Category Archives: collaboration

Leading Your External Innovation Network

Orchestrating Collaboration

Leading Your External Innovation Network

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

The days when a single organization could dominate innovation solely through internal R&D labs are over. In the age of exponential change, innovation is a contact sport. As a thought leader focused on human-centered change and innovation, I see the most successful companies shifting their focus from being self-sufficient inventors to becoming expert orchestrators of external networks. They understand that the collective intelligence of an ecosystem—comprising startups, universities, competitors, and even customers—far exceeds the capability of any lone corporation.

Leading an external innovation network is fundamentally different from managing an internal team. It requires shifting from command-and-control to influence and co-creation. It’s about building a robust, diverse, and fluid network of partners who share a common purpose but bring radically different skills and perspectives. This isn’t just “open innovation”; it’s strategic, purpose-driven collaboration, designed to achieve breakthroughs that would be impossible alone. The challenge for today’s leaders is not acquiring external assets, but mastering the art of the symbiotic relationship, where mutual value and growth are guaranteed.

The Three Imperatives of Network Orchestration

To successfully lead an external innovation network, a leader must focus on three core imperatives:

1. Define the Shared Problem, Not the Solution

External partners aren’t looking for a contract; they’re looking for a mission. Your organization must clearly articulate the Wicked Problem it aims to solve (e.g., “How do we make urban logistics carbon-neutral?” rather than “We need a faster drone model”). Defining the problem invites a diversity of approaches and technologies. Defining the solution constrains creativity and filters out the radical ideas often found outside your walls. This clarity establishes the shared purpose that binds the network.

2. Design the Interface for Trust and Speed

Bureaucracy kills collaboration. The interface between your company and its external partners must be lean, fast, and built on psychological safety. This means simplifying IP agreements, offering flexible contracting models (like joint ventures or co-development agreements rather than simple vendor contracts), and establishing clear, transparent communication channels. Trust is the transactional currency of the external network, and a fast, clear process is the best way to earn it, particularly with agile startups.

3. Cultivate a Portfolio of Relationship Models

Not all external partners are created equal. A startup requires venture capital and mentorship; a university needs joint research grants and data access; a mature competitor might require a formal standards consortium. Successful orchestrators manage a portfolio of relationship models, matching the right type of engagement (e.g., challenge, investment, acquisition, co-development) to the specific partner and the innovation maturity level. This avoids treating every partner like a transactional vendor.

The Internal Barrier: Managing Cultural Change

External innovation is doomed to fail if the internal culture remains resistant. Leaders must proactively combat the pervasive “Not Invented Here” (NIH) syndrome. This requires:

Mandating “External Ambassadors”: Creating roles or rotating assignments where internal experts are rewarded for successfully sourcing and integrating external ideas.
Measuring Network Health: Shifting innovation metrics to include Relationship Velocity (how fast partners move from ideation to pilot), Diversity Index (the variety of partners used), and the Rate of External Integration.
Celebrating External Wins: Publicly celebrating the external partners and the internal teams who worked with them, positioning collaboration as a prestigious act of corporate agility.

The goal is to transform internal employees from being gatekeepers of ideas into curators and integrators of solutions.

Case Study 1: P&G’s Connect + Develop (C+D) Program

The Challenge:

In the early 2000s, P&G realized its internal R&D productivity was declining, despite massive investment. They were constrained by the “Not Invented Here” syndrome and needed to source more ideas and technologies from the outside to meet ambitious growth targets.

Network Orchestration Model:

P&G fundamentally shifted its innovation strategy to Connect + Develop (C+D). This was not a passive idea submission portal; it was a global, active network orchestration effort. They created specialized internal “Technology Entrepreneurs” whose sole job was to scout, broker, and integrate external innovations. Key partnerships included:

NineSigma: Used to run open challenges and solicit solutions from a vast network of scientists and small firms worldwide.
Innovation Intermediaries: Partnering with consultants and organizations that specialize in linking technology with unmet consumer needs.

Crucially, P&G made its own proprietary technologies available to partners, fostering a two-way intellectual property exchange built on mutual benefit. P&G offered scale and market access; partners offered speed and radical concepts.

The Innovation Impact:

Within a few years, C+D was responsible for over 50% of P&G’s product initiatives and billions in revenue growth. Iconic products like the Swiffer Duster and Olay Regenerist were either fully or substantially developed using external technology. P&G demonstrated that external innovation is not a marginal activity but the main engine of corporate growth when expertly orchestrated.

Case Study 2: BMW’s Open Manufacturing Platform (OMP)

The Challenge:

BMW, like all automotive manufacturers, faced the challenge of digitizing its vast, complex global production network. Achieving real-time data analysis, predictive maintenance, and operational efficiencies required a common data and technology standard across its supply chain and factory floor, a goal too large for one company to tackle.

Network Orchestration Model:

Instead of building a proprietary solution, BMW co-founded the Open Manufacturing Platform (OMP) with Microsoft. OMP is an open, community-driven initiative built on open standards and open source technologies (specifically, the Microsoft Azure cloud platform). The goal was to create a common reference architecture for industrial IoT and AI solutions. BMW actively encouraged competitors and suppliers—including Daimler, Bosch, and hundreds of smaller tech firms—to join. They relinquished proprietary control to foster a pre-competitive collaboration space for infrastructure, ensuring they could focus their internal R&D on differentiated applications.

The Innovation Impact:

By orchestrating this platform, BMW gained access to a wider pool of talent and accelerated the development of key manufacturing solutions. The OMP rapidly became an industry standard, benefiting BMW by creating a harmonized, scalable technology ecosystem that they could then build differentiated applications on top of. This case illustrates leading an external network not through ownership, but through platform stewardship, focusing on shared infrastructure to unlock superior results for all participants, dramatically reducing the cost and risk of digital transformation.

The future belongs to the innovation ecosystem architect. To succeed, leaders must cultivate a culture that views external partners not as threats or transactional vendors, but as co-investors in a shared future. It requires courage to give up some control, trust to open up the IP discussion, and clarity to define the societal or market challenge you are collectively addressing. By mastering the orchestration of this dynamic network, your organization can move from incremental improvement to exponential, sustainable breakthrough.

Extra Extra: Futurology is not fortune telling. Futurists use a scientific approach to create their deliverables, but a methodology and tools like those in FutureHacking™ can empower anyone to engage in futurology themselves.

Image credit: Google Gemini

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Designing Innovation – Accelerating Creativity via Innovation Strategy

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Designing Innovation - Accelerating Creativity via Innovation Strategy

GUEST POST from Douglas Ferguson

To innovate is to survive.

As an overwhelming 80% of founders believe innovation to be the heart of organizational growth, employing an innovation strategy that promotes, facilitates, and feeds innovation is essential.

Developing a solid plan for facilitating innovation in your organization is a necessary step in your company’s growth. In this article, we’ll discuss the best ways to harness innovation as we explore the following topics:

The Source of Innovation
What is an Innovation Strategy?
Strategizing for Innovation
Innovating from Within
A System of Innovation

The Source of Innovation

Innovation often feels like a form of magic: it’s a powerful yet elusive force that drives the best ideas and creates the greatest breakthroughs. While some prefer to wait for inspiration to strike, happenstance is hardly the driving force behind innovation.

The true source of innovation is the organization itself. Leaders must intentionally create systems, processes, and strategies that allow for innovation at every turn.

Innovation is similar to any other corporate function as it requires careful strategizing to make the best ideas come to life. In doing this, leaders can set the stage and make the most innovative ideas and processes a regular practice in their organization. Ultimately, innovation may appear in the initial spark of a great idea, but it takes purposeful, thoughtful, and conscious planning for a great idea to exist beyond that moment of genius.

What is an Innovation Strategy?

Driving organizational innovation starts with creating an innovation strategy. An innovation strategy identifies processes that allow for the most creative and effective solutions.

The ideal innovation strategy allows an organization to zero in on its audience’s expectations by:

Identifying customers’ unmet needs
Targeting these needs for growth

A healthy innovation strategy allows an organization to create the most efficient pathways to resolving these needs and growing its company. Effective strategies for innovation follow a prioritization method to help teams understand which ideas hold the highest return. In creating a solid innovation strategy, leaders must develop a system that can be repeated time and again.

Strategizing for Innovation

From defining your goals to using tech to transform your organization into a hybrid model, the possibilities are endless when it comes to innovation. As you design your innovation strategy, it’s essential to understand the nuances of innovation. Working with an innovation consultant can help you iron out a strategy that’s best for your team. With an expert in innovation, you’ll be able to better determine effective next steps toward the business’s goals.

Consultants are equipped to explain the subtleties in innovative strategizing, such as the various types of innovation:

Routine Innovation.

Routine innovation is a building block that adds to the company’s pre-existing structure, such as its customer base or earlier versions of a product.

Disruptive Innovation.

Disruptive innovation results in a new business model that disrupts or challenges the competition’s business models.

Radical Innovation.

Radical innovation introduces new inventions, software, or technology to completely transform an existing business model. This type of innovation is best used to help organizations achieve a competitive advantage in the market.

Architectural Innovation.

Architectural innovation uses new technology to create new markets. Essentially, architectural innovation changes the entire overall design of a product by redesigning existing components.

In creating the best innovation strategy for your current needs, take into account the following guidelines:

Clarifying your goals and priorities.

The right innovation strategy outlines your organizational goals and efforts to identify the best actionable steps to achieve these goals.

Fostering alignment within your organization.

Alignment should be at the center of any innovation strategy. Everyone must be aligned in pursuing a common goal for an organization to achieve new ideas and an innovative way of working.

Encouraging your team to keep improving.

Complacency kills innovation. Make sure your company is always ready to move on to the next great idea by making continuous growth and development a key part of your innovation strategy.

Reaching long-term success.

Focusing on reaching long-term success is an essential part of any innovation strategy.

Innovating From Within

An innovation strategy becomes the most effective when leaders can ingrain the processes and practices into their culture. Once innovation becomes an integral part of how a team works, they’ll be able to keep innovation top-of-mind.

By innovating from within, you’ll create a sustainable innovation strategy that becomes part of your company culture. Consider these pillars of innovation as you center innovation strategy at the heart of your company:

Models: Innovation strategies fall into two models:

Business model innovation
In this process, an organization completely adapts its business model to add value to its customers.
Leveraging an existing business model
This process allows an organization to use its existing business model while bringing innovation to the business itself.

Intrapreneurship
Intrapreneurship empowers employees to act as entrepreneurs while working within the company. This encourages each person to create and act on their ideas, thus fostering a culture of ongoing company-wide innovation.

Corporate Accelerator
Corporate accelerators are programs started by larger enterprises, offering aspiring entrepreneurs the opportunity to find mentors, access seed capital, and make important connections.

Innovation Labs
Innovation labs are a starting point for R&D teams and startups to facilitate new ideas.

Open Innovation Program
This model of R&D encourages existing employees to collaborate on new business ideas that add value to the company.

External Accelerators
Though external accelerators don’t meet in-house, they can add incredible value to an organization. Businesses can use external accelerators to advance startups and drive concepts that align with their goals and needs without covering the costs of running an in-house program.

Collaboration
Collaboration is an integral component in shaping a cohesive innovation strategy. Through constant discussion, interaction, and creative collaboration, all members of an organization work together to bring their ideas to life.

Ideation
Managing innovation requires organizations to manage ideation. In doing so, leaders work to identify the best plans for analyzing, gathering, and implementing the right ideas. Ultimately, companies need an effective system that will transform an idea into a process that gets results.

Measurement
Innovation strategies should include a plan to measure success by considering relevant metrics for each goal. For example, KPIs such as email subscribers, website traffic, and social shares are excellent metrics for tracking brand awareness.

A System of Innovation

Developing a comprehensive innovation strategy must go beyond general objectives such as achieving growth, creating value, and beating competitors. To truly create company-wide change through innovation, organizations should clearly articulate specific objectives that will allow for the most sustainable competitive advantage.

A thorough innovation strategy successfully embeds innovation in the very system of an organization. To implement such systemic innovation, design your innovation strategy with the following objectives:

Creating Long-Term Value for Potential Customers

An innovation strategy should always consider the most effective ways to create long-term value for customers. In developing a cohesive strategy, consider the type of value you’re aiming to create through innovation. Value can be created in many ways, including improving customer experience, making a product more affordable, or benefiting society at large.

In your efforts to identify what values to zero in on, consider those that will have the greatest impact in the long term. This way, your innovation strategy will include continuously iterating towards better designs in the future.

Capturing Value Generated From Innovations

Innovations easily attract competitors that can pose a risk to the original product or idea. In your efforts to create a thorough innovation strategy, consider how your company plans to capture the value its innovations create.

For example, a company that creates an exciting new product should be prepared for its competition to create more affordable prototypes. In the worst-case scenario, the competition may capture the value of the innovation.

Consider these risks in your innovation strategy by identifying what complementary services, products, assets, and capabilities may improve customer loyalty. This way, you’ll already have a plan in place to ensure your organization continues to profit from every innovation.

Strategizing for Business Model Innovation

Technology plays an important role in innovation but isn’t the only path to new ideas. In developing a robust innovation strategy, consider the level of technology and your preferred method of innovation to pursue.

Harnessing the magic of innovation takes careful planning. Need help driving innovation in your organization? At Voltage Control, we help leaders develop innovative strategies through change! Contact us today to discuss the best path to innovation.

Image credit: Pexels

Article first published here: voltagecontrol.com

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Why No Organization Innovates Alone Anymore

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The Ecosystem Advantage

Why No Organization Innovates Alone Anymore

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

For centuries, the story of innovation was a story of closed walls and proprietary secrets. Companies poured resources into internal R&D labs, operating under the fiercely competitive belief that only self-reliance could guarantee advantage. This mindset, rooted in the industrial age, is now the single greatest obstacle to sustained change and growth. As a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I assert that today’s most profound breakthroughs occur not within the isolated organization, but within expansive, fluid innovation ecosystems. The future belongs to the orchestrators, not the hoarders.

The speed and complexity of modern disruption — from advanced digital services to grand societal challenges—render the solo innovation model obsolete. No single company, no matter how large or well-funded, possesses all the necessary capital, talent, data, or technical expertise. The Ecosystem Advantage is the strategic realization that exponential innovation requires the symbiotic sharing of risk, resources, and intellectual property across a network of partners—customers, suppliers, competitors, startups, and academia. Critically, this collaborative model is inherently more human-centered because it forces the integration of diverse perspectives, mitigating internal blind spots and algorithmic bias.

Modern technology
— APIs for seamless data exchange, cloud platforms for shared development, and secure tools like blockchain for transparent IP tracking—makes this complex collaboration technically feasible. The challenge is no longer technological; it is strategic and cultural: managing complexity and balancing competition with collaboration.

The Three Strategic Imperatives of Ecosystem Innovation

To transition from isolated R&D to ecosystem orchestration, leaders must embrace three core strategic shifts:

1. Shift from Ownership to Access: Abandon the idea that you must own every asset, technology, or line of code. The strategic imperative is to gain timely access to specialized capabilities, whether through open-source collaboration, strategic partnerships, or co-development agreements. This drastically reduces sunk costs and accelerates time-to-market.
2. Curate the Edges for Diversity: Innovation often arises from the periphery—from startups, adjacent industries, or unexpected voices. Ecosystem leaders must proactively curate relationships at the “edges” of their industry, using ventures, accelerators, and challenge platforms to source disruptive ideas and integrate them rapidly. This diversity of thought is the engine of human-centered innovation.
3. Govern for Trust, Not Control: Traditional contracts focused on control and IP protection can stifle the necessary fluid exchange of an ecosystem. Effective orchestration requires governance frameworks that prioritize trust, transparency, and a clearly defined mutual value proposition. The reward must be distributed fairly and clearly articulated to incentivize continuous participation and manage the inherent complexity.

“If you try to innovate alone, your speed is limited to your weakest internal link. If you innovate in an ecosystem, your speed is limited only by the velocity and diversity of your network.”

Case Study 1: Apple’s App Store – Ecosystem as a Business Model

The Challenge:

When the iPhone launched in 2007, its initial functionality was limited. The challenge was rapidly expanding the utility and perceived value of the platform beyond Apple’s internal capacity to develop software, making it indispensable to billions of users globally.

The Ecosystem Solution:

Apple did not try to develop all the necessary applications internally. Instead, it built the App Store — a highly curated platform that served as a controlled gateway for third-party developers. This move fundamentally shifted Apple’s role from a monolithic software provider to an ecosystem orchestrator. Apple provided the core technology (iOS, hardware APIs, payment processing) and governance rules, while external developers contributed the innovation, content, and diverse features.

The Innovation Impact:

The App Store unlocked an unprecedented flywheel effect. External developers created billions of dollars in new services, simultaneously making the iPhone platform exponentially more valuable and cementing Apple’s dominance. This model proved that by prioritizing access to external intellectual capital and accepting the risk of external development, the orchestrator gains massive leverage, speed, and market penetration.

Case Study 2: The Partnership for AI (PAI) – Ecosystem for Ethical Governance

The Challenge:

The development of advanced Artificial Intelligence poses complex, societal-level challenges related to ethics, fairness, and safety—issues that cannot be solved by any one company, given the competitive pressures in the sector.

The Ecosystem Solution:

The Partnership on AI (PAI) was established by major tech competitors (including Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and others), alongside civil society, academic, and journalistic organizations. PAI functions as a non-competitive ecosystem designed for pre-competitive alignment on ethical and human-centered AI standards. Instead of hoarding proprietary research, members collaborate openly on principles, best practices, and research that aims to ensure AI benefits society while mitigating risks like bias and misuse.

The Innovation Impact:

PAI demonstrates that ecosystems are not just for product innovation; they are essential for governance innovation. By establishing a shared, multi-stakeholder framework, the partnership reduces regulatory risk for all participants and ensures that the human element (represented by civil society and academics) is integrated into the design of core AI principles. This collaboration creates a foundational layer of ethical trust and shared responsibility, which is a prerequisite for the public adoption of exponential technologies.

The New Leadership Imperative: Be the Nexus

The Ecosystem Advantage is a human-centered mandate. It recognizes that the best ideas are often housed outside your walls and that true change requires collective action. For leaders, this means shedding the scarcity mindset and adopting a role as a Nexus — a strategic connector who enables value to flow freely and safely across boundaries.

Success is no longer measured by the size of your internal R&D budget, but by the health, diversity, and velocity of your external network. To thrive in the era of exponential change, you must master the three imperatives: prioritizing access over ownership, proactively curating the edges of your industry, and establishing governance models built on trust. Stop trying to win the race alone. Start building the highway for everyone; that is the new competitive advantage.

Extra Extra: Because innovation is all about change, Braden Kelley’s human-centered change methodology and tools are the best way to plan and execute the changes necessary to support your innovation and transformation efforts — all while literally getting everyone all on the same page for change. Find out more about the methodology and tools, including the book Charting Change by following the link. Be sure and download the TEN FREE TOOLS while you’re here.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Effective Facilitation for All

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How Leadership Fundamentals Benefit Everyone

Effective Facilitation for All

GUEST POST from Douglas Ferguson

Effective facilitation isn’t limited to the inner workings of staff meetings. True facilitation goes beyond simply setting an agenda: it’s a mindset, framework, and way of being.

Excellent facilitators know how to get the best out of their teams and design conversations that are innovative, exciting, and productive.

In this article, we explore how the fundamentals of facilitation affect an organization in the following topics:

Leading with Great Expectations
Effective Facilitation for Everyone
Facilitation with a Purpose

Leading with Great Expectations

At its core, great facilitation is an engaging conversation. In practicing effective facilitation, leaders make sure all communication is as clear and thoughtful as possible. Facilitators can begin this conversation by intentionally setting their expectations with all stakeholders in every conversation, meeting, and project.

Often, meetings end with attendees unaware of their colleagues’ and leaders’ expectations. By focusing on effective facilitation, leaders can identify and communicate their expectations as well as the expectations of everyone else in the room.

Consider the following facilitation fundamentals when identifying others’ expectations and needs ahead of a meeting:

Personal Preparation

Preparation is essential for any form of facilitation. Whether you’re leading a meeting or heading up a project, participants expect you to come prepared. Demonstrate proper facilitation techniques by preparing to be physically, emotionally, and mentally ready for your presentation.

Practice

Practice is the next step in proper facilitation. In practicing, you’ll be able to review your process and identify any areas needed for adjustment. Moreover, practicing will help you visualize your upcoming session, anticipate problems, and prepare alternative plans should something go wrong.

Process

Effortless facilitation follows a seamless process designed specifically for your audience. Facilitators have a variety of processes to choose from, including strategic planning, problem-solving, decision-making, and more.

Place

Your physical or virtual environment plays an important role in your facilitation ventures. It’s essential to be as intentional as possible in selecting the space for your next session. Consider the requirements for a space, such as the size of the room, what equipment is needed, and any other elements that may affect the flow of your meeting.

Purpose

The purpose may be the single most important component of effective facilitation. Your purpose will outline the end goal of a meeting and will communicate why the session is taking place.

Perspective

Perspective is as essential to effective facilitation as the purpose. Your perspective allows you to contextualize the goals, mission, vision, and purpose of your meeting.

Product

As effective facilitation hinges on meeting with a purpose, understanding what that purpose will produce is just as important. Consider what deliverables should be created by the end of a project, meeting, or conversation. Additionally, be sure to define the most important goals and actionable steps required to achieve them.

People

Facilitate with intention by identifying who should be in attendance. Learn more about each participant by researching the bias, potential barriers, and preconceived ideas that they may bring to each meeting. Likewise, be sure to highlight their strengths to further assess how they can be an asset in your conversation.

Effective Facilitation for Everyone

Integrating effective facilitation skills and techniques goes far beyond the walls of a meeting. A facilitative approach to leadership zeroes in on the positives of leading an active and engaged group. Facilitation techniques such as active listening and encouragement work to stimulate participative group conversation and collaboration.

Every member of an organization can benefit from the power of facilitative leadership. Leaders that demonstrate and embody proper facilitation skills can impart these practices to their employees.

Facilitation techniques benefit employees in the following ways:

1. Fostering Collaboration and Learning

Facilitation skills are essential in encouraging an environment of collaboration and learning. Encouraging team members to look at a situation from a different perspective, consider new solutions, and understand how to bring the best out of each other will result in the most productive experiences.

In creating a culture of learning, leaders should take the time to learn from their teams as well. Giving your employees a platform to offer their own insights is the best way to invite them into this collaborative process of co-creating learning.

2. Getting More From Meeting Attendees

As employees adopt the elements of effective facilitation, they’ll bring more of their skills, focus, and energy to each meeting. Equipped with the skills to act as influencers amongst their peers, each employee will become an active participant in the meeting, encouraging each other to make the most out of their time together.

3. Improving Productivity

As team members work together on various projects, effective facilitation skills allow them to move forward in the most productive, cost-effective, and timely manner. When employees incorporate their finely-honed facilitation skills, they work together efficiently, converse productively, and solve problems effectively. Ultimately, facilitation fundamentals allow everyone from team members to management to make the most of their time at work.

4. Boosting Group Dynamics

Incorporating effective facilitation skills helps improve group dynamics as well. All team members benefit from improved communication strategies, both in and out of the structured setting of meetings. These strategies allow all participants to better express their thoughts, opinions, and concerns as they work together to achieve a common goal.

Teams that invest in developing their communication skills are likely to retain the best employees. Statistics show that organizations that practice strong communication skills experience 50% less attrition overall.

5. Encouraging Active Participation

While effective facilitation is often considered from a leadership perspective, it is also an excellent catalyst in driving employee participation. Oftentimes, team members don’t feel comfortable enough to share their true opinions in a meeting. Moreover, they tend to bring the bare minimum to the workplace if they don’t feel as though their participation, efforts, and insights are valued.

Organizations that champion effective facilitation as part of their company culture are actively shaping an environment that makes employees feel as though they are truly part of their team. Feeling this sense of psychological safety allows all stakeholders to feel comfortable enough to put their all into their work.

6. Encouraging Team Competency

Leaders that excel in facilitation techniques are able to engender a sense of self-efficacy in their team. Oftentimes, leaders fail to go beyond methods of coaching to help their team members understand and internalize pertinent information. Effective facilitation helps to bridge the gap of competency in an organization.

Leaders must encourage team members on the path toward true competency. This approach to facilitation is essential to incorporate a culture where facilitation skills are easily transferable.

Lauren Green, Executive Director of Dancing with Markers, shares that the path to competency starts with meeting employees where they are:

“First, you’re unconsciously incompetent. You’re unconscious. And then you become aware [of] your incompetence, and then you’re consciously competent. And then you start to grow your skills. So then you’re consciously competent. And then when you don’t have to think about it anymore, then you’re unconsciously competent.”

Facilitation with a Purpose

Just as the purpose is a powerful tool in leading a meeting, it’s also essential in building effective facilitation skills in others. Intentionally investing in facilitation training allows organizations the opportunity to teach, practice, and embody the structured techniques of effective facilitation.

The nature of effective facilitation is that nothing can take place without purpose. From managing meetings to running projects, leading with the fundamentals of facilitation helps every facet of an organization run smoothly.

Lead with purpose by focusing on the following effective facilitation practices:

Listening first and speaking second
Leading with effective communication
Managing time and tracking deadlines
Asking intentional questions
Inviting others to engage
Creating a focused and psychologically safe environment
Providing unbiased objectivity
Acting as a decider in group discussions

Effective facilitation benefits everyone, whether you’re leading a meeting or encouraging employees to take their leadership skills to the next level. At Voltage Control, we help leaders and teams harness the power of facilitation. Contact us to learn how to apply these fundamentals to your organization.

Article originally published on VoltageControl.com

Image credit: Pexels

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Why Small Teams Kick Ass

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Why Small Teams Kick Ass

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

When you want new thinking or rapid progress, create a small team.

When you have a small team, they manage the hand-offs on their own and help each other.

Small teams hold themselves accountable.

With small teams, one member’s problem becomes everyone’s problem in record time.

Small teams can’t work on more than one project at a time because it’s a small team.

And when a small team works on a single project, progress is rapid.

Small teams use their judgment because they have to.

The judgment of small teams is good because they use it often.

On small teams, team members are loyal to each other and set clear expectations.

Small teams coordinate and phase the work as needed.

With small teams, waiting is reduced because the team members see it immediately.

When something breaks, small teams fix it quickly because the breakage is apparent to all.

The tight connections of a small team are magic.

Small teams are fun.

Small teams are effective.

And small teams are powered by trust.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Preparing Your Workforce for Collaborative Intelligence

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Upskilling for the AI Era

Preparing Your Workforce for Collaborative Intelligence

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

The rise of Artificial Intelligence is not a distant threat looming on the horizon; it is the fundamental reality of business today. Yet, the conversation is often dominated by fear—the fear of job replacement, of technical obsolescence, and of organizational disruption. As a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I argue that this narrative misses the most profound opportunity: the chance to redefine the very nature of human work. The true imperative for leaders is not to acquire AI tools, but to upskill their human workforce for a symbiotic partnership with those tools. We must shift our focus from automation to Collaborative Intelligence, where the strength of the machine (speed, data processing) complements the genius of the human (creativity, empathy, judgment).

The AI Era demands a strategic pivot in talent development. We need to move past reactive technical training and invest in the skills that are uniquely human, those that machines can augment but never truly replicate. The future of competitive advantage lies not in owning the best algorithms, but in cultivating the workforce most skilled at collaborating with algorithms. This requires a shift in mindset, skills, and organizational design, ensuring that every employee — from the frontline associate to the senior executive — understands their new role as an AI partner, strategist, and ethical steward.

The Three Pillars of Collaborative Intelligence

Preparing your workforce for the AI era means focusing on three critical, human-centric skill areas that machines will struggle to master:

1. Strategic Judgment and Empathy: AI excels at calculation, but it lacks contextual awareness, cultural nuance, and empathy. The human role shifts to interpreting the AI’s output, exercising ethical judgment, and translating data into emotionally resonant actions for customers and colleagues. This requires deep training in human-centered design principles and ethical decision-making.
2. Creative Problem-Solving and Experimentation: The most valuable new skill is not coding, but prompt engineering and defining the right questions. Humans must conceptualize new use cases, challenge the AI’s assumptions, and rapidly prototype new solutions. This demands a culture of psychological safety where continuous experimentation and failure are encouraged as essential steps toward innovation.
3. Data Literacy and AI Stewardship: Every employee must become literate in data and AI concepts. They don’t need to write code, but they must understand how the AI makes decisions, where its data comes from, and why a result might be biased or flawed. The human is the ethical backstop and the responsible steward of the algorithm’s power.

“The AI won’t take your job; a person skilled in AI will. The upskilling challenge is not about the technology; it’s about the partnership.” — Braden Kelley

Case Study 1: The Global Consulting Firm – From Analyst to Interpreter

The Challenge:

A major global consulting firm faced the threat of AI automation taking over their junior analysts’ core tasks: data aggregation, slide creation, and basic research. They realized that their competitive edge was not in performing these routine tasks, but in their consultants’ ability to synthesize, communicate, and build client trust—all uniquely human skills.

The Collaborative Intelligence Solution:

The firm launched a massive internal upskilling initiative focused on transforming the junior analyst role from “data processor” to “AI interpreter and client strategist.” The training focused heavily on non-technical skills: narrative storytelling (using AI-generated data to craft compelling client stories), ethical deliberation (identifying bias in AI-generated recommendations), and active listening (improving client empathy). AI was positioned not as a replacement, but as an instant, tireless research assistant that handled 80% of the routine work.

The Human-Centered Result:

By investing in human judgment and communication, the firm increased the value of its junior workforce. Consultants spent less time creating slides and more time on high-impact client interactions, leading to stronger relationships and more innovative solutions. This shift proved that the ultimate value-add in a service industry is the human capacity for strategic synthesis and trustworthy communication — skills that thrive when augmented by AI.

Case Study 2: Leading Retail Bank – Embedding AI into Customer Service

The Challenge:

A large retail bank implemented AI chatbots and automated routing systems to handle routine customer inquiries, intending to reduce call center costs. However, customer satisfaction plummeted because complex or emotionally charged issues were being mishandled by the automation. The human agents felt demoralized, fearing redundancy.

The Collaborative Intelligence Solution:

The bank pivoted its strategy, creating a new role: the Augmented Human Agent. The human agents were upskilled in two key areas. First, they received intensive training in emotional regulation and conflict resolution to handle the high-stress, complex calls that the AI flagged and escalated. Second, they were trained in “AI tuning” — learning to review the chatbot’s transcripts, identify common failure points, and provide direct feedback to the AI development team. This turned the agents from passive recipients of technology into active partners in its improvement.

The Human-Centered Result:

This approach restored customer trust. Customers felt valued because their most difficult problems were routed quickly to a highly skilled, emotionally intelligent human. Employee engagement improved because agents felt empowered and recognized as essential collaborators in the bank’s digital transformation. The result was a successful blend: AI handled the volume and efficiency, while highly skilled humans handled the emotion and complexity, achieving both cost savings and higher customer satisfaction.

Conclusion: The Future of Work is Partnership

The AI Era is not about a technological race; it is about a human race to redefine skills, value, and purpose. The most forward-thinking leaders will treat AI deployment as a catalyst for human capital development. This means shifting budget from outdated legacy training programs to investments in judgment, ethics, creativity, and empathy. The future of work is not about the “Man vs. Machine” conflict, but the Man with Machine partnership.

Your competitive advantage tomorrow will be determined by how effectively your people can collaborate with the intelligent systems at their disposal. By focusing your upskilling efforts on the three pillars of Collaborative Intelligence, you ensure that your workforce is not just surviving the AI revolution, but actively leading it—creating a future that is not just efficient, but fundamentally human-centered and more innovative.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Using Leading and Lagging Indicators to Drive Your Business Forward

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You get what you measure, so make sure you’re tracking the right things.

Using Leading and Lagging Indicators to Drive Your Business Forward

GUEST POST from Soren Kaplan

I’ve seen a lot of organizations create strategies, programs, and projects focused on optimizing operations, streamlining processes, and driving innovation. Leadership teams put lots of energy coming up with the next big thing. But amazingly few teams think about how they’ll measure results. They may say they want revenue growth or cost savings, but that’s about the extent of it. Digging into the details by defining the specific metrics that will help track progress and forecast whether they’re going to achieve their goals in the future often gets neglected.

I’ve used this Key Performance Indicators template to address this challenge. Here’s the basis of why it’s important to use KPIs for your strategy and innovation initiatives, and how to use the template.

Strategy Without Successful Execution Is Just Brainstorming

Between developing strategy and executing it, there’s a step that requires creativity coupled with analytical thinking. It’s defining leading and lagging indicators. Many manufacturing companies and organizations that embrace Six Sigma know the importance of the metrics. Metrics help you quantify success, so you know when you’re achieving it and when you’re not.

Most companies focus on lagging indicators, like how much revenue they made in the last quarter, how many products they sold, or how many new customers they acquired. That’s important information, but those measures are obtained by looking in the rear-view mirror of what’s already happened. In addition to these things, you also need leading indicators to help you predict what will happen in the future. Here’s how to use both of these indicators to translate strategy into tangible implementation plans.

Leading Indicators Help You Predict the Future

Leading Indicators predict how you will perform in the future. They are more easily managed than lagging indicators but are harder to define. For example, if you’re looking to increase sales, you might measure the number of emails you send or sales calls you make. If you know that one in 10 calls results in a sale, the more contacts you make, the higher your sale forecast. Same goes for if you’re running a manufacturing organization. Leading Indicators for a manufacturing plant might include number of incidents that cause production slowdowns or the availability of specific materials in the supply chain.

Lagging Indicators Tell You How You Did

Lagging Indicators are easier to measure because they quantify what happened in the past. For example, a lagging indicator for sales would be measuring the number of products sold last month or number of new customers that signed up for a service. This information is usually easy to obtain and measure. Lagging Indicators are essential for charting progress but are not necessarily that helpful when looking at the inputs needed for achieving your overall desired results.

Create Your Dashboard

If you want innovation, reduced costs, and greater performance, you need to figure out how to do it, and what it looks like when you get it. Creating a set of lagging indicators gives you targets to achieve. But lagging indicators without leading indicators won’t provide focus around what to do–or early warning signals that things might be off track. If you’re manufacturing products, for example, if you’re not measuring whether your suppliers are delivering your materials on time, you might get surprised one day when you realize you don’t have the raw materials you need to achieve your manufacturing targets.

Here’s how to create a simple dashboard that contains both leading and lagging indicators:

Convene your team and identify the specific quantifiable targets that you need to achieve (your lagging indicators). Ask: What does success look like and how do we measure it?
Once you have your lagging indicators, define the inputs needed to achieve them. Ask: What specific things need to happen for us to achieve these targets and how do we measure those things? (your leading indicators)
With your lagging and leading indicators defined, use specific tools to gather and report on your data, whether a spreadsheet or online dashboard.

Management guru Peter Drucker once said, “What’s measured, improves.” If you want to improve your processes and business, figure out what you’re measuring. If you measure only the outputs (lagging indicators), your success will be far less predictable than if you’re also measuring the things that will get you where you want to go.

Image Credit: Praxie.com

This article was originally published on Inc.com and has been syndicated for this blog.

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Lobsters and the Wisdom of Ignoring Your Customers

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Lobsters and the Wisdom of Ignoring Your Customers

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

Being the smart innovator (and businessperson) you are, you know it’s important to talk to customers. You also know it’s important to listen to them.

It’s also important to ignore your customers.

(Sometimes)

Customers will tell you what the problem is. If you stay curious and ask follow-up questions (Why? and Tell me more), they’ll tell you why it’s a problem and the root cause. You should definitely listen to this information.

Customers will also tell you how to fix the problem. You should definitely ignore this information.

To understand why, let me tell you a story.

Eye Contact is a Problem

Years ago, two friends and I took a day trip to Maine. It was late in Fall, and many lobster shacks dotting the coast were closed for the season. We found one still open and settled in for lunch.

Now, I’m a reasonably adventurous eater. I’ll try almost anything once (but not try fried tarantulas). However, I have one rule – I do not want to make eye contact with my food.

Knowing that lobsters are traditionally served with their heads still attached, I braced for the inevitable. As the waitress turned to me, I placed the same order as my friends but with a tiny special request. “I’ll have the lobster, but please remove its head.”

You know that scene in movies when the record scratches, the room falls silent, and everyone stops everything they’re doing to stare at the person who made an offending comment? Yeah, that’s precisely what happened when I asked for the head to be removed.

The waitress was horrified, “Why? That’s where all the best stuff is!”

“I don’t like making eye contact with my food,” I replied.

She pursed her lips, jotted down my request, and walked away.

A short time later, our lunch was served. My friends received their lobsters as God (or the chef) intended, head still attached. Then, with great fanfare, my lobster arrived.

Its head was still attached.

But we did not make eye contact.

Placed over the lobster’s eyes were two olives, connected by a broken toothpick and attached to the lobster’s “ears” by two more toothpicks.

The chef was offended by my request to remove the lobster’s head. But, because he understood why I wanted the head removed, he created a solution that would work for both of us – lobster-sized olive sunglasses.

Are you removing the head or making sunglasses?

Customers, like me, are experts in problems. We know what the problems are, why they’re problems, and what solutions work and what don’t. So, if you ask us what we want, we’ll give you the solution we know – remove the head.

Innovators, like you and the chef, are experts in solutions. You know what’s possible, see the trade-offs, and anticipate the consequences of various choices. You also take great pride in your work and expertise, so you’re not going to give someone a sub-par solution simply because they asked for it. You’re going to provide them with olive sunglasses.

Next time you talk to customers, stay curious, ask open-ended questions, ask follow-up questions, and build a deep understanding of their problems. Then ignore their ideas and suggestions. They’ll only stand in the way of your olive sunglasses.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Corporate Venturing as a Catalyst for Innovation

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Venture Beyond

Corporate Venturing as a Catalyst for Innovation

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, the pursuit of innovation is no longer optional; it’s existential. Yet, many large, established corporations struggle to innovate at the pace of the market. Internal bureaucracy, risk aversion, and a focus on incremental improvements can stifle the disruptive thinking required for true transformation. As a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I am here to argue that one of the most powerful and underutilized strategies for overcoming this inertia is corporate venturing. This isn’t just about investing money; it’s about strategically engaging with the startup ecosystem to ignite new growth, access frontier technologies, and inject a vital dose of entrepreneurial DNA into the heart of your organization. Corporate venturing is a deliberate act of looking beyond your walls to find the future.

Corporate venturing encompasses a range of activities, from direct venture capital investments (Corporate Venture Capital or CVC) to incubation programs, accelerators, and strategic partnerships with startups. Its core purpose is to bridge the innovation gap between the agile, disruptive startup world and the established, resource-rich corporate entity. This symbiotic relationship offers startups access to capital, market reach, and mentorship, while providing corporations with a window into emerging technologies, new business models, and fresh talent. More importantly, it acts as an external nervous system for innovation, allowing the corporation to sense, adapt, and respond to market shifts with a speed that internal R&D often cannot match. It’s a human-centered approach to expanding your innovation capacity, leveraging the entrepreneurial spirit that often flourishes outside traditional corporate structures.

The Strategic Imperatives of Corporate Venturing

To truly leverage corporate venturing as a catalyst for innovation, it must be approached with strategic intent, not just as a financial play. Here are four key imperatives:

1. Strategic Alignment, Not Just Financial Return: While financial returns are welcome, the primary driver for corporate venturing should be strategic. How does this investment or partnership align with your long-term vision? Does it open up new markets, provide access to critical technologies, or deepen your understanding of future customer needs?
2. Active Engagement, Beyond Capital: Successful corporate venturing is not passive. It requires active mentorship, resource sharing, and a genuine effort to integrate lessons learned from startups back into the core business. It’s a two-way street of learning and collaboration.
3. Build Bridges, Not Walls: The biggest challenge is often integrating the fast-paced startup mentality with the established corporate culture. Dedicated venturing units should act as translators, bridging the gap between the two worlds and fostering mutual understanding and respect.
4. Portfolio Thinking and Experimentation: Treat your venture portfolio like an experimental lab. Not every investment will succeed, but each provides valuable learning. Diversify your bets across different technologies, markets, and business models to hedge against uncertainty and maximize discovery.

“Don’t just acquire the future; invest in building it. Corporate venturing is your strategic lens into tomorrow’s disruption and market expansion.” — Braden Kelley

Case Study 1: Google Ventures (GV) – Investing in the Adjacent Future

The Challenge:

Google, despite its massive internal R&D capabilities, recognized that innovation often happens at the edges of an industry, driven by small, agile teams. The challenge was to systematically identify and invest in groundbreaking startups that could either complement Google’s core business or open up entirely new growth areas, without stifling their entrepreneurial spirit with corporate bureaucracy.

The Corporate Venturing Solution:

Google established Google Ventures (GV) as its venture capital arm. Unlike traditional corporate VCs, GV operates with a high degree of autonomy, investing in a broad range of technology companies, many of which are not directly related to Google’s immediate product lines. However, the strategic alignment is clear: GV invests in areas that represent the adjacent future of technology—AI, life sciences, consumer tech, enterprise software—giving Google an early window into the next wave of disruption. GV provides more than just capital; it offers startups access to Google’s unparalleled expertise in engineering, design, and marketing through its “GV Experts” program.

Strategic Alignment: GV’s investments provide Google with intelligence on emerging technologies and market shifts that could impact its long-term strategy.
Active Engagement: The “GV Experts” program offers invaluable operational support, helping startups scale and overcome technical challenges.
Autonomy and Agility: By operating somewhat independently, GV avoids many of the bureaucratic pitfalls that can slow down corporate innovation efforts.

The Result:

GV has been incredibly successful, with a portfolio that includes major companies like Uber, Slack, and Nest (which Google later acquired). These investments provide significant financial returns, but more importantly, they offer Google a strategic vantage point. It allows them to understand and even influence future technological trajectories, keeping the parent company at the forefront of innovation. GV demonstrates how a well-structured CVC can act as a crucial early warning system and growth engine for a tech giant.

Case Study 2: BMW i Ventures – Driving Future Mobility

The Challenge:

The automotive industry is facing unprecedented disruption, driven by trends like electrification, autonomous driving, shared mobility, and connected vehicles. BMW, a legacy automaker, needed to rapidly adapt and innovate beyond its traditional car manufacturing core to secure its position in the future of mobility. Relying solely on internal R&D would be too slow and limited in scope.

The Corporate Venturing Solution:

BMW established BMW i Ventures, a corporate venture capital fund dedicated to investing in early- to mid-stage startups in the mobility, digital, and sustainability sectors. The fund strategically targets companies developing cutting-edge technologies and services that could shape the future of transportation and enhance the overall customer experience. This includes areas like advanced materials, AI for autonomous systems, smart charging solutions, and innovative digital services for car ownership or sharing. BMW i Ventures provides capital, but also offers strategic partnerships, pilot opportunities within BMW’s ecosystem, and valuable market insights.

Strategic Alignment: Every investment is directly tied to BMW’s long-term vision for sustainable, intelligent, and human-centered mobility.
Access to Frontier Tech: The fund provides early access to technologies that might take years or decades to develop internally, accelerating BMW’s innovation timeline.
New Business Models: Investments in areas like shared mobility or digital services help BMW explore and validate entirely new revenue streams beyond traditional car sales.

The Result:

BMW i Ventures has allowed the company to stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly changing industry. It has fostered collaborations with innovative startups, informed BMW’s internal product roadmaps, and positioned the brand as a leader in future mobility solutions. By strategically venturing beyond its core business, BMW has gained agility, expanded its innovation ecosystem, and proactively secured its relevance in the coming decades.

Conclusion: The Future of Innovation is Open

Corporate venturing is more than just a financial vehicle; it is a mindset—an acknowledgment that the most profound innovations often emerge from outside your established walls. It’s a strategic embrace of openness, agility, and the entrepreneurial spirit. For large corporations, it represents a vital pathway to overcome internal inertia, access game-changing technologies, and build a more resilient and future-ready organization.

As leaders, our challenge is to move beyond short-term thinking and embrace a portfolio approach to innovation. By strategically venturing into the unknown, by actively engaging with the disruptors, and by fostering a culture that learns from both successes and failures, we can unlock unprecedented growth and ensure our organizations are not just prepared for the future, but actively shaping it.

Image credit: Pexels

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Engaging Users in the Design Process

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Co-Creation for Experience

Engaging Users in the Design Process - Co-Creation for Experience

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

In the world of design and innovation, we have long operated under a traditional model. We observe users from a distance, conduct market research, and then retreat to our labs and conference rooms to design a solution that we believe they will love. We call this “customer-centric” design, but it’s a one-way street. As a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I am here to argue that this model is no longer enough. The future of innovation belongs to those who move beyond designing **for** their users to designing **with** them. This is the power of **co-creation**, a strategic shift that transforms customers from passive recipients of a product into active, invaluable partners in its creation.

Co-creation is the ultimate form of empathy. It’s an open invitation for your most passionate users to contribute their insights, skills, and creativity directly to the design process. This isn’t just about collecting feedback; it’s about treating your customers as equal partners in the journey of innovation. The benefits are profound. By involving the people you serve, you bypass the risk of building something they don’t genuinely need. You uncover unarticulated pain points and desires that a traditional survey could never reveal. And perhaps most importantly, you build a powerful sense of ownership and community. When customers have a hand in creating a product, they don’t just use it; they become an army of loyal advocates, invested in its success and eager to spread the word.

The Co-Creation Framework: A Human-Centered Approach

Successful co-creation is not a random act of crowdsourcing; it is a structured, human-centered process. It requires a clear framework to ensure that the collaboration is meaningful, productive, and respectful. Here are four essential steps:

1. Define the Challenge, Not the Solution: The starting point is crucial. Don’t ask users to validate a product you’ve already built. Instead, present them with a clear, compelling problem to solve. For example, instead of “How do you like our new app?”, ask, “How might we make your daily commute more enjoyable?” This opens the door to a wider range of creative solutions.
2. Build the Right Platform: Co-creation can happen in many forms. It could be a series of in-person workshops, a dedicated online community, a digital platform for ideation and voting, or a private beta program. Choose a platform that is accessible, easy to use, and facilitates collaboration among all participants.
3. Empower the Co-Creator: Treat your users as equal partners. Give them the information they need, and make their role in the process explicit. Whether they are ideating, prototyping, or providing feedback, ensure they understand how their contributions will be used and how they fit into the bigger picture.
4. Close the Loop: This is arguably the most important step. A co-creation initiative is not a one-off event. It requires transparency and a continuous feedback loop. Be sure to show participants what happened to their ideas. Even if an idea wasn’t chosen, explain why and thank them for their contribution. This builds trust and encourages continued participation, turning a single project into a long-term community.

“The best innovations are not born in a lab; they are born in the conversations between creators and the people they are creating for.” — Braden Kelley

Case Study 1: Threadless – Building a Business on Collective Creativity

The Challenge:

In the highly competitive world of apparel, fashion trends are traditionally dictated from the top-down by designers and major retailers. This process is inherently risky and often disconnected from what consumers actually want to wear. A small t-shirt company needed a new model that could consistently produce fresh, relevant designs with minimal risk while building an authentic brand.

The Co-Creation Solution:

Threadless launched a revolutionary business model based entirely on co-creation. The company’s platform is a digital community where artists from around the world submit t-shirt designs. The community then votes on their favorite submissions. Each week, the designs with the highest votes are put into production. The winning artists receive prize money and royalties on their designs. This model is a masterclass in crowdsourced innovation.

Empowered Co-Creators: Threadless gives artists a clear incentive and platform to contribute their creativity. They are not just submitting work; they are participating in a creative community.
Reduced Risk: The voting process acts as powerful market validation. Threadless knows a design is likely to be a commercial success before it ever spends a dollar on production, significantly reducing inventory and design risk.
Built-in Community: The platform fostered a vibrant, global community of artists and fans who felt a deep sense of ownership. This turned a transactional relationship into a collaborative partnership, leading to immense brand loyalty.

The Result:

Threadless became a major success story, proving that a company’s most valuable design team might be its own customers. By co-creating with its community, Threadless not only built a profitable business but also created an authentic, beloved brand known for its originality and its dedication to the collective voice of its creators. The company’s model demonstrates that the best way to predict what consumers want is to simply ask them to create it.

Case Study 2: L’Oréal’s Open Innovation Platform – Co-Creating Science and Beauty

The Challenge:

As a global beauty giant, L’Oréal’s R&D model was powerful but also traditional and at times, slow. The company needed to accelerate its innovation pipeline, especially in cutting-edge fields like green chemistry, artificial intelligence, and new biotech ingredients. The challenge was how to access and integrate external expertise from the world’s most brilliant scientists, researchers, and startups in a way that was agile and efficient.

The Co-Creation Solution:

L’Oréal adopted a strategic open innovation approach, which is a sophisticated form of co-creation. Instead of relying solely on internal labs, the company actively seeks partnerships with independent scientists, researchers, and startups through dedicated platforms and venture capital initiatives. L’Oréal presents specific scientific or technological challenges and invites external experts to co-develop solutions. For example, they might partner with a startup to develop a new sustainable ingredient or collaborate with a university lab to create a new method for personalized skincare.

Defined Challenges: L’Oréal clearly articulates its technological and scientific needs, empowering a global network of experts to contribute.
Empowered Partners: The company treats these external collaborators as true partners, not just vendors. This approach fosters a culture of shared purpose and mutual trust.
Continuous Innovation: This model is not a one-time project; it is a permanent innovation channel that allows the company to continuously learn from and adapt to the rapid advancements in science and technology.

The Result:

By implementing a co-creation strategy on a massive scale, L’Oréal has been able to significantly accelerate its innovation cycle and develop groundbreaking products that would have been impossible to create internally alone. The approach has led to new patents, new product categories, and a more agile business model. This case study demonstrates that co-creation is not limited to consumer-facing products; it is a powerful strategic tool for even the largest and most complex organizations to stay at the forefront of their industries.

Conclusion: The Future of Innovation is Collaborative

The era of closed-door design is over. In a world where customer expectations are higher than ever, the most successful organizations will be those that open their doors and invite their users to the innovation table. Co-creation is not a marketing gimmick; it is a fundamental strategic shift from “customer-centric” to “customer-led.” It is an acknowledgment that your users are not just consumers; they are a wellspring of insight, creativity, and passion.

As leaders, our role is to create the platforms and the culture that enable this collaboration. By treating your users as partners, you will not only build better products and services but also forge a deeper, more resilient connection to the people you serve. The future of innovation is not solitary; it is collaborative, and it is waiting for you to invite the first person in.

Image credit: Pexels

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