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Navigating the Future to Ensure Long-Term Success

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A CEO Checklist

Navigating the Future to Ensure Long-Term Success

GUEST POST from Teresa Spangler

“Trends are only useful when we look at them through multiple lenses as we gaze across all six time zones. We must think of trends as signposts that can illuminate the conditions we will likely encounter at some point in the future, even if that future is a century away.” — Amy Webb

No one will argue the need today to focus on back-to basics! Challenging economies dictate this type of focus. In my years of experience, those companies that cut to deeply in futures planning struggle more trying to rebound when economies improve. So why is it so important to be a futurist in today’s economy? It’s a formidable way to help you and your organization navigate the world of extreme consequences with optimism. But let’s face it, maintaining good organizational morale and motivation can be challenging as worldly events may create fear and anxiety. That’s why I want to talk to you about an effective method called “signal crafting.”

So, what is signal crafting? This healthy exercise provides insights beyond your day-to-day and even your year-to-year planning. It involves diving deeply into futuristic scenarios by crafting the best-case and worst-case outcomes. Signal crafting exercises help you anticipate future scenarios of global events, giving life and a 360-degree view of circumstances. In turn, by building out these signaling exercises, you are equipping your organization to plan better and, in many cases, alleviate and turn that fear into fuel.

But what are the benefits of signaling in planning for the future? Let me tell you:

  • Signal crafting is an exercise that helps businesses prepare for the future by creating scenarios based on different factors that affect their industry.

  • Companies must focus on attuning to signals of change in the world, including industry trends and emerging technologies, changing consumer behavior, social and cultural shifts, political and regulatory changes, and economic conditions.

  • By combining different factors that affect a business’s future, it can envision various potential outcomes and make strategic decisions based on the most likely scenarios.

  • The exercise helps businesses identify risks and opportunities and develop strategic plans considering possible outcomes.

  • The exercise fosters cross-departmental collaboration and gains multiple perspectives.

  • The exercise can be repeated periodically, allowing companies to adapt to new signals of change and remain future-ready planners and strategists.

So, how do you start the signal crafting exercise? Here are some steps you can take:

Focus teams on attuning to signals of change in the world, including industry trends and emerging technologies, changing consumer behavior, social and cultural shifts, political and regulatory changes, and economic conditions. Here are a few team exercises you could use to gain future insights:

  • Choose a signal of interest: Each team member chooses one signal.

  • Go as deep as you can to envision how the world is affected by this signal of change.

  • Envision the signal, including the details above; in the scenario, it’s ten years from today. What’s happening?

  • Write a futuristic story about that signal. Write about two different outcomes ten years from now.

  • Construct a positive outcome.

  • Construct a worst-case outcome.

  • Share your stories, both optimistic and worst-case scenarios. Talk about these and how each signal may impact your business, people, individuals, environments, governments, etc.

Company teams can create scenarios based on the categories they choose. The teams can then present their scenarios to other groups, fostering cross-departmental collaboration and gaining multiple perspectives. The exercise can be repeated periodically, allowing companies to adapt to new signals of change and remain future-ready planners and strategists.

By creating a range of scenarios that identify potential risks and opportunities, businesses can develop strategic plans that consider different possible outcomes. These actions enable the company to be better prepared for the future and proactively prepare for different outcomes instead of reacting to events as they unfold. The approach will ensure you maintain a competitive advantage, but moreover, you may experience a calming of fear and anxiety in the organization. So many benefits come from this one exercise, but overall it is a future-planning exercise to help the organization achieve long-term success.

These steps are helpful to you as you navigate the tough times ahead. As Amy Webb said, “Trends are only useful when we look at them through multiple lenses as we gaze across all six time zones. We must think of trends as signposts that can illuminate the conditions we will likely encounter at some point in the future, even if that future is a century away.”

Below is a more comprehensive checklist to Future-Visioning:

  1. Focus on signals of change. Pay attention to industry trends, emerging technologies, changing consumer behavior, social and cultural shifts, political and regulatory changes, and economic conditions.

  2.  Identify potential risks and opportunities. Develop strategic plans that consider different possible outcomes. Remain, future-ready planners and strategists.

  3. Choose a signal of interest. Each team member chooses one signal of focus.

  4. Encourage team members to become experts in their chosen signal. Gain a deeper understanding of a specific trend or factor affecting the business.

  5.  Envision future scenarios: Imagine the future based on different possible outcomes. Dive deep into how the world is affected by each signal of change.

  6. Build a 360-degree view of potential scenarios. Anticipate future events and prepare for them proactively. Alleviate fear and turn it into fuel for the organization.

  7. Write a futuristic story. Write a futuristic story about what could happen ten years from now. Construct a positive and worst-case outcome based on the chosen signal.

  8. Envision a range of potential outcomes. Identify potential risks and opportunities. Encourage cross-departmental collaboration and gain multiple perspectives.

  9. Share stories and outcomes

  10. .Discuss the stories and outcomes with other groups. Discuss how each signal may impact the business, individuals, environments, governments, etc.

  11. Foster collaboration and communication within the organization. Gain a better understanding of different perspectives. Develop strategic plans based on a range of possible outcomes.

  12. Repeat periodically. Conduct the exercise periodically to adapt to new signals of change and remain future-ready planners and strategists.

Develop a long-term strategic vision for the organization. Stay up-to-date on industry trends and emerging technologies. Remain adaptable and flexible to changing conditions by evolving these strategies on a periodic basis. Be ready when markets rebound!

Image credit: Unsplash

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An Innovation Evangelist Can Increase Your Reputation and Innovation Velocity

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Chief Evangelist Braden Kelley

Building upon my popular article Rise of the Evangelist, I wanted to create an article for the global innovation community focused specifically on the importance of the innovation evangelist role.

In my previous article I defined five different types of evangelists that organizations may already have, or may want to hire, including:

  1. Chief Evangelist
  2. Brand Evangelists
  3. Product Evangelists
  4. Service Evangelists
  5. Innovation Evangelists

This specialization occurs when the evangelism an organization needs become too big for one evangelist to handle. At that point, a Chief Evangelist creates the evangelism strategy and manages the execution across the team of brand, innovation, and other evangelism focus areas.

When should an organization focus on innovation evangelism?

To continue to exist as a business, every organization should build an infrastructure for continuous innovation, but many don’t. If you’re not sure what this looks like, here is my Infinite Innovation Infrastructure (which leverages the Nine Innovation Roles):

Infinite Innovation Infrastructure

For those organizations investing in innovation, it is crucial to also invest in innovation evangelism when:

  1. Innovation is part of the company’s strategy
  2. Innovation is central to competitive differentiation
  3. The company wants to share their innovation stories
  4. The company wants to partner with customers to innovate
  5. The company wants to partner with suppliers to innovate
  6. The company wants to engage experts in innovation
  7. The company wants to engage the general public in innovation

You’ll notice many of these points hint at the need for an external talent strategy, and Innovation Evangelism must play a key role. Because of this, I encourage you to download and consult the success guide I created for Innocentive on Harnessing the Global Talent Pool to Accelerate Innovation which focuses on the elements and importance of external talent in any company’s innovation efforts.

Bill Joy, a co-Founder of Sun Microsystems, once famously said:

“There are always more smart people outside your company than within it.”

Any external talent strategy must accumulate energy and then unleash it in a focused direction. And part of the way to do that is by establishing a common language of innovation. The process begins by defining what innovation means to your organization. Consider looking at this as the WHO – WHAT – WHEN – WHERE – WHY – HOW of innovation:

  • WHO is to be involved in your innovation efforts?
  • WHAT does innovation mean to you? WHAT types of innovation are you focused on?
  • WHEN will you be looking for innovation input?
  • WHERE can people go to find out more? WHERE do they go to contribute?
  • WHY should people want to participate?
  • HOW can they participate?

Continue reading this article on InnovationManagement.se

… where we will answer these questions and more:

  • Should innovation evangelism be a role or a job?
  • What does an innovation evangelist do?
  • What makes a good innovation evangelist?


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Unlocking the Power of Change Leadership Through Storytelling

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Unlocking the Power of Change Leadership Through Storytelling

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

Change is an inevitability in life and in business. It is essential to the success of any organization and its people, but often it is met with resistance and fear. To bring about lasting transformation, organizations must be able to move beyond the traditional methods of change management and embrace the power of change leadership through storytelling.

Storytelling is a powerful tool for change leadership. It is a way to engage with people on an emotional level and to help them understand the importance of making a change. When organizations use storytelling to convey the message of change, it can help to make it more palatable and easier to accept.

Storytelling can be used to illustrate the positive impact of change and to encourage people to believe in it. People can be inspired by stories that show how change has made a difference in the lives of others. It can also be used to show how organizations are adapting to new situations and how the changes will benefit the organization and its people.

Storytelling can also be used to help people make sense of their own experiences with change. People can learn how to cope with their own fears and doubts and how to manage their reactions to the changes. When people understand the stories behind the changes, they can more easily accept them.

Stories can also be used to demonstrate the power of collective leadership. People can be inspired by stories of how a group of people worked together to create change and how they overcame any obstacles they faced. This can be used to show the importance of collaboration and how it can be used to bring about lasting results.

Finally, storytelling can be used to help people develop the skills necessary for effective change leadership. People can learn how to lead without fear, how to engage with others in meaningful dialogue, and how to build trust and respect in the workplace. These skills are essential for successful change leadership and can be taught through stories.

Storytelling is an invaluable tool for change leadership. It can help to make change more palatable, to inspire people to accept it, and to develop the skills necessary for effective change leadership. By using storytelling, organizations can unlock the power of change leadership and make sure that their people are ready to embrace the changes they must make.

Image credit: Pexels

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What’s Your Innovation Story?

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What's Your Innovation Story?

Many, but not all, innovations involve some kind of technology, and start as an invention. Many of these technology-based inventions that may eventually become innovations are created by startups, but many are created inside large companies as well. In both cases, these technology-based potential innovations are often created by engineers or technologists that are well-versed in the problems they are solving to make the technology work, but not always with the problems that the technology may solve for customers. Often the inventors speak the languages of science and technology, which is not always the same language as that understood by the potential customers for their invention that they hope will become an innovation.

As I wrote before in the always popular, and often linked and liked – Innovation is All About Value – there are three keys to achieving a successful transition from invention to innovation:

1. Value Creation

Value Creation is pretty self-explanatory. Your innovation investment must create novel or incremental value large enough to overcome the switching costs of moving to your new solution from the old solution (including the ‘Do Nothing Solution’). New value can be created by making something more efficient or effective, possible that wasn’t possible before, or by creating new psychological or emotional benefits. This creation of new value is what most people focus on, but you can’t achieve innovation without achieving success in the next two components as well.

2. Value Access

Value Access can also be thought of as friction reduction or experience design. How easy do you make it for customers and consumers to access the value you’ve created? How well has the product or service (or the experience of using it) been designed to allow people to access the value easily? How easy is it for the solution to be created? What is the employee experience like? How easy is it for people to do business with you?

These are some of the questions you must ask and answer as you seek to create success in the value access component of innovation.

3. Value Translation

Value Translation is all about helping people understand the value you’ve created and how it fits into their lives. Value translation is also about understanding where on a continuum your solution falls between the need for explanation and education. Incremental innovations can usually just be explained to people because they anchor to something they already understand, but radical or disruptive innovations inevitably require some level of education (often far in advance of the launch).

Done really well, value translation also helps to communicate how easy it will be for customers and consumers to exchange their old solution for the new solution.

Unfortunately, not all three parts of innovation success are equally understood or valued.

Most people understand that the creation of new value (aka value creation) is a key component of innovation success.

Many people understand the concept of barriers to adoption and that value access is thus also a key component to whether or not an invention successfully makes the transformation into an innovation.

BUT, few understand that value translation is probably the most critical component to innovation success. Because value translation inevitably requires both explanation AND education in varying amounts, having a good Evangelist (see The Nine Innovation Roles) that is a gifted storyteller on your innovation team will prove crucial to your innovation success. If people don’t understand how your new solution fits into their lives and why they should abandon their old solution, even if it is the ‘do nothing’ solution, then you stand no chance of your invention becoming an innovation.

And what’s the difference between an invention and an innovation? Wide adoption…

Achieving wide adoption comes not from some catchy advertising campaign, but from creating ridiculous amounts of value in the solution itself, the way that people access the solution (or the experience that they have), and in the story you create around it.

The Role of Experience in Your Innovation Story

Many true innovations create an experience that someone wasn’t able to have before, or take a painful experience and turn it into a delightful one. The automatic transmission liberated millions of people from the struggle of successfully starting a car on a hill and the worry of grinding their gears every time they go to shift gears.

How does using your potential innovation make people feel?

What is the experience like?

Where is the experience awkward or full of friction?

Could it be better?

Experience design has become increasing important because a good or bad user experience, customer experience, or employee experience creates stories, stories that get shared, stories that sometimes take on a life of their own. This is what happens when something goes viral. Sharing of the story itself becomes a new story, meaning that people are now sharing two stories (the original story, and a new story about the sharing of the original story). The power of these shared stories is why the various fields of experience design are growing both in terms of visibility and the numbers of people employed in these kinds of roles (customer experience, customer success, user experience, human-centered design, etc.).

When it comes to innovation, experience and design matter.

Bringing It All Together

Crafting a compelling innovation story requires both a compelling value proposition and a memorable experience. When you have both, your innovation story will be more engaging, easier to tell, and more likely to be shared.

Your innovation story also requires the same type of design thinking process to achieve. You must:

  1. Understand who your audience is
  2. Define what they will find convincing about the value proposition and the experience that your innovation will create
  3. Come up with ideas on how you will tell your innovation story (including the appropriate level of explanation vs. education)
  4. Choose one and prototype your innovation story
  5. Test it with people
  6. And iterate until you find that your innovation story (as well as your potential innovation) is resonating strongly with your target customers

So, plan ahead. Design your innovation story at the same time you’re designing a compelling innovation value proposition and innovation experience. Think about what people will say about your potential innovation as they begin using it. Show it to people and ask them for feedback about your potential innovation. Craft an explanation for it, build an education plan, and test both. Take all of what you learn from asking and testing these things to begin crafting your innovation story, while also refining the design of the product or service, and the experience of using it, to make both more compelling. In doing so, at the same time you’ll also make help your innovation story that much more powerful, and increase your chances of achieving innovation success!

If you need help telling your innovation story, I can help you on the tactical side (commissioned articles, white papers, webinars, collateral, keynotes, workshops, etc.) or by building you a complete innovation evangelism strategy (for an external audience, an internal one, or both). Click here to contact me.

This article originally appeared on CIO.com

Image credit: Dreamlightfugitive.wordpress.com


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Creating a Culture of Continuous Innovation

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Creating a Culture of Continuous InnovationIn this economic downturn there is more pressure than ever on executives to find new sources of growth, and as a result leaders are increasingly talking about innovation. In some organizations the leader may say “we need to be more innovative” or “we need to think out of the box” and stop there. While for other organizations it may become part of the year’s goals or even the organization’s mission statement. Only in a small number of cases will there be any kind of sustained effort to enhance, or create, a culture of continuous innovation.

By now everyone has probably heard of six sigma and continuous improvement, and maybe your organization has even managed to embed its principles into its culture, but very few organizations have managed to transform their cultures to support innovation in a sustainable way. For most organizations, innovation tends to be something that is left to the R&D department or that is thought of on a project basis. Some organizations create new innovation teams, but it is rare for an organization to invest in transforming their entire culture. There are many reasons for this:

  1. Support from top leadership is required

    • Challenge: Most executive teams are focused on short-term results and transforming organizational culture is a long-term investment of financial and leadership resources.

  2. Clear goals and guidance are needed

    • Challenge: This is a bigger barrier than you might think. Most organizations struggle to understand how to set innovation goals and to provide a vision for employees on how they might get there. Goals to ‘be innovative’ or ‘think outside the box’ are not specific enough to be successful.

  3. Every organization is different

    • Challenge: The starting place, needs and barriers to creating a culture of continuous innovation are different for every organization – making easy implementation of best practices impossible

  4. Most companies lack a shared vocabulary for innovation

    • Challenge: People in different parts of the organization use different terminology, methodologies, frameworks, and have different understandings of what innovation is. The lack of a shared vocabulary prevents organizations from achieving shared success.

  5. Change is painful

    • Challenge: Creating a culture of continuous innovation threatens the power base of a critical few, and disrupts the way people think about their jobs and the organization. Even if change is for the better, people tend to want to avoid change.

    Accelerate your change and transformation success

  6. Change needs to be managed

    • Challenge: This means pulling employees off of their day jobs or hiring consultants to commit to the leadership and communications surrounding the change effort. This investment may prove challenging in the current economic climate.

  7. Change takes time

    • Challenge: Organizations seeking to create a culture of continuous innovation must realize that the transformation will not happen overnight. People can only absorb so much change at once. The transformation will likely have to be broken up into separate phases with discreet goals (don’t try to do it all at once).

      • Make sure to stop and share the successes of each phase, and also to identify what you’ve learned that can be implemented in the next phase.

  8. Visualize the outcomes of participation

    • Challenge: Often people withdraw and choose not to participate in organizational transformations because they don’t believe that their participation will positively impact their daily lives. If those who choose to participate don’t see an impact from their early efforts, might choose to disengage as the process continues.

      • You must celebrate participation and highlight the impact of individual contributors throughout the process.

  9. New systems and processes may be required

    • Challenge: To innovate continuously, you need to be open to receiving great ideas from anywhere in the company, and must have systems and processes to manage idea gathering, evaluation, and development. Often this requires a financial and personnel investment.

  10. Change efforts require lots of communication and storytelling

    • Challenge: You have to bring the change to life for employees. This requires involvement of employees early and often in the communications surrounding the goals and outcomes of the cultural transformation

      • Create a story that is easy and fun to tell – this will make it easier to cascade the change downwards through the organization

This should give you a better idea of why very few organizations embark upon the difficult work to enhance or create a culture of continuous innovation. It may not be an easy or a short journey, but creating a culture of continuous innovation is the only way to increase your chances of avoiding organizational mortality.

Successfully creating a strong culture of continuous innovation also represents a huge opportunity for an organization to attract the best talent, to lower costs, to continuously add new revenue streams, and to better achieve competitive separation.

Is your organization ready to invest the hard work towards achieving the rewards of a culture of continuous innovation?

Build a Common Language of Innovation

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