Let's face it. If there's no executive involvement - beyond the occasional communication touting the importance of innovation - your organization's aspirations for steady state value creation will never be fully realized. However, even if you're fully committed to innovation, as a senior leader your efforts will be hindered if you....
If all of this was simple, there'd be no barrier to entry, no competitive advantage, no way to differentiate a culture of innovation from your competitive set. Everyone would already be great at it. But you (and, yes, your competitors) can create HUGE value differentiation if you do what's needed to build a sustained culture of innovation. It might be wise to get there before your competitors, don't you think?
Clear, differentiating, innovation competency success is possible. However, there will need to be a change to culture, process, procedure and budget. And you know culture eats strategy faster than I ate my grandma's German chocolate cake. You'd better learn what you need to learn as an executive, or - if your competition gets serious before you do - you're going to go hungry in the near future.
# 2: Over-delegate.
Of course, you'll delegate some of this work. But you must never lose active oversight! As the most senior executive in your area or organization, you are unlikely to have the time to add more to your plate. So you will have to engage others in a long-term (permanent) way.
But you MUST put steady monitoring meetings on your calendar, and make yourself accessible to the innovation culture leader as much as you would to your financial officer. They will need you to push things forward, arbitrate in budget fights, and help make sure factors creating cultural resistance are overcome. We've seen too many executive communications espousing the importance of innovation, but with no meat on the behavioral bones. People will call BullS&!t pretty quickly. Then you'll be in the "we tried it before and it didn't work" hole. Listen to the story in the video below about how one employee - who had created significant intellectual property value for the company many times - voiced his frustration at low executive "innovation intelligence."
# 3: Think innovation is about products and services only.
New value can be created at any level or place in your organization. New products are wonderful, but if you lack innovation in manufacturing, sales, marketing, operations, management, talent development, engagement, finance... (i.e. every function) you will be out-classed. Innovation is everyone's responsibility. But mostly yours. This video makes the point well:
# 4: Create negative buzz in your own company.
If you try and fail, or don't approach this with serious training and accountability metrics, you'll have the kind of employee reaction outlined in the second video. These dynamics will kill engagement and cost you treasure. Don't make the mistakes that the leaders (described in the first video above) did. Stay away from innovation efforts until you're serious, and be careful of dangerous obsessions. If you are serious, you're ready for the short eBook we wrote. You can download it, or a podcast of it here: Demystifying Innovation Culture Efforts.
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