Advancing innovation | Paul4innovating Innovation Views

Three Horizons – fields of future, full of foresight.

I’d like to relate to parts of a book that came out in late 2013 from Bill Sharpe, actually more a booklet, called “Three Horizons: The Patterning of Hope”, published by Triarchy Press, has some really helpful insights that is truly fields of future, full of foresight.

In this book, Bill outlines his distinct ways of creatively working through many of the unknowns, by framing and connecting through the Three Horizons, (3H) as his contribution to the patterning of hope for all our futures.

I draw out a lot from his thinking, experiences and approaches within the book. Some of these initial thoughts outlined here, re-affirm my own thinking and focus on the 3H, specifically for innovation and its management.

Here are some of the ‘triggers’ I connected with strongly from his book:
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Reflecting on the Three Horizon Model for our Innovatation in the Future

There is that prevailing sense that we are just managing the business, as usual, leaving many increasingly uncomfortable and feeling exposed to concerns over innovation in the future. Why?

Our businesses are not adapting fast enough to changing conditions in the market, often lagging in the competitive race to update and keep relevant.

Businesses are struggling with conflicting knowledge flows and incoming intelligence, just simply managing their talent to keep them relevant, engaged and outwardly orientated.

They need to constantly adjust and adapt to the demands and challenges within the societal conditions, environments and markets, grappling with constant shifts in consumer demand and coping with the declining natural resources and what all of this might mean.

We are often short on foresight and certainly struggling with growing complexity.
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Asset Orchestration is Required for more Dynamic Innovation

We all should recognize the incredible power of orchestration that is needed in innovation to bring the initial idea into a final successful commercial concept.

We have an ongoing need to create, extend and modify resources constantly and to achieve this we need to orchestrate and enable those resources to exploit and execute our innovations.

We need to ‘asset orchestrate’.

One of our blind spots is perhaps the focus on pursuing and organizing around innovation just within an organization and not being as aware of all that is externally going on around us.

There are continued and rapid shifts taking place outside the walls of our organizations, constantly occurring and changing, often it becomes a ‘race’ between spotting an opportunity and executing on it before your competitors do, or the market further moves on and it becomes a lost opportunity to have exploited.
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Are you dependent on other’s best practices?

I often wonder if “best practice” is actually a hidden drug within our organizations that everyone simply craves to be taking.

Why do so many advisory organizations promote best practices? Simply because those in the organization constantly feel under pressure to demonstrate why they are falling behind or keeping ahead of their competitors.

They crave knowing best practices, but tell me what really is the best practice of others really achieving?

If you are behind, best practice informs you and you go into a frantic mode to try and catch up. By the time you have achieved the best practice, it is simply out of date as those practising this have most likely moved even further on.
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Redesigning the organizations middle for a new innovation shape.

Let’s admit it, our middle management needs a radical makeover, a new fitness regime to make us far more innovation fit.

Most organizations do need to change their middle management structures as they are far from that necessary ‘fitness for 21st-century purpose’ in a constantly changing, challenging, more open innovating world.

The general argument goes and I relate to this, that the middle manager is so pressured to focus on the delivery of short-term results that all their efforts are centred far more on delivering ‘just’ an effective organization.

An organization that focuses on driving out any excess or leeway, reducing the variations, constantly dampening down potential risk and uncertainty.

Today much of this being ‘efficient and effective is in direct conflict with what innovation requires. A space for ‘cutting’ some slack, seeking differences, exploring what variances can provide, and encouraging a certain risk and uncertainty to allow for fresh thinking to emerge that leads to better things within the organization.

Yet the middle manager’s obsession with constantly chasing efficiencies alone, there is little ‘slack’ for innovation and new learning. Their measurement is often based on this efficiency and effectiveness emphasis and not on generating innovation.
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Risk Is Understanding Your Scope of Reach Should Exceed Your Grasp.

We were not born as risk-takers but we can develop it through our own growing self-actualization, creativity, a pursuit for growth and enjoying that feeling of being stretched, going beyond your normal scope of reach.

Well some of us do, but sadly most tend to become risk-avoiding because of the environment they are in or have been associated with for long periods, where avoidance rubs off, it seeps into the soul.

Many enjoy being simply ‘passive’, avoiding anything that smacks of being ‘proactive’; it is safer to be ‘reactive’. Innovation and heaven can equally wait.

Putting it simply most people and organizations are just afraid to take risks and this fear takes over and drives their choices. Innovation is certainly something that suffers from this fear of risk.

Organizations miss critical opportunities, individuals fail to speak out and argue for a given change or innovative idea. We can simply stop growing, to want to become something more, we take the easy option, we avoid risk.
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Exploring the Value Of Your Innovation Capital

Following on from my last post of “Place your future bets- invest in Innovation Capital” which outlined the significant contribution innovation capital plays in our economic growth and value enhancement, let’s explore some more.

Let me offer some further thoughts on its value to really capture and understand, so we can measure it within our organizations.

We have the three components; of physical capital, knowledge capital and human capital that are the innovation-related assets, these make-up Innovation Capital.

I have been arguing that innovation capital draws from the core of intellectual capital and its suggested (and broadly recognized) components of human, structural and relational capitals or social capital.

I have previously discussed this converging up, as the ‘nesting effect’
Innovation capital needs assessing and measuring so we can understand the relationship between these innovation capitals (and their present and future potential) and organization performance. We need to know the innovation capital ‘stock’.

Why, well ‘stock’ can be ‘static’ and we need to make this more ‘dynamic’ so innovation can ‘flow’ from this constant renewing of our capitals and be transformed into new value.
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Place Your Future Bets – Invest In Innovation Capital

Recognizing the value of our innovation-related assets is where the smart money should go, and then we need to invest in innovation capital. To gain growth and improve productivity is through innovation. We need to translate knowledge into new values.

When you pause and consider the make-up of Innovation Capital you realize it makes such an economic contribution and in a report from McKinsey & Co, they have set about identifying this to produce the above summary, covering 16 countries, to understand the real value of this Innovation Capital.

These numbers are big and still don’t fully capture everything associated with innovation as much remains ‘hidden’ or ‘attached’ to other activities as well.
We need to shift our thinking on what makes up Innovation Capital
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Recognizing your type of innovation leader

Often innovation succeeds or fails by the personal involvement and engagement of a ‘selected’ few- they make it happen as they are the heavyweights that have the final say.

We all need to recognize the type of innovative leadership personality within our organization, the ones we are working for, as this might help you manage the innovation work a whole lot better and attract the resources you need.

So can you recognize the traits of your innovation leader?

Are they front-end or back-end innovation leaders? Here’s how you can begin to spot the difference.
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Building upon four key wealth creating pillars

Most rooms we enter have four sides and are traditionally built on a standard four-pillar design; they provide the structure to build upon.

Presently in many of our economies, particularly in the West, we are struggling to find real growth; we are limited in our wealth-creating possibilities.

Why is that? Our structures seem to be weak, not strong. Continue reading “Building upon four key wealth creating pillars”