JimCarroll

My post yesterday (10 Signs that you’ve got an innovation dysfunction) generated a bit of e-mail with a few questions as to what else you can do to stir up an innovative culture.

With some 80 keynotes under my belt through the last year, I’ve seen some of the best and worst approaches to innovation and creativity. Analyzing what I’ve seen, I’ve come up with a quick list of 10 more things that smart, innovative companies do to create an overall sense of innovation-purpose.

• Heighten the importance of innovation. One major client with several billons in revenue has 8 senior VP’s who are responsible for innovation. And the fact is, they don’t just walk the talk — they do it. The message to the rest of the company? Innovation is critical — get involved.
• Create a compelling sense of urgency. With product lifecycles compressing and markets witnessing fierce competition, now is not the time for studies, committee meetings and reports. It’s time for action. Simply do things. Now. Get it done. Analyze it later to figure out how to do it better next time.
• Ignite each spark. Innovative leaders know that everyone in the organization has some type of unique creativity and talent. They know how to find it, harness it, and use it to advantage.
• Re-evaluate the mission. You might have been selling widgets five years ago, but the market doesn’t want widgets anymore. If the world has moved on, and you haven’t, it is time to re-evaluate your purpose, goals and strategies. Rethink the fundamentals in light of changing circumstances.
• Build up experiential capital. Innovation comes from risk, and risk comes from experience. The most important asset today isn’t found on your balance sheet — it is found in the accumulated wisdom from the many risks that you’ve taken. The more experiential capital you have, the more you’ll succeed.
• Shift from threat to opportunity. Innovative organizations don’t have management and staff who quiver from the fear at what might be coming next. Instead, they’re alive from breathing the oxygen of opportunity.
• Banish complacency and skepticism. It’s all too easy for an organization, bound by a history of inaction, to develop a defeatist culture. Innovative leaders turn this around by motivating everyone to realize that in an era of rapid change, anything is possible..
• Innovation osmosis. If you don’t have it, get it — that’s a good rule of thumb for innovation culture. One client lit a fuse in their innovation culture by buying up small, aggressive, young innovative companies in their industry. They then spent the time to carefully nurture their ideas and harness their creativity.
• Stop selling product, and sell results. The word solution is overused and overdone, but let’s face it — in a world in which everything is becoming a commodity and everyone is focused on price, change the rules of the game. Refuse to play — by thinking about how to play in a completely new game.
• Create excitement. I don’t know how many surveys I saw this year which indicated that the majority of most people in most jobs are bored, unhappy, and ready to bolt. Not at innovative companies! The opportunity for creativity, initiative and purpose results in a different attitude. Where might your organization be on a “corporate happiness index?” If it’s low, then you don’t have the right environment. Fix that problem — and fix it quick.

It should be pretty easy to walk into an organization and do an innovation audit — that is, assess the likelihood that an organization can do remarkably new and innovative things. Here’s what I would look for:

• People laugh at new ideas
• Someone who identifies a problem is shunned
• Innovation is the privileged practice of a special group
• The phrase, “you can’t do that because we’ve always done it this way” is used for every new idea
• No one can remember the last time anyone did anything really cool
• People think innovation is about R&D
• People have convinced themselves that competing on price is normal
• The organization is focused more on process than success
• There are lots of baby boomers about, and few people younger than 25
• After any type of surprise — product, market, industry or organizational change — everyone sits back and asks, “wow, where did that come from?”

Innovative companies act differently. In these organizations

• Ideas flow freely throughout the organization
• subversion is a virtue
• success and failure are championed
• there are many, many leaders who encourage innovative thinking, rather than managers who run a bureacracy
• there are creative champions throughout the organization — people who thrive on thinking about how to do things differently
• ideas get approval and endorsement
• rather than stating “it can’t be done,” people ask, “how could we do this?”
• people know that in addition to R&D, innovation is also about ideas about to “run the business better, grow the business and transform the business“
• the word “innovation” is found in most job descriptions as a primary area of responsibility, and a percentage of annual renumeration is based upon achievement of explicitly defined innovation goals

The fact is, every organization should be able to develop innovation as a core virtue — if they aren’t, they certainly won’t survive the rapid rate of change that envelopes us today.