“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Peter Drucker is still right. No matter how good the strategy, you ignore culture at your peril. Innovation, at the end of the day, is people-centric. People who are passionately dissatisfied, who care enough to change and give you the chance of having better innovation.
Even with a clear strategic focus, extensive future roadmap and a well-designed process, innovation impact is still not guaranteed. Organisations must remember that they are powered by people not machines. Leaders must create an environment for innovation to thrive, not just survive. Without this, say goodbye to sustainable innovation impact.
Stop talking about innovation and start doing it. Establishing a strategic foundation is the start to innovation success. But how do you execute those ambitions and make better innovation a reality?
You heard Nike: “Just do it.” Innovation doesn’t happen by talking, but by doing.
Imagine building a house without foundations. It may look good from the outside, but won’t stand up to turbulence and will eventually come crashing down. That’s activity without strategy. So many innovation programs fail because they don’t have a clear strategic mandate to guide their activities.
Having the strategic foundation for the innovation program enables the Operational phase of our Better Innovation framework.
Innovation is not an outcome, it’s an enabler. Innovation must bring value and make things better. But if you want impactful outcomes from innovation, you need to know the “why”?
In our experience, one of the biggest causes of innovation “failure” is when innovation is not aligned with the future direction of the organisation. Our Better Innovation framework avoids this common pitfall.
We humans love to be busy and clog our diaries with activity. We are just the same when it comes to innovation initiatives. And who doesn’t love a bit of keenness?!
But, before creating a bubble of activities, an organisation’s leadership team must be clearly aligned on the imperative for change: their ‘Why’.
Leadership teams must align on strategic ambitions, not just what this year will bring. It…
We love seeing people changing their worlds, overcoming years of frustration. And who wouldn’t? Sadly, it’s not often like this. Innovation has its pitfalls; it doesn’t always work. A new approach is needed.
I told you before, we love innovation.
We love seeing people changing their worlds, overcoming years of frustration. And who wouldn’t? Sadly, it’s not often like this. Innovation has its pitfalls; it doesn’t always work.
Innovation needs to be better.
So, what’s our Better Innovation approach at Innovate21?
It starts with 1) our diagnostic to discover your truth, then 2) determining what areas to focus on and finally 3) applying our suite of services that enable innovation impact.
Our unique Better Innovation framework was created by Ian Pallister and Harvey Wade, based entirely on the “better innovation” practices we’ve experienced…
Did you know that more than 90% of executives are dissatisfied with their innovation performance? Innovation is not delivering the required impact. This isn’t good enough, and innovation needs to get better.
That’s a lot of unhappy leaders.
Those leaders are investing in innovation and being sold a diamond, only to be left with a lump of zirconium. They may have seen a glint of activities, new innovation labs and well-resourced innovation programs, but the end result does not have the weight or worth anticipated.
Innovation is not delivering the required impact. This isn’t good enough, and innovation needs to get better.
Right now, organisations are being challenged to their very core. They can’t always do what they’ve always done. The established ways of working, successful business models and profitable customers can…
Harvey Wade
Harvey is the founder of Innovate21, a passionate advocate of making innovation better so it delivers the impact needed.
