The culture and energy within the company is really what matters the most, according to Saclier. This is what will really drive innovation and exploration. He has many ideas on how to keep innovation thriving in a business, and one of the most important is creating bonds between all workers including those higher up. “Creating even more bonds and more relationships between the innovation team – which we know often in companies are living in an ivory tower- compared to the working teams and operations that are in sales, that are in the hands-on work day-to-day” Business and innovation cannot thrive if there is a divide.
In Saclier’s position, he believes companies have to create a pipeline between the old metrics and new metrics to increase the credibility of the different initiatives that they have. In other words, the old metrics are not simply outdated, but they can drive innovation and increase credibility in a way that works with the specific KPIs. Basically, they are creating a bond between the current and future business, providing a vision to make sure people understand where they are going. Then bringing it back to the beginning and getting closer to the KPIs that people are more comfortable with. In any successful business, the way to continue success is to learn from past metrics and processes in order to create newer and more relevant metrics for the future.
In times of crisis and challenge, the most important thing, before innovation, is to make sure the team is working well. We cannot hope to be innovative if our team is struggling. Christian Saclier believes that companies should go back to basics, reassign staff to focus on the most important issues first, which will keep everything running in order to drive innovation and exploration. In order to be successful with KPIs, strategy, and measuring processes, it all comes back to the team, forging bonds “and creating more relationships so you have a better understanding of your business, how the company makes money- therefore you can be even more creative.” Team building comes before KPIs which drives innovation and exploration.
