Innovation can be fairly complex in what needs to be pulled together, as often it ‘flies’ in contradiction to the normal organization’s ways and wishes to work in structured, efficient ways. Innovation can often be rather chaotic and discovery-driven.
One of the useful ideas of using an external resource is to put additional coordinates into your innovation world, they see contradictions in a different way and can assist in working through the conflicting signals, so as to help align innovation in helpful and thoughtful ways. Certainly, the innovator’s role is not an easy one inside the structured world of larger business entities.
I like practical advice with evidence, it helps bridge misunderstandings. This can come through a variety of methods: benchmarking, validating, frameworks and interpreting how innovation can fit with your current or future needs. Often the outside advice can place innovation into a greater context that can accelerate the outcomes you need to gain understanding and achieve increasing identification.
The value of the external innovation specialist has great value in insights
It has a very powerful combination effect if the advice is right. In my case, I try to offer operational experience drawn from the client’s input and my own understanding of being involved in business, at varying levels, in many markets and industries.
This providing a cross-industry experience and detachment from your world becomes valuable to arm you with greater insights so you can relate your innovation activity, even more, it can become even more grounded or questioned.
The other main contribution comes from common sense and intuition.
Receiving thoughts that feed into your own instinct or conflict with it gives a terrific and fast sounding board. It remains outside the politics and constraints of your organization. It gives a different sense of perspective and verification.
It does not matter if these are micro-learning moments (quick answers to immediate needs) or those deeper more macro learning ones (to learn specifically a new subset of innovation), it is by having the opportunity to put different coordinates into your thinking that can be offered by the external advisor can bring significant value and save valuable time.
What slips under your personal radar can also partly be picked up
Not just in those moments of need but by having an ongoing relationship with an external coach, advisor or mentor you can benefit from critical updates and insights, that might have slipped under your radar dues to your focus on getting the work done.
You can have set up interim reports that focus on a given theme or topic of interest that you don’t have the necessary time to investigate yourself, you can gain from field research, breaking innovation reports on topics of need and interest and you can encourage your team to equally tap into this innovation knowledge vault.
The recognition is in knowing and appreciating
It is recognizing the value of having someone just a call or email away who can provide backup value in insights or knowledge that gives you a significant edge.
Why reinvent the wheel when others might already have your wheel size ready and waiting to fit?
Give me a call to see if this might be a valuable supporting service to you and what you are looking to achieve in innovation outcomes.