Tag Archives: Innovation Culture

Fueling a Culture of Innovation with Diversity and Inclusion

The Power of Diverse Perspectives

Diverse teams bring a wealth of perspectives that ignite creativity and challenge entrenched assumptions. A study by Boston Consulting Group found that diverse management teams lead to a 19% increase in revenue due to innovation. When individuals from different cultural, gender, and generational backgrounds convene, they contribute unique viewpoints that enhance problem-solving capabilities and stimulate breakthrough innovations. The convergence of these perspectives facilitates more rounded and comprehensive decision-making processes, which can yield novel products and services.

Case Study 1: Global Tech Innovators

Consider the case of a leading global technology firm that set out to invigorate its product development process. By championing a diverse workforce, the firm curated project teams inclusive of members from varied cultural backgrounds, educational disciplines, and genders. This not only mirrored their diverse customer base but also fueled unprecedented growth in innovation-led initiatives.

One notable success involved a team working on a next-generation wearable technology. By leveraging insights from team members in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, who understood the regional health and wellness nuances, the team developed features that resonated globally, driving product adoption in markets previously untapped. This was achieved through a continuous dialogue fostering an inclusive atmosphere where all team members felt empowered to voice their ideas without fear of dismissal or ridicule.

Fostering an Inclusive Culture

Building a truly inclusive culture involves more than just assembling a diverse team. It entails creating an environment where all employees feel valued and heard, and where contributions are recognized and rewarded. Organizations should implement training programs that underscore the importance of inclusivity, where leaders are equipped to nurture and mentor diverse talent.

“An inclusive culture is one where every employee can bring their full selves to work and contribute towards the innovation journey.”—Anonymous

It’s crucial for leadership to model inclusive behaviors that permeate throughout the organizational culture. This can include forming employee resource groups that celebrate diversity or establishing forums for open dialogue and collaborative ideation sessions. The net result is a fertile environment ripe for innovation.

Case Study 2: Healthcare Innovators

The healthcare industry illustrates another compelling example where D&I powered innovation. A national healthcare provider faced the challenge of designing patient outreach programs that connected with a wide array of demographics. By integrating a diverse group of healthcare professionals, the provider was able to tailor communication strategies to suit different cultural norms and practices.

The diversity within the team ensured that the insights went beyond mere language translation, addressing deeper cultural contexts, and resulting in higher patient engagement and satisfaction rates. The innovative outreach models developed were expanded into full-scale implementations that fundamentally transformed patient-provider interactions across various communities.

Sustaining Innovation through Continuous Commitment

To sustain innovation, organizations must maintain a steadfast commitment to D&I. It is an ongoing journey requiring regular reflection and renewal of strategies. Metrics should be in place to measure the impact of D&I efforts on innovation outcomes, with goals evolving in response to the shifting dynamics of the workforce.

Success stories and best practices should be shared throughout the organization, highlighting how diversity and inclusion have propelled improvements and sparked new initiatives. This storytelling not only inspires but also reinforces the value of D&I as fundamental pillars of innovation.

Conclusion

Fostering a culture of innovation through diversity and inclusion is not optional in today’s competitive business world—it is imperative. The cases presented exemplify how embracing a broad set of voices leads to solutions that are not only innovative but also deeply resonant with a global demographic. As leaders, our role is to build and sustain environments where diversity and inclusion are integral to our organizational DNA, driving forward our vision for continuous innovation.

This article is designed to provide a thoughtful exploration of how diversity and inclusion fuel innovation, along with practical case studies to illustrate these principles. Let me know if there are any further changes or additions you’d like to make!

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: Pexels

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A Guide to Organizing Innovation

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A Guide to Organizing Innovation

GUEST POST from Jesse Nieminen

I recently read a couple of excellent articles by Nick Skillicorn, and Prof. Rita McGrath where both discuss the challenges and intricacies involved in structuring and governing innovation within a large organization.

This is a classic topic that every corporate innovator has without a doubt come across, and it’s also one where “the right approach” is often quite elusive.

Inspired by those articles, we’ll present the most common archetypes and then dig a little deeper on the topic and share our thoughts and experiences to help you figure out how innovation should be structured within your organization.

Why organizing innovation is challenging

Before we dive into the different models for governing and organizing innovation, it’s important to understand why this is such a challenging topic to begin with.

That’s of course quite a lengthy and nuanced topic, but in short, there is no such thing as a perfect organizational structure or governance model. The bottom line is that a large organization is simply such a complex entity that structuring everything perfectly so that there aren’t any kind of bottlenecks, misaligned incentives, or any duplication of work just isn’t very realistic. If you’ve ever worked in large organization, you’ve certainly come across some of these challenges.

Now, most of these challenges are likely to be worse with innovation than with “business as usual” as, by definition, innovation means introducing changes. And most organizations simply aren’t designed for constant change.

What’s more, businesses are naturally very different from one another. A structure that works for a single product software company probably isn’t ideal for a CPG manufacturer or a house of brands because not only are their industries different, so are the innovations they are going after. So, what works well for some organization probably won’t be ideal for you.

This means that benchmarking and then applying “best practices” likely won’t work too well. Unfortunately, there just isn’t a single correct way to organize innovation.

Exploring the organizational archetypes for innovation

Having said that, there are a handful of common approaches, which we like to call archetypes, that most organizations use as the foundation for their efforts to organize and govern innovation.

Both McGrath and Skillicorn have done an excellent job in presenting many of these approaches, so a lot of credit for the following descriptions goes to them and I’d warmly recommend you read their takes too. Regardless, we’ve summarized their main points and combined them with our own experiences to create the following archetypes.

We’ll next explain each of these briefly, along with a quick summary of the key strengths and weaknesses for each.

External Innovation Organizational Model

No in-house innovation

The first and simplest way to organize innovation is to not do it, or to completely outsource it. Perhaps the most common method here is to simply keep tabs on promising startups and then acquire them, or to have tight collaboration with universities and other research institutions.

While this obviously keeps things simple organization-wise and minimizes fixed costs, it also means that you no longer have control over your own destiny, and are instead reliant on third parties, which puts you in a very vulnerable position long term. Furthermore, in the last decade, we’ve seen a huge inflow of capital to fund startups, which means that valuations for promising startups have skyrocketed and acquiring them on the cheap is simply no longer a very feasible strategy.

Suffice to say, if you want to build an organization that thrives in the long run, I wouldn’t recommend this approach.

Pros

Low fixed costs
Structurally simple

Cons

Lack of strategic control and ability to build the future of the organization
Lack of differentiation
Reliance on third parties for both execution and especially exploration
Acquisition of promising innovations has become expensive

Centralized Innovation Organizational Model

Centralized

Perhaps the most common way large organizations set up innovation is by creating a centralized department that serves the innovation needs of the entire organization including each business unit and support functions, such as IT or HR. This can be a subdivision within R&D, but these days it’s typically a separate cross-departmental unit serving the innovation needs of business units.

Either way, such a unit is quick and easy to set up, and the approach has some other obvious advantages too, such as innovation expertise being built and managed centrally, which speeds up learning, as well as management and reporting being easy to organize.

It’s these advantages that make centralization the obvious choice for many who are just starting out with innovation. This is also an especially common approach for large industrial companies that typically have a strong R&D tradition.

If all of the innovation has to go through a single team, that team will inevitably become a bottleneck for innovation, no matter how skilled or large it is.

However, in the long run, this approach is also one that is likely to significantly limit your innovation potential. The reason is simple: if all of the innovation has to go through a single team, that team will inevitably become a bottleneck for innovation. No matter how large or skilled the team, they’ll never have enough resources. What’s more, this will also disincentivize everyone else in the organization from innovating and that prevents you from creating a true culture of innovation.

Pros

Quick, easy, and cheap to set up
Dedicated resources for working on innovation
Easy to govern, manage, and report on the overall innovation portfolio
Centralization can speed up learning

Cons

Poor scalability as centralized team will inevitably become a bottleneck for innovation
Likely to be pulled into too many projects, which leads to poor execution
High risk of degenerating into a support function serving business unit requests instead of strategically building the future of the organization
Likely to disincentivize others in the organization from innovating
Conflicting interests between business units can make prioritization difficult
Typically lack authority to make important, hard decisions

Dedicated Innovation Organizational Model

Dedicated

Popularized by Clayton Christensen as a solution to the Innovators’s Dilemma, dedicated business units for innovation have become increasingly popular in large organizations that are looking for the next stage of their growth. Sometimes these units have proper P&L responsibility, and they might even report directly to the CEO or others in senior management, but at times they can also be innovation labs responsible primarily for testing and piloting new ideas before they are to be integrated into the core business.

Regardless of the particularities, these approaches have some specific strengths, but also clear weaknesses. The good thing is that because the unit is independent, it can usually avoid being held back by the restrictions of the business as usual and can build their talent and approaches from scratch.

If innovation is the job of a select few, it will be incredibly hard to build a pro-innovation culture.

The downside is that they also don’t necessarily play to the strengths that the organization has already built. Without strong and clear leadership, these kinds of innovation efforts are likely to have an equally poor success rate as your average startup – but without the asymmetric upside.

The reason is simple: if you already have hundreds of millions or billions in revenue, most new businesses just don’t move the needle enough – unless they can quickly grow to a massive size or be combined with the strengths and competitive advantages of the core business.

And just like with the centralized model, this model again limits innovation to one part of the organization. As before, that will likely prevent you from creating a true culture of innovation, and thus lead to the unit becoming a bottleneck down the road.

Pros

Freedom to operate independently from processes of existing business units, which is essential for trying new things and creating disruptive innovations
Ability to hire and organize specifically for innovation
If led well, ability to focus on the long-term instead of short-term performance
High profile innovation unit can also be used for marketing and employer branding purposes

Cons

Conflicts of interest and lack of cooperation between core business and innovation unit likely to lead to politics, tension, and other challenges in integrating innovations into core business
Independence and lack of communication between business units might hurt strategic alignment and prevent the innovation unit from benefiting from the existing strengths of the organization
Can easily degenerate into a cost center performing innovation theaterwithout a clear strategic focus, strong leadership, and evidence-based processes
Likely to disincentivize innovation in other parts of the organization and thus prevent the creation of an innovation culture
High initial investment with lots of uncertainty can make the business case for investing in innovation look bad

Embedded Innovation Organizational Model

Embedded

Many organizations have relatively independent business units or product and brand teams, and for them it can often make sense for innovation to be embedded within these units.

Traditional examples of such an approach are companies like P&G and other CPG companies with strong brands. These companies are working hard to keep up to date with evolving trends and consumer needs to innovate and create new products for the consumer. However, the same can also be true for many other kinds of businesses, such as software companies with multiple products.

Depending on the industry and organization, these units might have varying levels of control over their innovations once they are on the market. For example, in CPG companies manufacturing, logistics and many other functions would likely be managed by core business operations instead of this unit.

Pros

Better able to focus innovation on things that matter for each business, be they strategic projects or emerging customer needs
More control over innovation resources and ability to get talent that meets specific needs
Parallelization over different units can increase innovation throughput of the organization overall
Easier to align innovation with business needs and plans within the unit
The business case for investing in innovation is typically easy to make as you can start from low-hanging fruits that provide immediate value

Cons

Innovation likely to be biased towards more applied and incremental projects due to focus on immediate business needs
Some efforts may be duplicated between teams, especially if more long-term R&D work is being done
Can lead to a silo-effect, extra need to focus on facilitating knowledge transfer between units

Ambidextrous Innovation Organizational Model

Ambidextrous

Our fifth approach is usually referred to as the ambidextrous organization. We’ve also seen it be referred to as the Hybrid model, and it’s quite a natural evolution from the previous archetypes as it seeks to combine the best of both worlds.

In a nutshell, the idea is that innovation should happen across the organization with existing business units focused on exploiting their current position through incremental innovation, and a separate dedicated unit being responsible for exploring and building the future of the organization through more radical or disruptive innovation.

In the ambidextrous model, existing units use incremental innovation to exploit the current position and new units are set up to explore and build future.

In practice, a new P&L responsible division will be setup for new non-core businesses, and the more incremental innovation will then be organised either as Embedded or Centralized.

If an organization does successfully implement such an approach, it can lead to exceptional long-term performance, but that’s of course easier said than done. For most organizations, this is likely to require a significant transformation, and it can be challenging to get everyone onboard, build the right processes, as well as to align goals and incentives the right way across the organization.

Pros

Easier to build a balanced innovation portfolio with both strong short and long-term performance
Enables building an innovation-oriented culture across the organization
Enough resources for key projects across the organization
Makes it easier to communicate the innovation strategy with clear roles and responsibilities for each part of the organization
Can customize governance models to meet the needs of different types of innovation in different parts of the organization

Cons

Expensive and difficult to build, as well as to maintain
Requires clear leadership and a commitment to a transformation from the top
Can demotivate innovation-oriented employees that are in the core business
Usually requires extensive changes to processes and the re-skilling of managers and employees across the organization
While easier than with most other models on paper, prioritization and division of responsibilities can still be challenging in practice

Decentralized Innovation Organization

Decentralized

Our final model is the decentralized approach. If you look at any of the best innovators in the world, be it Apple, Tesla, SpaceX, or Amazon, this is closest to the model they use. None of these organizations has a centralized or dedicated team responsible for all innovation in the organization.

Instead, the organization decentralizes the responsibility for innovation to happen in individual teams (which are typically cross-functional and relatively small) across the organization. Each team is focused on figuring out how they could help the organization better reach their strategic goals, and innovation is just one of the key tools in that process.

If a team (or an individual leader or employee) comes across a big idea that shows promise but would require significant additional investments, they’ll apply for additional resources from management via a quick and streamlined process. If approved, that typically leads to another team being set up to pursue that idea.

This approach is sometimes called the permissionless model due to the significant freedom each team possesses to make decisions affecting their own work. The obvious advantages are that they usually know the problems intimately and have the resources, incentive, and know-how to solve them, and have fewer dependencies to other parts of the organization. That leads to an extremely high pace of innovation and innovation throughput for the organization, which together create a tremendous competitive advantage.

Loosely Coupled vs Tightly Coupled Organization

Having said that, this too isn’t exactly an easy model to implement for most organizations. Typically, this would require a fundamentally different mindset, leadership philosophy, and a significantly higher talent density. For the average organization, that means a full-blown transformation where most fundamentals in the organization would need to change, which of course isn’t feasible for many.

Pros

Extremely high throughput and pace of innovation
Ability to adapt, re-organize and meet changing demands quickly
Strong focus on execution and value creation
Clear roles and responsibilities

Cons

Would require a fundamental transformation for most organizations
Requires strong communication and strategic clarity from management
Active management involvement required to remove barriers and to organize teams so that the portfolio remains balanced
Requires high talent density across the organization, which can be very challenging to achieve in practice
Continuously evolving and rapidly changing landscape might be too intensive for some employees
Some work often initially duplicated across teams, but can be managed by creating horizontal support teams

Choosing the right approach for your organization

As you can see, every approach has their benefits, but also their disadvantages.

In our experience, the Hybrid and especially Decentralized are the likeliest approaches to lead to sustained levels of high innovation performance in the 21^stcentury but implementing either isn’t exactly a walk in the park for a large organization. If you have the luxury of meeting (or are close to meeting) the prerequisites, these are the models I’d personally go for.

However, for many, that just isn’t the reality. Even if you’re like most organizations and don’t quite have the talent, leadership, or other prerequisites needed for these approaches, I’d keep either the Hybrid or Decentralized approach as your eventual goal to build towards.

Move control and decision-making down in the organization to be able to move faster, make more informed decisions, respond to changes quicker, and to simply innovate more.

However, instead of a major overnight transformation, you should be prepared for a set of smaller, gradual steps that build your capabilities and culture towards that future while solving the current problems with your processes and structures.

Centralization vs Innovation Maturity

While not ideal in theory, in practice the journey towards becoming a mature top innovator typically first leads towards centralization for most incumbent organizations. They need to build their innovation strategy, knowledge and capabilities before they can successfully decentralize and move control and decision-making down in the organization to be able to move faster, make more informed decisions, respond to changes quicker, and to simply innovate more.

With that background, if such an approach is used, it’s crucial that this centralized innovation function understands and embraces their temporary role so that they are willing to relinquish control and power over innovation to others. All too often we see these leaders clinging on to the team, budget and power they’ve built long after it would’ve been in the organizations’ best interest to re-organize.

Best practices for organizing innovation

As we’ve discussed, if you’re planning to make changes to the way you organize innovation, most decisions will depend on your context. Still, there are a few things that are good to keep in mind regardless of the approach you end up choosing. Here’s my top three:

The best innovators continuously evolve

The first, and perhaps the most important point to remember is that the best innovators continuously evolve and improve the way they work. They don’t just pick one organizational structure and go with that forever. Instead, they are constantly looking for ways to re-organize their efforts so that they work on whatever is likely to best help them reach their goals. This is of course one of the fundamental strengths of the Decentralized model but applies to other approaches too.

This is also in line with how the most successful organizations approach re-organizations in general. They don’t just wait until the old structure is burning, they act proactively to position themselves for the future they want to create.

Clear roles and decision-making structures

It’s pretty obvious, but if people don’t know who can make a decision on an idea that they may have, or even who’s responsibility it would fall under, odds are that not a lot of innovation will happen.

The reality is that there will always be some ambiguity and overlap, especially in fast moving environments, but clear roles and decision-making structures are regardless important for an organization that wants to innovate.

If projects or decisions seem to get stuck, or turf battles seem to consistently pop up in your organization, unclear roles and ambiguous decision-making are likely to be the main culprits.

Organize according to strategy and plan for the execution

Again, it might sound obvious, but especially with innovation, the differences can be dramatic. Organization is the link between your strategy and your execution, so make sure it isn’t detached from the realities of what it will take to reach your goals with innovation.

To use a bit of a simplified example, if your strategy is focused on creating new business from emerging disruptive technologies, then the Embedded model probably won’t cut it as your innovators will be kept busy by the priorities from the core business.

How to organize innovation

Plan for the execution, on the other hand means that each team should have the resources and the freedom needed to reach your goals. If, using our previous example, you allocate just a few engineers to the team and then hope that sales will magically turn those technologies into booming businesses, odds are very much against you.

In other words, try to allocate resources so that the team has everything they need to reach their goals. While this sounds super basic, we still see these mistakes frequently when innovation is a bit of an afterthought for management.

Conclusion

As is probably evident by now, no structure or approach to governing innovation is ever going to be perfect, at least for long. As your goals change or your business and industry keep evolving, you will need to change and evolve too.

Even though organizing innovation doesn’t seem to get the same kind of attention as innovation strategy or culture, it’s extremely important, nevertheless. Get it wrong, and it will be almost impossible for your organization to succeed at innovation. Get it right, and you’ll at the very least have a realistic shot at that.

Hopefully this article has provided you with more thoughts on the topic, and some views on what to do and not-to-do.

This article was originally published in Viima’s blog.

Image credits: Unsplash, Viima, Nick Skillicorn

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High-Performing Innovative Culture Case Studies

Case Study 1: Google

Google has long been heralded as a paragon of innovative culture. With its famous ‘20% time’, where employees can dedicate a portion of their workweek to personal projects, Google encourages creativity and exploration. This policy has led to the creation of products like Gmail and Google News. Google’s culture emphasizes psychological safety, allowing team members to express ideas without fear of ridicule. To understand more about managing successful innovation programs, explore our deep dive into innovation programs.

Case Study 2: Spotify

Spotify’s organizational model is known for its flexibility and adaptability, encapsulated in what it calls “squads, tribes, chapters, and guilds.” Spotify encourages autonomous teams, or “squads”, to develop and iterate quickly while maintaining alignment with broader company goals through cross-functional “tribes”. This decentralized model enables rapid innovation while fostering a strong sense of team ownership and accountability.

Case Study 3: 3M

3M is often cited as a pioneer of innovative culture, with its commitment to innovation deeply embedded into its history. The company dedicates a significant percentage of its annual revenue directly to research and development. Known for its ‘15% culture’, 3M allows employees to allocate 15% of their working time to developing projects of their own choosing, which has been instrumental in creating breakthrough products like the Post-it Note. This approach highlights 3M’s focus on long-term innovation and sustained market leadership.

Conclusion

As demonstrated by these organizations, a high-performing innovative culture does not materialize overnight. It requires deliberate strategies, such as promoting psychological safety, decentralizing decision-making, and encouraging creative freedom. The success stories of Google, Spotify, and 3M offer valuable insights into the elements necessary to create such an environment. For more insights into innovation and culture, visit more of the articles here on the Human-Centered Change and Innovation blog.

Bottom line: 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: Pexels

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The Impact of Leadership on Innovation Culture

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The Impact of Leadership on Innovation Culture

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

In today’s fast-paced business environment, innovation is not merely a desirable feature but a critical factor for survival. Organizations often tout their dedication to innovation, but the difference between those that succeed and those that fail is frequently the presence of effective leadership. Leaders play a pivotal role in shaping an innovation culture, influencing it from the top-down dynamics of the organization.

Leadership: The Catalyst of Innovation

Leadership is the cornerstone of innovation culture. Effective leaders encourage a mindset of curiosity and experimentation, ensuring that innovation becomes embedded in the very fabric of the organization. They provide vision, create safe environments for taking calculated risks, and celebrate both successes and failures as essential learning experiences. By doing so, they not only inspire but also empower their teams to innovate consistently.

Case Study 1: 3M’s Leadership Philosophy

3M is often cited as a hallmark of innovation culture, and its leadership philosophy is central to this reputation. From the company’s early days, leadership at 3M promoted an ethos of research and development freedom. William L. McKnight, a former executive, was instrumental in cultivating this atmosphere. He famously championed a “15% rule,” allowing employees to dedicate a portion of their working hours to self-directed projects.

This practice led to the development of iconic products such as the Post-it Note. McKnight’s leadership created a fabric of innovation deeply woven into the culture of 3M. By empowering employees with autonomy and trust, leadership at 3M fostered a prolific environment where innovation could thrive organically.

Case Study 2: Google’s Innovation Ecosystem

Google’s approach to sustaining an innovation-driven culture is another exemplary model. Under the visionary leadership of founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and currently Sundar Pichai, Google created an ecosystem where creativity and “moonshot thinking” are not just encouraged but are critical to its operations. This is embodied in their “20% time” policy, similar to 3M’s philosophy, which allows employees to spend a portion of their time on projects they are passionate about.

This leadership-driven policy led to the creation of groundbreaking products like Gmail and AdSense. Beyond policies, Google’s leadership invests in creating physical and cultural environments that spark creativity and cross-pollination of ideas, from its open office spaces to the innovative use of technology. Leadership at Google orchestrates an intricate balance between freedom and structured innovation paths, ensuring consistent alignment with the company’s strategic goals.

Cultivating a Culture of Continuous Innovation

The leaders who enact transformational change within organizations are those who tailor their strategies to foster a culture of continuous innovation. They encourage diverse ideas, cross-departmental cooperation, and maintain robust feedback mechanisms. Crucially, these leaders recognize and reward innovative behavior, setting a precedent that amplifies throughout the organization.

Innovation is not solitary; it is a collaborative endeavor that demands a supportive culture. Leaders are the architects of these environments, and without their active engagement, innovation can stagnate. By observing and learning from successful models such as 3M and Google, other organizations can glean insights into crafting environments where innovation is not only possible but inevitable.

In conclusion, the impact of leadership on innovation culture is profound and unequivocal. Leaders must embody and propagate the values of innovation across every facet of the organization, ensuring that it is consistently nurtured and valued. It is through purposeful leadership that organizations can cultivate a thriving innovation culture poised for long-term success.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Managing Both the Present and the Future

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Managing Both the Present and the Future

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

In our last blog, we described the three characteristics that offer senior executives a “unique unfreezing opportunity” from the disruptive COVID-19 hiatus and the rate of exponential technological change. These involved developing a future-ready company that builds upon pandemic-related accomplishments and re-examines (or even reimagines) the organization’s identity, how it works, and how it grows. This means that every organization, regardless of its size and specialization, requires its leaders, and teams paradoxically, to be both competent and confident and be both human-centered and customer-centric, in effectively managing both the future and the present.

Simultaneously, we all need to ensure that they capture the best of what we’ve all learned to keep the digital momentum going and, at the same time, initiate the shift to quantum – by exploring, discovering, identifying, and unleashing the possibilities and opportunities of a post-COVID-19 world. To maximize, what McKinsey & Co describes as a “turning point” for economies: where new patterns of consumer and business behavior have emerged at extraordinary speed and can be sustained over long periods of time because digitization has accelerated change faster than many believed previously possible.

Unlearn, relearn, reskill and upskill

Reinforcing that managing both the future and the present requires generating new ways of harnessing and maximizing people’s collective and connective intelligence by:

Investing in helping people unlearn, relearn, reskill and upskill to meet the needs of jobs transformed by technologies created by globally accelerated digitization.
Helping people create vital new references and landing points for a future that they may not have previously imagined, and by;
Supporting them in being comfortable with the discomfort this brings.

Focusing on developing an organizational culture that is more adaptive and innovative, where people operate as a connected, mentally tough, and emotionally agile workforce; and are enabled and empowered to dance at the edge of their comfort zones, co-create value, deliver a great customer experience and succeed in a transforming market.

Both Human and Customer-Centric

Through developing both human-centric and customer-centric relationships that:

Enable people to shift from human-centered doing to human-centered being through connecting compassionately, creatively, and courageously through reciprocity and collaboration. Acknowledging that consumers have shifted largely to digital channels and many people are at home “nesting” and at the same time “languishing” in their remote and virtual workplaces.
Empower people to become customer-centric by co-creating collective value that customers appreciate and cherish. Acknowledging that the virus has interrupted, accelerated, and even reversed longstanding and conventional consumer and business habits.
Engage people in co-creation and in taking collective action to ensure that the rebound is not uneven. Enabling people to reboot creatively by maximizing the opportunities arising from the acceleration in the adoption of digital, automation, and other technologies.

As well as using innovation to add value to the common good in ways that improve humanity, by focusing on people, profit and planet.

Seizing the opportunity – it’s paradoxical

Developing future fitness requires people to not only unlearn, and see the world with fresh eyes, it also involves being able to sense and perceive it through a paradox lens; which helps us shift our focus across polarities of thought, from binary and competitive to critical, conceptual, and complementary thinking.

An often-quoted example is that as humans, we need to both exhale and inhale, we need to both rest and be active, rather than just do one or the other, or simply just either exhale or inhale, either rest or be active.

This means that a paradox is formed by contradictory yet interrelated elements that consistently coexist, and as leaders, teams, and coaches, we need to master this to develop the capability of managing both the future and the present simultaneously.

Embracing paradox

Embracing paradox involves being able to consciously shift cognitively from perceiving a prescriptive “either/or” world, which makes things black and white, right and wrong, mandatory or voluntary.

Towards embracing both poles, or polarities, and finding a balance within the dis-equilibrium.

As leaders, teams, and coaches, to seek equilibrium, by balancing both an ability to maximize and minimize people by exerting both powers over them, and by sharing power with them, to unleash both possibility and necessity thinking.

Dancing with dis-equilibrium

Letting go of an “either/or” perspective creates the safe spaces that allow people to flow with “what is” and to then evoke and provoke our thinking to perceive “what could be” possible.

By leading through dancing with dis-equilibrium to co-create a state of equilibrium to be an effective, agile, and creative leader and team member in a disruptive VUCA world.

In ways that allow people to confront and flow with tension and conflict, scrutinize any inherent contradictions by evoking and provoking creative ways in which the competing and complementary demands can be met in managing both the future and the present simultaneously.

Being both human-centric and customer-centric

Developing future-fitness requires leaders, teams, and coaches to be both human-centric and customer-centric simultaneously – to co-create organizations that integrate the values of human-centered design as a framework to balance the needs of the organizations with the needs of its users, customers, and communities, and for the common good and future of humanity.

Being human-centered

Being human-centered is also defined as being “marked by humanistic values and devotion to human welfare” which means that to create more human-centered leaders, teams, and people – we need to know how to shift the paradigm both from human-centered doing, and towards human-centered being by:

Helping people explore and embrace their own humanness.
Being willing, enabled, and empowered to develop reciprocal and collaborative relationships.
Connecting to ourselves and others openly through how we feel, express and tap into our own emotions and those of others we interact with.
Being altruistic in serving the common good in ways that potentially add value to the future of humanity.

Being customer-centric

Customer-centricity is a way of doing business that fosters a positive customer experience at every stage of the customer journey. It aims at building customer loyalty and satisfaction leading to referrals for more customers. Anytime a customer-centric business makes a decision, it deeply considers the effect the outcome will have on its customers and users.

To create more customer-centered leaders, teams, and people – we need to shift the paradigm from seeing business as both a source of revenue, wealth, and profit and towards customers being the reason and source of business success, or not, by:

Developing a customer-centric purpose, vision, and mission that every leader, team, and team member is aligned to, and has a line of sight to, and is able to contribute towards its achievement.
Anticipating customer and potential user needs.
Ensuring that there are a rigorous and regular customer and cultural assessment metrics and feedback mechanisms in place.
Ensuring that leadership and team capabilities to adapt and grow are aligned to achieve the purpose, vision, mission, and goals.
Enabling every leader and team member to connect with, and listen to customers, and then build products that meet customer needs, anticipates customer wants, and provide a level of service that keeps customers coming through the door and advocating for the brand or business.

Harnessing collective and connective intelligence

Reinforcing that managing both the future and the present requires generating new ways of harnessing and mobilizing people’s collective and connective intelligence in ways that ultimately co-create organizations that integrate the values of both innovation and human-centered design as a framework.

This helps balance the needs of the organizations with the needs of its users, customers, and communities, as well as enables leaders, teams, and organizations to collaborate towards contributing to the common good and to the future of humanity. It will also help people co-create both vital new reference points and landing strips for a future that they may not have previously imagined, and support them in being comfortable with the discomfort this brings.

This is the next blog series of blogs, podcasts, and webinars on Developing a Human-Centric Future-Fitness organization.

Find out more about our work at ImagineNation™

Find out about The Coach for Innovators Certified Program, a collaborative, intimate, and deep personalized innovation coaching and learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 8-weeks, starting October 19, 2021. It is a blended learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles, and applications of a human-centered approach to innovation, within your unique context. Find out more.

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Developing a Future-Fitness Focus

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Developing a Future-Fitness Focus

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

In a recent article “Organizing for the future: Nine keys to becoming a future-ready company” McKinsey and Co, suggested that the Covid-19 pandemic has added to the pressure to change that has been growing for many years, which is now at a tipping point. Where the most forward-looking leaders and teams see a larger opportunity – the chance to build on pandemic-related accomplishments and re-examine and reimagine the organisation’s identity, how it works, and how it grows. Referring to new research on the organizational practices of 30 top companies, they highlighted how businesses can best organize for the future – and it is all initiated by developing a human-centric, future-fit focus.

Inquiring as to how might we ensure that we capture the best of what we’ve learned and keep the digital momentum going through developing a future-fit focus within the post-COVID-19 world?

What is a future-ready organization?

The article goes on to state that future-ready companies share three characteristics that offer senior executives a “unique unfreezing opportunity” – oby co-creating new adaptive systems, that are purposeful, organic, and human-centric by:

Knowing who they are and what they stand for;
Operating with a fixation on speed and simplicity;
Growing by scaling up their ability to learn, innovate, and seek good ideas, regardless of their origin.

Seeing the world with fresh eyes – unlearning, re-learning, creativity and innovation

All of which need to be initiated and developed through acquiring a new lens: an ability to see the world with “fresh eyes” by letting go of many of our old mental models and paradigms to:

Co-create, with others, new openings and empty spaces for unlearning what may have previously been embraced and worked in the past.
Focus on developing a new future-fit focus that unleashes purposeful, speed, simplicity, and growth through unlearning, re-learning, creativity and innovation.

Letting go to let come

In almost every aspect of business, we are operating with mental models, paradigms, and mindsets that have become outdated or obsolete, from strategy to marketing, from organizational design, learning systems to leadership, teams, and even to coaching.

This means that the first and most crucial step in shifting towards a human-centric, future-fitness focus involves “unlearning.”

Because many of our old mental models and paradigms, which are mostly unconsciously embodied in our core mindsets, impact the choices and decisions we make, the behaviors we enact, and the results we get – and it seems, that in 2021 we are getting a lot of results that no-one particularly wants.

What do we mean by “unlearning” and why is it important?

A lot of the mental models and paradigms are embodied in our habitual mindsets, that many of us learned in school, university, or college, and even in 20th century learning programs and built our careers on are now incomplete, ineffective, and irrelevant in adapting, and in serving people to survive, grow and thrive the post-Covid-19 world.

This means that to embrace a future-fit focus we have to first unlearn the old ones.

“Unlearning” is not about forgetting.

It’s about paying deep attention and developing the awareness to see, and step outside of our old mental models or paradigms and pay attention, and be consciously aware of the:

Mindsets we are embodying;
Behaviors we are enacting;
and the results we are manifesting.

Either because reality has changed or because current approaches are based on flawed or rigid thinking, faulty premises, and assumptions, or via a different consumer or technological landscape.

To then consciously choose, experiment, make distinctions, and bravely re-learn how to shift towards developing different, diverse, and more resourceful future-readiness.

The good news is that practicing “unlearning” will make it easier and quicker to make the necessary future-fit shifts as our brains become adaptive, through the process of neuroplasticity.

What are the key steps in “unlearning”?

Being fully present, composed, and detached in adopting a beginner’s mind involving periodically challenging, questioning, and reassessing deeply held theories, archetypes, and conventions to provoke and evoke creative new ideas and innovative solutions.
Allowing things to be and not needing to be in control, or in charge, being comfortable with being uncomfortable and willing to explore uncertainty, constraints, and threats as opportunities from a whole person and whole systems perspective.
Wandering into wonder in the unknown to bravely adopt a “not knowing” stance and be more open-hearted, childlike and joyful, by bringing in awe, curiosity, and playfulness into your space.
Recognizing and discerning that some of your old mental models, paradigms, and mindsets are no longer relevant or effective and be open-minded, through being inquisitive, curious, and creative in experimenting with new ones.
Imagining, finding, or creating new mental models, paradigms, and mindsets that can help you adapt, innovate and better achieve your goals and growth objectives and focus on developing your capacity, confidence, and competence in being agile: the ability to create intentional shifts in different and changing contexts to re-program the mind.
Ingraining the new future-fit mindsets as emotional and mental habits through attending and observing, being empathic and compassionate, questioning and inquiring, generative listening and debate, experimenting, smart risk-taking, and networking across boundaries.

What gets in the way of “unlearning”?

At ImagineNation™ we specialize in designing and delivering bespoke adult learning solutions that embrace a range of future fit mindsets, behaviors, and skills.

Whilst we have found that many leaders, teams, executives, and coaches are willing to unlearn, and re-learn, many are not.

Requiring our coaches, trainers, and facilitators to effectively resolve some of the key human-centric blockers to unlearning and re-learning including some peoples’:

Rigidity and fixedness in their own points of view and need to be “right” and in control of the situation.
Need to always appear to know, and their hesitancy around not wanting to look like they don’t actually know the answers or solutions, and are therefore incompetent.
Busyness, where they are too task focussed to make the time to hit their pause buttons, retreat and reflect, to review options for being more effective, productive, and creative, by thinking and doing things differently.
Fear of loss, or lack of safety and permission to set aside the status quo to challenge assumptions and explore new possibilities and play with the art of the possible

Towards a human-centric, future-fit focus

For most of us, the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath have upended our lives as we knew them, and according to McKinsey & Co – the resulting pain, grief, and economic dislocation will be felt long into the future.

Reinforcing that the first priority for leaders and teams, therefore, is to become more purposeful and human-centric, to lead and role model a future-fit focus.

Aimed at increasing speed and improving simplicity and by strategically scaling up people’s ability to unlearn, relearn, innovate, and seek good ideas regardless of their origin.

By being curious and creative, connected, empathic and compassionate, confident and courageous, to revitalize, and reenergize, exhausted people, teams, and organizations, currently languishing in 2021.

This is the first of a series of blogs, podcasts, and webinars on Developing a Human-Centric Future-Fitness organisation.

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The Role of Leadership in Driving Innovation Culture

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Insightful Lessons from Visionary Leaders

The Role of Leadership in Driving Innovation Culture

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

In today’s rapidly changing world, organizations that embrace innovation are better positioned for long-term success. However, fostering an innovative culture requires leadership that not only recognizes the importance of innovation but also actively supports and cultivates it. In this article, we delve into the pivotal role leaders play in shaping an innovative culture and explore real-life case studies of effective leaders who have successfully fostered innovation. By gaining actionable insights from these examples, we can understand how to drive innovation culture within our own organizations.

Case Study 1: Apple Inc. – Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, the visionary leader behind Apple Inc., exemplified the profound impact leadership can have on driving an innovative culture. Jobs transformed and established Apple as a remarkable innovator in the technology industry. He instilled a sense of creativity, relentless pursuit of perfection, and the courage to challenge conventions.

Actionable Insights:

1. Encourage risk-taking and experimentation: Jobs embraced a culture that encouraged employees to take calculated risks and think outside the box. He fostered an environment where failure was viewed as a valuable learning experience rather than a negative outcome, thereby empowering individuals to innovate fearlessly.
2. Drive a customer-centric approach: One of Jobs’ greatest strengths was his ability to understand and anticipate customer needs. By placing the customer at the core of the company’s innovation efforts, Apple consistently delivered revolutionary products that exceeded expectations.

Case Study 2: Google – Larry Page

Larry Page, co-founder of Google, provides another exemplary case study on fostering an innovation culture within an organization. Page recognized that innovation thrives when teams are given the freedom to explore and experiment, leading to remarkable advancements in various fields.

Actionable Insights:

1. Create an environment for open collaboration: Page promoted a culture of open communication and collaboration at Google. He believed that diverse perspectives and ideas fuel creativity and innovation. By providing ample opportunities for employees to collaborate across teams and disciplines, Google became a melting pot of ideas.
2. Empower employees through moonshot thinking: Moonshot thinking, a concept Page introduced, encourages employees to pursue audacious goals. By setting big, ambitious targets, Page pushed his teams to think beyond traditional boundaries and embrace exponential thinking.

Conclusion

Leadership plays a pivotal role in driving an innovative culture within organizations. The case studies of Steve Jobs at Apple and Larry Page at Google demonstrate how effective leaders can foster and sustain an environment where innovation thrives. By encouraging risk-taking, fostering a customer-centric approach, promoting collaboration, and empowering employees through ambitious goals, leaders can shape an innovative culture. As human-centered professionals, we must harness these actionable insights to create organizations that continually evolve, adapt, and lead the way in an ever-changing world.

SPECIAL BONUS: The very best change planners use a visual, collaborative approach to create their deliverables. A methodology and tools like those in Change Planning Toolkit™ can empower anyone to become great change planners themselves.

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Innovation Teams Do Not Innovate

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Innovation Teams Do Not Innovate

Guest Post from Janet Sernack

In our first blog in this series of three blogs, we reinforced and validated the importance and role of collaboration. We then described the range of emerging new, inspirational, and adaptive models that lean into complexity and catalyze and embed sustainable innovative workplace culture change. Where some organizations, like Alibaba, Disney, Google, Salesforce, and GE, developed their future fitness by courageously investing in catalyzing, igniting, and leading change through innovation teams.

Innovation teams are teams that don’t innovate!

Conventional team collaboration performance and development approaches are still relevant and foundational to long-term organizational success. And, a new range of organizational needs are emerging in our fast-changing and disruptive world, that complement conventional team development processes including the importance of:

Providing a unified and holistic and systemic “collective mind” focussed on adding value to customers,
Being agile, focused, and in charge to make faster decisions,
Sharing resources and insights to reduce costs,
Working interdependencies to improve efficiencies and productivity,
Shifting focus from being competitive towards co-creating ecosystems to solve bigger, more complex problems, to lead, embed, and sustain value-adding change in a disruptive world.

According to the authors of Eat, Sleep Innovate, an innovation team is formed to develop “something different that creates value” and do this best in a culture where such behaviors come naturally.

These behaviors include:

Curiosity
Customer obsession
Adeptness to ambiguity
Collaboration
Empowerment
Accountability

Purpose of innovation teams

The purpose of an innovation team is to create an environment that unlocks an organization’s collective intelligence (capacity, competence, and confidence) and builds the capability to change as fast as change itself.

Usually, through providing mentorship, coaching, and learning process in ways that align, engage, enable, equip and leverage peoples’ collective intelligence to:

Adapt to higher levels of ambiguity and uncertainty,
Challenge the status quo and help break a conventional business as usual habits, leadership styles, and comfortable ways of working,
Provoke future “fast forward” (horizon three) thinking,
Support the implementation of digital and organizational transformational efforts,
Collectively and collaboratively drive innovation across organizations pragmatically and make it a reality,
Leverage synergies across ecosystems to solve complex problems and deliver increased value to customers.

Ultimately, to provoke and evoke future “fast forward” creative discoveries and experiment with new platforms and possible future business models to help guide future renewal and reinventions.

Delivering these, as smart and multi-disciplinary teams in ways that are timely, agile, and disciplined that potentially support and bring significant value to customers, the market, and to the organization.

Unconventional stretch collaboration requires connection, cognitive dissonance, and conflict

Experimenting with, iterating, and adapting new collaborative models, enables organizations and their leaders, to shift their focus – from being defensively competitive towards being creatively constructive.

Where the goal is to create a high performing, connected, and networked workplace culture where people:

Have the time and space to deeply connect, collaborate, and co-create value,
Maximize differences and diversity of thought,
Generate the urgency and creative energy to innovate,
Feel safe and have permission to freely share ideas, wisdom, knowledge, information, resources, and perspectives.

Innovation teams create discord and generate conflict

At ImagineNation™ we have found that the best way for innovation teams to perform is through building safety and trust, whilst simultaneously being safely provocative and evocative in creating discord and conflict to disrupt peoples conventional thought processes, behaviors, and habits.

To engage people in maximizing differences and diversity to generate creative ideas, and experiment with inventive prototypes, that ultimately solve big and complex problems and deliver commercially astute, innovative solutions.

By connecting, networking, and focussing on co-creation and emphasizing collaboration, inclusion, and mutual accountability, and not on being competitive.

Dealing with the organizational blockers – Innovation teams

At ImagineNation™ our experience has enabled us to understand and reduce the range of key common blockers to transformational and innovation-led change initiatives.

Where we support clients identify, and resolve and remove them by enabling and equipping innovation teams to:

Develop agile and innovation mindsets: building capability in safely exposing and disrupting rigid mindsets through customized mindset shifting, behavioral-based, skills development programs.
Understand the impact of the organization’s collective mindset: supporting teams to develop an empathic understanding of one another, then shifting how they feel and think to act differently, and cultivate the discomfort resilience when facing the challenges and failures in the innovation rollercoaster ride.
Enable leadership development: through educating, mentoring, and coaching leaders to grow their adaptive, collaborative, engaging, and innovative team leadership and membership capabilities.
Foster the development of an adaptive and innovative culture: by applying the cultural assessment and diagnostic processes that result in pragmatic culture change initiatives.
Ensure strategic alignment: sensing, perceiving, and developing a mutual focus, common language and understanding, and a collaborative networked way of working, that bridges the gap between the current and desired states.

Setting up an innovation team – the critical success factors

At ImagineNation™ we have also helped our clients identify, and embed the critical success factors, that enable innovation teams to drive and embed innovation-led change and transformational initiatives by ensuring:

Alignment to the mission, vision, purpose, values.
Strategic allocation of resources.
Leadership team sponsorship and mentorship.
Investment in team members and leader’s capability development.
Thinking big and focussing on clarifying and delivering future “fast forward” far-reaching solutions to highly impactful challenges.
Organization engagement and enrolment in implementing changes and creating, inventing, and delivering innovative solutions.
Lines of sight to stakeholders, eco-system players, and customers, taking an empathic value-adding perspective at all times.

Innovation teams – an unfreezing opportunity to co-create future-fit organizations

Embracing this type of collaborative approach creates an unprecedented opportunity for organizations, who have been upended as a result of the Covid-19 crisis, to develop a sense of urgency toward unfreezing and eliminating their corporate antibodies.

Empathizing with the range of challenges leaders are facing right now, where many are slowly waking up to a post-covid world, where there is an unprecedented and urgent opportunity to co-create a “new normal” that is well-designed to lift any of the emotional barriers to teamwork, locked-down relationships and online fatigue.

Opening the door to a new kind of co-creative, collaborative and cohesive team spirit that allows and encourages people to re-imagine, re-learn, reinvent and co-create new, fresh future fit, adaptive and innovative, people and customer-centric systems, structures, business models, and ecosystems.

All of which are mandatory for delivering future “fast forward” strategies for applying the collaborative and collective intelligence required for increasing value in innovative ways that people and customers appreciate and cherish, in ways we have not previously imagined, that connect with and contribute to, the good of the whole.

Find out about our learning products and tools, including The Coach for Innovators Certified Program, a collaborative, intimate, and deep personalized innovation coaching and learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 8-weeks, starting Tuesday, October 19, 2021.

It is a blended and transformational change and learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles, and applications of a human-centred approach and emergent structure (Theory U) to innovation, within your unique context. Find out more

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Catalysing Change Through Innovation Teams

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Catalysing Change Through Innovation Teams

Guest Post from Janet Sernack

What makes Israel so innovative? And what has this got to do with teaming? One of the key discoveries, we made, almost ten years ago, when we relocated to Israel, was the power of its innovation eco-system – the result of a collaboration between the state, venture capital firms, successful entrepreneurs, educational system, business system, incubators, and accelerators. Reinforcing and validating the importance and role of collaboration, where a range of new, inspirational, and adaptive models that lean into complexity and catalyze and embed innovative workplace culture changes, have emerged. Where some organizations have strategically and systemically, courageously invested in applying these new models internally, in catalyzing change through innovation teams.

Transform creative discoveries

Innovation teams transform creative discoveries and ideas into new platforms and business models in timely, agile, and disciplined ways that bring significant value to the market and organization. Who, according to Nick Udall, CEO and co-founder of nowhere, effectively deliver the desired step-changes, breakthrough innovations, and organizational transformation, in ways that “move beyond what we know and step into the unknown, where the relationship between cause and effect is more ambiguous, hidden, subtle and multi-dimensional.”

New collaborative models

The range of new collaborative models, include teams and teaming, tribes, collectives, and eco-systems, are all designed to help organizations innovate in turbulent times.

Where they empower and enable everyone to be involved in innovating, and in responding to the diverse assortment of complex challenges emerging from the Covid-19 crises. They also empower and enable people to co-sense and co-create inventive solutions to the range of “complex” challenges, in ways that potentially engineer 21st-century adaptability, growth, success, and sustainability, in countries, communities, and organizations.

Capacity to change

Groups, teams, and teaming are now the “DNA of cultures of innovation”, who fuel organizations, with an “evolutionary advantage – the capacity to change as fast as change itself.” As we transition from our pre-Covid-19 conventional business-as-usual “normals”, organizations have the opportunity to adapt to the high levels of ambiguity by leveraging their peoples’ collective genius.

Utilizing innovation teams to multiply their value and co-create innovation cultures that catalyze growth, in the post-Covid-19 world through:

Emerging and exploring possibilities
Discovering creative opportunities
Making strategic decisions
Incubating and accelerating new ideas.

Realm of the creative team

According to Dr. Nick Udall in “Riding the Creativity Roller-Coaster” – creative teams embrace and work with the unknown, intangible, invisible, the unconscious and the implicate, that their key challenges are “to wander with wonder into the unknown.”

Through cultivating a 21^st-century skill set, including – attending and observing, questioning, listening and differing, risk-taking and experimenting, and teaming and networking that enables them to be, think and act differently.

Catalyzing change through innovation teams involves creating a culture of innovation, which according to the authors of “Eat, Sleep, Innovate” – is one in which (mindsets) and behaviors that drive innovation come naturally.

Where creative teams are formed around a Passionate Purpose, that propels them into the unknown, in an unpredictable world, where they connect and stretch with cognitive dissonance and creative tension, through developing discomfort resilience. To co-create collective breakthroughs that shift them beyond managing the probable, toward leading what’s possible.

Role of collective mindsets and behaviors

One of the key elements that we can intentionally cultivate is our ability to develop habits that build our mental toughness and emotional agility to cope with stress and adversity, at the same time, paradoxically, create, invent and innovate.

The one thing that we can all control, and is controllable, are our individual and collective mindsets – how we think, feel and choose to act, in solving complex problems, performing and innovating, to dance on the edges of our comfort zones, in the face of the kinds of uncertainties we confront today.

Challenges in creating a culture of innovation

Our research at ImagineNation™ has found that many organizations are disappointed and disillusioned with many of the conventional approaches to effecting culture change, largely because of variables including:

Confusion between the role of climate, culture, and engagement assessments and processes, knowing which one aligns to their purpose, strategy, and goals and delivers the greatest and most relevant value.
The typically large financial investment that is required to fund them.
The time it takes to design or customize, and implement them.
The complexity of tools and processes available that are involved in contextualizing and measuring desired changes.
Designating responsibility and accountability for role modeling, leading, and implementing the desired changes.
Building peoples’ readiness and receptivity to the desired change.
Efforts are required in removing the systemic blockers to change.
Designing and delivering the most appropriate change and learning interventions.
The false promises of “innovation theatre”.
The time it takes to reap desired results, often years.

In response to our client’s need for speedy, cost-effective, and simple, internal and collaborative culture change initiatives, we developed an integrated, simple, yet profoundly effective approach that integrates three powerful streams for catalyzing change through innovation teams:

Team development and teaming skills
Education and learning interventions
Coaching and mentoring initiatives

By taking these variables into account, focussing on building the internal capability, and offering a different and fresh perspective towards catalyzing change through innovation teams.

Creating a culture of innovation – the innovation team

We took inspiration from our 32 years of collective knowledge, wisdom, and experience across the domains of change management, culture, leadership, and team development as well as from our 8 years of iterating and pivoting our approach to the People Side of Innovation.

Coupling this with our extensive research sources, we developed and customized a team-based action and blended learning and coaching methodology for innovation teams, described as:

Change catalysts who operate with senior leadership sponsorship, empowered and equipped to trigger internal change management, engagement, and learning initiatives.
Teachers, coaches, and mentors who provide coaching and mentoring support to educate people in innovation principles and processes that cultivate sustainable innovation through co-creating learning programs and events.
A small effective and cohesive team, of evangelists, agitators, coaches, and guides and enables the whole organization to participate through partnering and collaborating on potentially ground-breaking (Moonshot) projects, aligned to the organization’s vision, purpose, and strategy.
Amazing networkers and influencers who work both within and outside of silos to inspire and motivate people to co-operate and collaborate by taking a systemic perspective, leveraging organizational independencies, to co-sense and co-create groundbreaking (Moonshot) prototypes that they pitch to senior leaders.
Being customer-obsessed and equipped with the innovation agility – capacity, competence, and confidence to adapt, transform, and constantly innovate to maximize the impact of innovation across the organization to affect growth, and deliver improved value by making innovation everyone’s job, every day, to make innovation a habit and way of life.

Developing the future fit future-facing company

Involves a commitment toward catalyzing change through innovation teams, leveraging teams, tribes, collectives as internal growth engines, who collaborate quickly to respond to ambiguity, turbulence, and rapid developments. By being nimble and agile, leading with open minds, hearts, and will to be present and compassionate to emerging human needs, courageously experiment with different business models, and creatively contribute to an improved future, for everyone.

This is the first in a series of three blogs about catalyzing change through innovation teams, why innovation teams are important in catalyzing culture change, and what an innovation team does.

Check out our second blog which describes how an innovation team operates and our final blog which includes an evidence-based case study of an effective and successful innovation team in a client organization.

It is a blended and transformational change and learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles, and applications of a human-centered approach and emergent structure (Theory U) to innovation, within your unique context. Find out more

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Innovation organization only thrives along with innovation culture

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Guest Post from Nicolas Bry

Innovation organization doesn’t thrive without innovation culture: organization and process without culture are like a factory without raw materials; culture without organization and process is appropriate to initiate a handful of innovation projects, but doesn’t scale.

Looking at 3 major innovation programs I shaped (open innovation with internet user and entrepreneurs, empowering employees with intrapreneurship, exploring and experimenting in short cycles in Africa), this correlation between organization and culture became obvious to me. Some fundamental pieces to assemble have come to my mind, in order to make innovation organization match with culture in a complete jigsaw: these essentials let fledgling innovators fly the nest, and seasoned ones hit the nail even better. Thus entrepreneurship can emerge as a second nature, and a core value for organizations.

1. Innovation Organization

To set-up a streamlined innovation process, I find these 3 organization pieces to be paramount:

1. Test and learn iterative path

Share the virus of test and learn in short cycles with your innovators; confronting the value proposition with the customer target as soon as possible to capture insights, and iterating positively on your solution as on your target users; avoiding the product bias pitfall: ‘don’t fall in love with your product, fall in love with the user problem’ as Ash Maurya says; spending the initial time on materializing the value proposition, designing mock-up to let users clearly visualize it and express feedback and insights; sorting out the key hypothesis to validate and the appropriate tests to perform, and capturing The Right It, without yet engaging in significant product development;

2. Collaborative platforms design

Open innovation blossoms with shared goals and explicit knowledge; to facilitate knowledge sharing, entice innovators to create a platform that let others create value on top of it, applying modular design from the very beginning; having in mind end-users and developers ecosystem as 2 different user targets; exposing building blocks (APIs) that can be quickly reused internally and externally to create instantly new businesses;

3. Scale-up preparation stage

Once product market fit is on the trend to prove true, the innovator’s venture shall anticipate the acceleration of sales and operations, the scale-up. Crossing the chasm and industrializing processes (marketing, product, sales, recruitment and on-boarding, partnerships) requires preparation, just as if you were upgrading your sailboat from a promenade near the coast to a transatlantic journey with heavy wind blowing. Have also in mind that the corporate scale-up has simultaneously to win.

Homme Tenant Un Sac à Dos Noir

2. Innovation Culture

To instill an innovation culture, I find these 3 cultural pieces quite efficient:

1. Empowerment with creative tension

Unleashing creativity and autonomy is fine, but a framework actually helps innovators; At Google, they say ‘innovation loves constraints’, and ‘the faster, the better’: speed is a constraint that pushes you to focus on the core, and to eliminate the superfluous, leading to frugal execution. ‘Less is more’ claimed famous designer Mies van der Rohe. In that sense, speed triggers a positive tension;

2. Upstream aspiration with C-level and business units commitment

Innovators often start bottom-up initiatives; at a certain point, innovators need to be aspired with C-level and business units support to leverage the corporation assets; explain to these sponsors how innovation differs from ideation, and that it seeks for business impact, just like marketing and sales: innovation is about conquering new customers, improving loyalty, differentiating from competition, creating value for the users and for the company; align innovators endeavors with corporation strategy, and gain credibility with quick wins in your innovation portfolio; you’ll know you have succeeded when business units will include innovation KPIs across the organization;

3. Stimulation of boldness, and risk taking spirit

innovation contests and crowdsourcing stimulate ideation if appropriate recognition comes along; if we want employees to further engage with boldness in execution, failure has to be accepted as part of the innovation process, as Gore company shows it with its Celebrate Failure event; do not underestimate that, while a company has dozen of successful projects to hide a failure behind the curtain, it’s not possible for an employee to offset an experience on his resume; how to detect opportunities out of setbacks, how to become a learning organization is a necessary culture: ‘I never fail, I either succeed or learn’ claimed Nelson Mandela. It requires training for the employees and for the leaders: letting the leaders embrace and learn from failure during a ‘eat your own dog food’ workshop is a fruitful practice I’m a great believer in.

Propagating a culture of organized innovation, while organizing innovation culture, you will durably shape people to become successful innovators, and win the game. That’s the best mean to achieve impactful outcome: innovation that change people’s lives.

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