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Embedding Innovation into Your Organization

Posted by on 10 April 2017
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It takes two factors to make innovation real at
an organization: concepts and culture. Work on both at the same time and the
rest will emerge as a by-product of the process.
If you outsource your innovation efforts, you
will end up with concepts that will not be accepted by your existing culture. Some
concepts might be potent enough to generate a lot of sales. Others will be even
stronger, allowing your company to reframe what a category means to consumers and
positioning you as the leader'think of the famous examples: Swiffer, i-phone,
and Tesla.
However, you will not allow such radical concepts
to launch without changing the mindset of the culture itself. Without working
on the culture while generating concepts, new thinking and new value-generating
concepts will be rejected by the preset filters and default thinking of the
organization.
On the other hand if you just work on the
culture, but do not produce concepts that resonate in the market, you have created
no new value.
Rather you inspire the high-potential or bored
troops, give them a format to bring their best to the organization'and then
boom; they crash, as there is no method for producing concepts, which gives
form to the dredged-up now-awakened creativity. They will leave as soon as they
find a place where they can take what you awakened in them and give it form.
Necessary Compliments
Work on culture and concepts must be undertaken
at the same time as part of an innovation journey that will assure a positive
outcome. You have to work on the people in the business (culture) and on the
market ideas (concepts: products, services, business model changes,
initiatives, etc.), the inner and the outer, to transform into an organization
that drives new results.
Like muscle memory, you have to work on culture
and concepts each week for at least 90-days to begin to embed innovation.
How to Start?
Many prospective clients fret about how to start
an innovation journey. They know they are missing out on creating new value'and
allowing competitors access to the runway to outpace and lap their growth.
Our advice is simple: do exercises and training
to change the culture and work on concepts that are consumer- or
customer-insight based.
Don't worry about larger implications such as which
department innovation will exist within, metrics for innovation, or how
innovation will dovetail with the existing new product development process.
For the first 12-to-18 months keep the approach
simple. Host a series of workshops to initiate the culture. Teach your people
the methods and mindset of innovation, as tools for complex problem solving.
Pick a small, multi-disciplinary team or two to work on a few projects.
Generate new concepts that arise from market insights. Repeat.
Then, the right structure and definition for
innovation for your company's unique needs will naturally emerge.
Michael Graber is the managing partner of the
Southern Growth Studio, an innovation and strategic growth firm based in Memphis,
TN and the author of Going Electric.
Visit
www.southerngrowthstudio.com to learn more.
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