedded, for it becomes increasingly linked to everyone’s goals, a certain oneness and because of this, it is sustaining.

We identify as we understand what our contribution will be, then the leadership has done its primary job, its aligned innovation purpose to the goals, by laying out the parameters to achieve this.

Successful CEO’s achieve organisational connection

CEO’s that are seen to be successful achieve connections, what is often called that emotional connection through describing the context, setting the values and vision-driven criteria and by often pushing the organization towards ‘impossible goals’.

It is amazing how this brings alignment as long as it is consistent, constant in its messages and widely shared and understood and the organization see’s the leadership engaging, visibly seeking and believing in innovation and what it can potentially deliver.

Delivering a coherent and consistent innovation message that resonates

This engagement needs a different honing than most organizations are certainly not capable of delivering, without thinking long and hard about the way they must undertake a more transformational pathway.

I suggest the Choice – Cascade integrated innovation model. One that can connect and deliver a consistent and coherent innovating performance across the organization.

I believe there is an essential gap within the way we set about innovation today. There is needing to be well-articulated and well-communicated innovation strategy that flows both ways in searching for the best solutions that align to the organizational strategic needs.

We need to find more fluid and flexible organizations that respond through searching for innovation consistency. They need to have a ‘flow’ of knowledge, of clarity, of a sense of scale in their learning and dialogues that promotes greater successful innovation outcomes as the sense of on-going mission.

The orchestrator needs to orchestrate.

 We need to align, offer clear vision and purpose and this needs orchestrating from the top of the organization to the bottom. Organizations need an integrated innovation strategic framework that can deliver commonality in understanding, in purpose, in language. Then this needs to be cascaded

To do this you must orchestrate the capabilities, to purposefully build innovation. Orchestration is fundamentally dynamic, full of uncertainties but the need is still to connect the parts. To orchestrate you need to communicate and conduct to make the innovation music

The important “C’s” of innovation

For me, the central part of the Executive Innovation Work Mat has been deliberately placed, it conveys the important “C’s”of innovation.

This is made up of the search to build a common language, to put innovation in its appropriate context, to work on communicating and cascading this throughout the organization can spark the distinctive aspects.

The ultimate aim is identification, understanding and then build up the capability, capacity and competencies required to deliver on the integrated approach taken. This is led from the top through this work mat approach and fully cascaded throughout the organization to align and bring innovation to life for all involved.

The post Successful Innovation needs a common language, context and communicating first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I often think of the parable of “The Elephant and the Blind Men” when I get into discussions about measuring innovation.

What are truths, what are the fallacies?  The parable implies that one’s often subjective experience can be true on your need, but not necessarily the other person’s view of their understanding of value.

You get, as the end result, a failure to account for other ‘beliefs’ or capture the real value and miss providing broader motivations to encourage the innovation elephant along.

Establishing the right metrics that motivate and yield the result you are looking for is sometimes a tough challenge. You should always start with the bigger picture, organizational needs and then design the metrics and cascade these throughout the organization.

This part of the series explores the Innovation Work Mat

In a series of articles I will be looking at each of the seven components within the executive innovation work mat to raise questions to probe and prompt the necessary thinking that needs to be made in organizations at different management levels determined to build a lasting innovation competence and structure.

Within this work mat series I’ve already offered some opening thoughts on the role of Governance and Innovation, and also the Environment for innovation matters to innovate followed by the innovating conditions for your Culture and Climate.

This is the fourth article aimed at deeper engagement and understanding of the connected parts within innovation management on Metrics and Motivations.

Raising some initial thoughts here.

We really struggle to describe, then measure and then find the right motivations and reward mechanisms and then achieve broad agreement, on something as important as innovation.

If we link metrics into the reward and compensation structure then we release all the energy, passion and anguish and these can serve in many contrary ways.

Linking compensation into all the competing motivations to manage and reward innovation activity is fraught with problems and can have many negative consequences.

Again my elephant comes back into view wandering around in your board room – it can disrupt everything as it charges after the results that it wants, trampling much that is good in its path.

Today’s particular trend of focusing on short-term performance can limit innovation significantly and has innovation consequences.

Let’s look at metrics and motivations with greater connected awareness.

At the end of the story on the elephant and the blind men, a wise man was passing; listened to all the different views of why no one could agree on what they thought the elephant was like. The wise man then replied “All of you are right; you were touching different parts of the elephant so the elephant has all the features as you all said”

Metrics and motivation can really make innovation happen

The value of the measures lies in resolving these eight different questions: 1) are they clear and simple 2) are they relevant to you and the central issues 3)are they timely in what can be achieved, 4)are they credible to the stakeholders involved 5) do they relate to the importance of the goals or trivial, 6) can we act upon them 7) are they consistent to the strategic message and aligned, and finally, 8) are all the investment in these measurements and motivators to capture and analyse, seem sensible and affordable, and lead to real impact in aiding innovation to achieve the goals required.

We do need to focus on the future innovating purpose surely?

The innovation links to any measurement system I would argue should point towards the organization’s strategic need and the innovation outcomes required. Within this there are broadly three parts: 1) knowing the organization’s future-orientated vision and the general direction that innovation needs to take, 2) along with the strategic carriers in types, priorities, functions, the indicated mix of innovation activities and then 3) the growth gap that exposes the organizations’ challenges, so as to bridge these knowledge and resource gaps.

These can build innovation capacity today for future innovating outcomes as they are focused on future work to be done.

For me the output intention of the Integrated Executive Innovation Work Mat should be driving the business case for how innovation contributes and offers the what, where, when, and why within the communications for others to be mobilized into actions and build out build upon this strategic working document.

Then we set about communicating it to the organization

I have written before about the cascading effect and communicating value that can support this. Then our metrics begin to cascade down to bring people, the process, and the innovative design of inputs and outputs turn into successful alignment outcomes can come into play. I’ll broaden out my thinking on this area in the next post.

It is within the leadership of organizations to become intimately involved in what is important in innovation for their organization, otherwise, we are back to the elephant and the blind men. All others simply believe they have the answer. Leadership needs to really engage in where it ‘expects’ innovation to yield its results and then ensures it links reward to this set of outcomes.

So what does success look like?

We should start with the ideals that our innovation activities should be pervasive, to be sustainable and we need to deliver clear business results mapped to known and potential unrecognised customer needs as our primary incentive points.

We need to layout the building blocks to ‘group’ management and employee identification with what is innovation success. It can begin to motivate all the stakeholders involved. This gives us the opportunity to evaluate appropriate resources, provide the workable benefits related to learning, encourage the identification of problems and encourage the identification of solutions and set about communicating to all involved the understanding of what success can look like.

Building the innovation metric and motivation scorecard there are hundreds of measures you could bring into anything; the skill is you need to find only the right few that focus upon the results you really need achieving. They need to somehow “talk to each other” so they are mutually reinforcing and all involved are pulling in a similar direction.

What gets measured should connect and matter – an example

I like one I came across some years back, by Cap Gemini, which firstly suggested you define what innovation was going to be about. Their example was “a robust creative process that turns out very distinct outputs with significant impact in the market place” and then worked on a scale for assessing the degree of innovativeness on a three-dimensional grid of Impact, Distinctiveness and Creative Process.

This then becomes the measuring and motivation barometer tied to the strategic need of an organization of what is expected out of innovation. That sort of complete picture can only come from the senior managements full committed to “wanting distinct outputs of significant impact in the market place”

I think Bain & Co offered also a really valuable performance measuring framework.

This framework offers a really good structure to begin to measure and link the organization. I think it can stimulate initial thinking well.

(click to enlarge)

There is a case for approaching measurement differently through the intangibles that make up most of our capital.

Measuring attempts need to take into account the many intangibles that make up innovation and make them tangible. Understanding the relationships within our intangibles allows groups to benchmark, diagnose, allocate resources, inform others and compensate employee’s efforts through their ongoing knowledge learning. The understanding of our intangibles is for me vital to crack.

Getting this right is increasingly important as the intellectual capitals are being recognized as the real value creation intersections. Establishing the metrics that focus on generating valuable innovation also helps extend ambition and future goals, pushing future innovation strategies as you grow in confidence and understanding of these dynamics.

To end we go back to avoid the story of the Elephant and the blind men.

By taking the integrated approach through the work mat, senior leaders can  offer strategic guidelines into the measures and motivations, by laying out their beliefs and expectations from innovation. They can’t afford to leave this open-ended, just being hopeful, innovation activities need essential alignment.

If we continue to allow the ‘blind men’ to offer their separate opinions and then decide in isolation of the bigger picture, they ‘see’ only their part of the elephant.

I believe if you put in place that critical strategic innovation document, wrestled out of engaging across all the work mat parts, the metrics and motivators can ‘form’ around this strategic intent. This can drive innovation performance.

Seeing the whole picture is the team sitting on (at) the top, directing the innovation elephant along its journey to the destination where they want it to go. Metrics and motivations follow as the path is clearer to measure and travel. We need those wise men to clarify this.

The post Measuring and motivating the innovation elephant first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Tackling the culture and climate that is needed to create a thriving innovation environment is complex.

In this post I can only touch on certain points to trigger that deeper examination and offer the stimulus and considerations it needs.

Within the Executive Innovation Work Mat we have seven domains or components that need bringing together to form a new integrated knot.

The aim of the work mat is to draw the senior executive into the innovation process and to support them as they think through what is required to build a more sustaining and integrated innovation understanding within the organization. Their role is a strategic one that sets the conditions and overview on innovation.

Tackling the culture and climate needs for innovation is my third article for raising questions in potential innovators minds. I have already offered some thoughts on Governance for innovation and the Environment conditions required. Before this current series I have extensively focused on the strategic alignment and leadership considerations for their engagement through this work mat approach.

Culture and the necessary climate do have a considerable effect on management practices.

I always gain the impression that the ‘harder side’ of innovation through its processes, technologies, structures and functions gets the greater attention. Partly because this is the more tangible side, yet the ‘softer side’ of climate, culture and environment makes or breaks innovation. “Culture is the playing field of the actions, transactions and interactions” (Hattori and Wycoff,2002) of the people who search and ‘work’ innovation. Dealing with a change in culture is complex.

• It is generally recognized culture moderates innovation, presently the phrase “culture eats strategy for breakfast” attests to that. It influences the management practice, it provides the climate for relationships, and it directly influences behaviours and performance. Attention needs to always be paid to creating a positive culture and climate
• To foster innovation the ability to create an environment and culture that promotes creativity, promotes engagement and stimulates the ability to learn and embrace change needs knowledge to flow across the organization.
• The climate for innovation is the signals individuals receive on the expectations and outcomes required from innovation. This needs strategic alignment. This needs reinforcing in governance, function and design, structures, metrics, rewards, hence the real value of an integrated executive innovation work mat approach.

By working constantly on providing the ‘right’ conditions and climate required for innovation allows the culture to evolve and become increasingly innovative as part of its make-up. An innovation culture makes it so much easier for senior management to implement innovation strategies and plans.

Along with the environment, culture and climate determine either success or poor performance in eventual outcomes and the potential for sustaining innovation performance.

Creating a culture for innovation requires a new social contract.

In the mid-nineties the work of Goffee and Jones provided this idea of the social contract. If you want to set about establishing a new way of behaving it does need to become a new social contract.

The risk was that if it was not clearly seen as an improvement over the old, it just did not work any better, it would be consigned to being little more than the latest initiative or fad and treated as such. To change the culture requires the management of attention (Van de Van, 1996) otherwise you are constantly moving through different crisis.

• It is the management of the organization that determines the culture, its values, its practices and behaviours.  It is theirs to create. The creating of one that promotes creativity, is fully engaged, and has shared values and beliefs.
• The culture of the organization is ultimately a reflection of the leaderships own approach to their practices. If the leadership is seen to seek the short-term, varies its operating practices and does not apply the same value and practices it expects from others, it will never start a positive cultural change for managing innovation, unless through threat and fear, and that is not sustaining.

If an organization wishes to build a unique competitive edge, it is largely going to come through its people, the culture and practices they wish to stimulate.

In truth we face the hard questions that need leadership resolution?

• Culture can be the most important barrier to delivering on innovation programmes as Culture has a profound influence on innovation’s success, where is it in your thinking?
• Replacing all the past years of efficiency and right-sizing what will bridge the present feeling of little incentive, low energy, desire or motivation to consider new ideas or initiatives? Why would employees stick their hand up to be seen? The risks?
• How do you break the existing ‘business as usual’ culture that dominates?
• What do you do to overcome the “not-invented here” syndrome often found in most functions? How are you breaking down the silo’s of activity and knowledge?
• The organization ‘antibodies’ will fight innovation if they feel threatened
• What about all those years of pursuing the short-term, reacting to those ‘prevailing’ market conditions by downsizing becomes ‘baked in’ so anything new that is challenging this has a serious set of barriers to overcome. Can this change? Leaders need to decide.
• If you have employed the approach over many years of incremental is innovation how can you alter these existing behaviours, routines and practices associated with this ‘improvement’ only mentality?
• Middle managers fall back and use their existing tools, methods and techniques in poor attempts to manage innovation. They feel threatened and vulnerable and will block change unless they become part of the solution and not seen as ‘locked into’ part of the problem. This is a critical blocking point for innovation to ‘take hold’ or not.
• People are rational actors; they gravitate to the tasks aligned to their elevation, job description, reward metrics and background training.
• The choice of work tends to move towards safe, familiar products, structures and systems over the potential ‘risk’ associated with innovation unless something radically changes.
• Any system that reinforces the status quo will resist innovation as it is risky and insecure.
• Irrespective of the demands for innovation from the top, the established culture simply resists or makes token efforts.

So which ones apply in truth within your organization to resolve?

Our solutions need organizations to play for the long game.

There is the need to change many of the current factors that make up the culture and climate to achieve full engagement but this takes time and serious top management commitment

• It is recognized by 70% of our organizations from research, they regard the CEO as the most important source of developing a culture for innovation to thrive and survive.

• To identify the conditions to make this sort of substantial change in the necessary cultural attributes and characteristics is really hard work
• Changing prevailing attitudes, behaviours, compensation and rewards needs careful, considered and dedicated attention
• Corporate culture does not change easily or quickly, often the old submerges often waiting for the right time to resurface and regain its grip on this is the ‘why we do things around here’
• The work of a HR team and talent recognitions on how to innovate, the attributes, the traits and characteristics, and then understanding these needs auditing to discover what you have in potential. This enables you to decide what needs to come into the organisation to infuse it differently and then be specifically managed.
• This whole programme of possible renewal needs a robust internal and externally supporting set of programmes.

In summary we need to offer a culture that will look so different.

The ultimate aim is to instil a culture that places trust, open communication, and those behaviours that seek out innovation and rise to the challenge. A more open, confident culture that actively manages the risk, opportunities and learning as natural and exciting. One that has ‘measured failure’ as part and parcel of the knowledge gained and drawn experiences within the new culture.

A place where there is a growing sense of personal accountability, passion and pride and a reverence, appreciation and respect for tapping into the talent and knowledge that resides inside and outside the organization, where collaboration and networking is second nature.

Lastly where the orientation is outward looking, identification with the customer and their experience dominates thinking and innovation design.

People are the vital part in innovation

It can only be re-emphasised that people are the vital part to innovation, everything else is subservient. To build a lasting culture to innovate requires significant engagement and commitment and this can only come from the top with nothing else than their full engagement, otherwise it will not be perceived as important.

Changing the culture needs addressing in a comprehensive fashion or you will be left with much of the existing culture that will prevail and innovation’s performance will remain as it is currently, or will be much poorer if you attempt to meddle only with selective parts .

Is your organization’s existing innovation good enough? I would certainly question that it is in today’s hyper competitive globally connected world but tackling the culture needs real strategic commitment? The work mat draws out the issues to then wrestle with them and find the level of engagement achievable and what this will truly mean in the organization’s lasting bond with innovation. Leadership can only decide.

The post Recognizing the conditions for changing innovation in culture and climate first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

The Executive Innovation Work Mat methodology requires investigation and engagement across the seven domains or components that make up the work mat.  The aim of any work mat discussions undertaken with executives focuses upon bringing out the parts necessary for innovation to happen and that needs an integrated approach and lasting engagement from senior management.

In a series of articles I will be looking at each of the seven components within the work mat to raise questions to probe and prompt the necessary thinking that needs to be made in organizations determined to build a lasting innovation competence and structure.

I’ve already offered some opening thoughts on Governance and Innovation, for me one of the basic building blocks for innovation lies in creating the right conditions for an Environment to innovate.

So what are those environmental conditions required for innovation?

You can’t escape the fact having the right environment for innovation means different things to different people. It has general conditions, a ‘broad church’ approach that needs to be consciously set about to create the atmosphere that encourages and nurtures innovation.

The environment needs to be connected into the vision around innovation, it needs to offer many of the conditions that connect innovation in people’s minds, so it translate into “that fantastic place to work” or “I feel listened too, valued and making a contribution”. Innovation needs the right conditions and for your organization to foster a unique environment to prosper and grow.

The Environment offers the place, time and space to chase after those innovation challenges. It ‘creates’ conditions that inspire you, you want to be stretched both in mind and body to achieve something worthwhile, valued and making a contribution, turning ideas into winning propositions.

The environment needs to resonate so you can feel the buzz.

Increasingly organizations are recognizing the cubicles and boxes provided are killing creativity, reducing communications and creating the space for increased withdrawal. We are killing the meaning at work.

For innovation to work, we need to open up the minds, work hard at creating a physical space that is well designed, offering the opportunity for allowing engagement in. To achieve a certain association with a working environment makes people comfortable and wanting to be more creative, engaged and eager to take part.

We need to offer creative spaces, we need to let in light, and we want to offer back the “inner work life” that gives up the emotions, motivations and perceptions as suggested by Teresa Amabile in her co-authored piece “How leaders kill meaning at work.”  People need a sense of purpose beyond the mundane and it does come from the working conditions with the consistent actions to reinforce this, and this comes from the top of organizations.

Firstly we need to reflect on what innovation needs to overcome

• Innovation spans multiple time frames; it cuts across business disciplines and challenges the corporate silo. Every corporate boundary set up in physical space, in rules and regulations is already full of ‘yawning’ gaps for ideas and energy to flow across and close those disconnected gaps.

• There are considerable hurdles for innovation to overcome. The larger your organization the harder it is for innovation to flow. Executives need to consciously work on breaking down boundaries, challenge fixed mind sets,inertia or dogma’s and conflicting needs that lurk in each corner of the building or across the global organization.

• The ability to consciously encourage a positive supportive environment is vital. The ability to draw people in, to unite them over goals, priorities and their allocated responsibilities and how they are open and receptive are simply a daily task we need to work on, all the time.

Measures for the environment start with the ‘broad brush’ and then refine

• Executives through a ‘broad brush’ approach can define interactions, behaviours and resolution procedures. These generalizations become important; they give you the line of sight, the ability to measure your environment and evaluate how it is functioning. Your can begin to ‘sense and feel’ this.

• Organizations increasingly need to develop the conditions that allow people the collective abilities to react quickly and be more agile in their work. The ability to be authentic and get the true needs on the table, understood and shared provides closer association and part of any organizations greater alignment objectives

• Then you seek out the ability to create top down, bottom up combinations and where you work consciously to reduce the middle that is often blocking this.

• Finally, the combination of abstract levels for encouragement of fresh thinking and the ability to provide degrees of freedom to organize and act are important to build for the right environment conditions.

Structuring the conditions for the innovation environment

Organizations clearly struggle with complexity. Knowing where the knowledge resides helps unlock this. The growing use of centres of excellence can help here

There is an increasing recognition that knowledge management does need a system that structures it accordingly so people can explore its key phases to help them. I’ve written a fair number of times on Absorptive Capacity and its great value to managing the knowledge flows required for innovation. We need to acquire, assimilate, transform and exploit and our complexity needs to address these basic needs.

The openness to others both internal and external, needs creating the right open conditions to change, to exchange, to encourage that ability to act so as to capture and communicate opportunities that are flowing all around you, inside and outside your organizations.

A code of trust becomes so vital to creating the right conditions for an environment to innovate. I wrote some time about the two sides of an equation for shaping innovation. One was the environment and other was its governance. Governance must be explicit on trust and how it intends to foster and manage this. If you lose trust, you lose the pulse required for innovation. These two together offer the conditions to allow innovation to prosper or be constantly constrained.

The challenge is redesigning the new workspace

We are working far more at managing by exception and innovation aids this learning. We are working through the combining of vertical and physical worlds, we are extending beyond our own ‘working’ environment increasingly. Environments need to permit individuals to ‘craft their own ways’ through what they learn, how they engage, what they contribute. Our environment needs to embrace a more social one. Knowledge understanding and translation need the right environment to be allowed to flow.

We need to give greater recognition to the organizations intangibles.

We can so much easier relate to the tangibles within our organization. If you can touch it, you can measure it. Well you need to understand the intangibles make up far more of the value of our organizations, some up to 80% and also are essential to understand their source. Intangibles within our environment are made up of the attitudes, outlooks, our ability, space and feeling that allows for greater creative thinking. They make up much within our relationships, networks and connections to allow us to work or block us to feel frustrated.

We seek to encourage open expression, to challenge strange and often those many constraints in our working conditions that need challenging and resolving to either thrive or die. These are invisible walls to the naked eye but can be as permanent as any walls or the things we can touch. Much within our make-up is very intangible and implicit and needs to find space to grow, be valued and be demonstrated in explicit ways. I’ve written before about the ‘nested effects‘ of knowing all our capitals.

Giving responsibility for innovation to everyone

Lastly, I wrote finding space for growing innovation and it brings me back to setting up the general conditions for the environment to innovate. These statements of intent have real value: We need shared responsibility for innovation, we need to encourage knowledge as a central task, we need to work on being ‘collectively conscious, knowing our space and beyond for contributing to innovation. We need to foster respect for others knowledge and expertise and we need to become increasingly adaptive.

The environment we must seek for innovation needs to provide the ‘dynamics’ within our organization’s social fabric, to allow the conditions we believe in too simply flow. Getting those general conditions established allows innovation to take hold and become our future culture.

The post The environment for innovation does really matter first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I’ve had one of those weeks where a certain realization took hold, something that had been nagging away at you suddenly surfaces and slaps you in the face. Ouch!

I have just completed my own gap analysis on how I have explained the Executive Innovation Work Mat methodology and its value.  It actually was a bit of an eye-opener. I was surprised in this audit of all associated posts, articles and papers written by myself or in collaboration with Jeffrey Phillips, that there were some very glaring gaps in my posts on explaining this methodology.

The Innovation Work Mat has seven components or domains

What was crazy here is the fact I have the research, the component parts all worked through, structured and being used in actual engagements to prompt the essential discussions, yet I had not been publishing these enough through my posts to underpin the methodology.

I had been missing essential domain component messages that are the very essence of why you need to work around the entire work mat as essential. I was missing the opportunity to publically talk about ALL the parts as it is the combining of these that does provide its value as an integrated approach to innovation that can cascade throughout the organization.

What was leading, what was lagging?

It reminded me on how important it is to do an audit of your inventory, where you have moved in ‘given’ directions, what you either forget or become blindsided too and what was ‘leading and lagging’ and recognize (eventually) you were missing important associated work mat branding messages that validated its real value.

My work mat messaging had been aimed more at the top of organizations and not across the organization’s working need for this work mat. I was not delivering the value of the work mat to the whole audience that requires understanding and identification for building a comprehensive innovation infrastructure.

I was focusing less on delivering the relevant messages to the very people working in the innovation space, those needing this strategic guidance and support, wanting association and the feeling of total organization engagement. That was for me a big “ah-hah” moment. I needed to broaden out my message explaining the work mat components.

The tough sell of innovation

In truth, it is a hard sell to the top in organizations on innovation, they believe simply by appointing a Chief Innovation Officer and letting them get on with the job, then the board has done enough to make innovation work. Wrong!

Then they believe they can simply turn their attention to other businesses, still not figuring out why they are not growing enough or why they are running behind their competitors in the global marketplace yet they are demanding innovation!

Innovation needs the board levels explicit focus on making innovation a core within the organization.

What was lagging in explanation?

I need to gain the essential identification those that are working in innovating need to ‘spread the word’ within their organization on ALL of what needs to combine and then fit together to allow innovation to really work.

The place to start is the value of the Executive Innovation Work Mat and the Role Senior Executives must play in innovation’s success.

So I am starting to address these individual component parts. I started last week on Governance and innovation. There is a need to give each of the seven components further dedicated and explicit posts too.

I want to take each component and outline the reasons on its importance on why we must ask and explore the different questions raised by all the parts that make up innovation.

So I will explore the need for creating the right Environment for Innovation and why it is so critical. Then I felt I should be providing a greater examination of the make-up of all the aspects within Recognizing the Conditions for the Culture and Climate, so essential to stimulating the right conditions for innovation

Then I realized that all the collective material I had not focused on was a more exclusive post around the thorny subject of Metrics and Motivations to Innovate – a place of much anguish!  Then I was lacking this broader exploration of our central component of Common Language, Context and Communications to achieve the deepening of innovation within organizations, although I had touched on this here.

The final part I want to explore more is Function, Structure, Process and Design  as this needs some specific prompters and clarifier’s as well. Then a final summary of the Organizations Innovation’s Dilemma completes this series on the makeup of the components within the Innovation Work Mat.

The seven components that make up the Executive Innovation Work Mat have been extensively researched and structured for client engagements. All the components and rationale had all been covered in the initial white paper or the subsequent follow-up articles but some of these had been allowed to lie a little too fallow in offering the component rationale and updating the understanding deriving from the ongoing work.

Getting the message out there for all to see

The public side of the work mat had been a little neglected; it needed some re-work beyond a lick of paint. So I thought this is the right time to resolve this and target the broader innovation audience, those that get ongoing identification and value out of having this innovation work mat in place.

So I want to ‘set about’ correcting this and bring the Work Mat message back on track in recognizing the seven components that make it up are integrated and equally important.

I do need to provide the probing and prompting that lies behind the ‘promise’ by applying the work mat methodology.

I need to offer far more on what does actually makes up the content and knowledge sitting behind this work mat approach.  I only trust you see the value as much as others do, once you become fully engaged in all the parts of the Executive Innovation Work Mat.

Over the coming weeks, a series of posts will emerge to address this set of oversights.

****This post has been** Updated** with the actual links into the posts that followed this intent to broaden out and share the thinking behind this integrated innovation work mat.

The post Correcting an innovation oversight sometimes hits you hard! first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.