Leading innovation | Paul4innovating Innovation Views

Shifting attitudes, think responsibly.

How do we engage within our own internal organizational communities to shifting attitudes and think in different, more responsible ways? How do we communicate our sense of purpose to the outside world? How do we integrate all the activities we are (or should be) undertaking as responsible leaders?

Are we working towards understanding the material sustainability issues better and linking them to financial drivers and where we fit within these complex issues?

There is such an increasing need to develop or simply updating our business language to build stronger cases for change, improvement and broader community engagement but these still seem to be missing.

How are organizations aligning their organizations not just with their own strategies but those in the wider world that contribute into a more sustaining future? We are needing to answer a fair few of these questions in my opinion.

The lack of engagement, of common understanding

Continue reading “Shifting attitudes, think responsibly.”

Innovation can be so remarkable if we can fully embrace it

What is so remarkable about innovation is that it can be highly dynamic. It’s a task that anyone could do, given the time, education, clarity of purpose and commitments from our organizations, those that recognize the true understanding of the contribution all their people can potentially make towards innovation.

Today, too few people are actually allowed to work on innovation activities, yet the outcomes are ones that everyone wants, and certainly want to be part of. We all want that sense of belonging, of working on or in something that is exciting, dynamic and forward-looking.

We really do need to find ways to allow innovation to be part of each person’s daily jobs. Having a sense of purpose to improve or change something through innovation is such a powerful enabler.

Getting from where we are today, seemingly bogged down in many of the legacies of past innovation understanding, seems to me something we must tackle sooner than later also.

There is no time like the present to overhaul the existing innovation thinking and upgrade it with a faster, more focused innovating machine that yields greater returns due to this overhaul .

Continue reading “Innovation can be so remarkable if we can fully embrace it”

The transforming tide in digital for innovation.

Can you imagine the CEO sitting opposite the consultant, explaining the organization’s present difficulties to regain growth.

They explain no matter what they are doing through the existing practices and the assorted business approaches they have taken for many years, they still seem to be ‘treading water’ or even losing ground. They are beginning to worry seriously about their future.

The consultant has heard this already so many time before across many worried organizations. He looks right into the CEO’s eyes and (sort of) snarls back: “You can run but you can’t hide”. This was a famous quote attributed to Joe Louis before one of his boxing fights back in 1946.That might get a CEO’s attention! We are in a digital transformation evolution.

Continue reading “The transforming tide in digital for innovation.”

Pushing towards a new frontier, visualizing the future.

We all know that innovation is hard to measure as often we face a new frontier to take our ideas beyond the existing. Assessing innovation capabilities can be particularly hard as they are made up of so many intangibles.

We need to frame these capabilities in much better ways, as they mostly remain shrouded in mysteries to render it difficult to know what each business actually needs to invest in, to achieve their goals.

Knowing what and where they need to improve their innovation capabilities becomes a critical need to know point for gaining unique competitive advantages.

So much of innovation activity is left to chance and it leaves all involved as vulnerable, open to being beaten to the next ‘big’ innovation breakthrough. I would strongly argue that organizations should build their innovation capabilities in systematic ways, yet few do, let alone understand what this truly means. We simply need too.

Understanding the ‘beating heart’ of organizations

One of the biggest gaps is trying to put a finger on the pulse of what makes up innovation. So much of the capabilities are intangible, locked up in those intellectual capitals of the organizations. Continue reading “Pushing towards a new frontier, visualizing the future.”

Entering the zone of innovation uncertainty

“The future never stays the same as it is in the present”.

Today we grapple with more uncertainty than ever before, we are facing so much change. For many of us this is the time of year when planning out the future becomes more ‘top of mind’. These are moments where we have to stop chasing the daily numbers, pushing the immediate projects that are in the pipeline and turn our attention to laying out our future plans.

Sadly we often make a poor ‘stab’ at this thinking through process; we don’t get our thinking into the right mental frames.

The problem for management is anything discussing the future enters the ‘zone of uncertainty’ and this ability to often ‘read the tea leaves’ can very much determine the future health and direction of the organization. Ignore these shifts or signals and you are on the path to your own ‘destruction’.

Not only should we search for possibilities that extend and strengthen our existing core offerings but we should search out on a wider basis.

Often we make a complete mess of this planning out of our future.

Continue reading “Entering the zone of innovation uncertainty”

Innovation being served up with a growing angst, anxiety and Kiasu

Time, we are told, can be our best friend or equally our worst enemy, it does give us all a constant, certain anxiety and growing angst.

This week time showed its bad side to me, actually it might have been doing this for some weeks when I stop and think about it.

When you feel the pressures of time, you seem like you are “fighting the clock”, it just seems to heap more pressure on you and that need to break out, that spark of creativity, seems to have been buried under an avalanche of what keeps coming into you. The acceleration of what keeps landing on your desk, crying out to be read, answered or translated into something more.

Of course, most of us are that rational type and we tell ourselves most of this is self-imposed or is it? I think most of this is externally-imposed. I blame the advancement of our social tools and all the multitudes of opinions, thoughts, suggestions that are ‘spewing’ forth in streams and becoming so overwhelming you begin to go ‘stir’ crazy. I equally blame myself for getting so hooked.

Addressing the problem

This is not simply a time problem, it is deeper than this. It is actually tickling away at fear, it is giving a growing intense feeling of apprehension, anxiety and inner turmoil. I think I’ve been suffering this for some time. I’ve got FoMO thanks to all these social platforms I feel I need to connect into. Continue reading “Innovation being served up with a growing angst, anxiety and Kiasu”

Insomnia or a Wakeup Call – Which?

You find yourself slipping into a conference hall unexpectedly. You are confronted by 1,000 participants listening to the conclusions of six very wise-looking people at a table, explaining the outcomes of the summit.

They are talking about a summit declaration by providing 5 calls for action for a Wake-up. Sounds more than interesting, even important.

Now you quickly settle down into your seat, trying to ignore a few turned heads frowning at this sudden interruption after spending their three days working through this Wakeup Call and are quite rightly listening intently. This seems critical, you settle down to listen also.

So, without the drum roll or often accompanied with the appropriate dramatic music the 5 calls are announced:

Deliver on the widely accepted and appreciated new instruments and policies (2014-2020) in support of innovation.
Build a culture of ‘fail fast’, ‘risk tolerance’, and ‘fast capital’ to cross the valley of death.
Create a predictable policy environment and embed innovation as a principle in all measures and decisions.
Engage in joint thinking and acting across sectors and along the value chain.
Change what you do: a deep mindset change is needed at all levels: companies, administrations, and citizens.

So you have guessed where you are yet?

No, well you are at the winding up of a three day innovation summit held by Knowledge4Innovation (K4I) as the 5^th European Innovation meeting that took place in the European Parliament from 30^th September until 2^nd October 2013.

Apart from 1,000 participants attending, there was in also in attendance three EU Commissioners, 30 members of the European Parliament and 150 speakers contributing their thoughts. According to the press release the conference summit was the largest ever, comprising of 25 events, including the opening and closing ceremonies, a series of conference sessions, workshops, breakfast, lunch and dinner debates organized by summit partners, as well as an exhibition and two press breakfasts.

Am you as overwhelmed by these 5 calls for action to Wake Up Europe? Continue reading “Insomnia or a Wakeup Call – Which?”

Beyond the previous boundaries of innovation long gone

Innovation is increasingly moving beyond the previous boundaries of just being left to each organizations scientists or marketing departments, those days are seemingly long gone.

Today and in the future, innovation is about open, inclusive, full of exploration and harmonization to extract the best results.

We seem to have really grasped and recognized the combination-effect that comes from the myriad of different linkages that is propelling innovation activity and bringing increasing confidence within the boardroom.

According to a recent PwC report, optimism has dramatically been raised around innovation, so much so the vast majority within the survey of 1,757 c-suite or executives respondents believe their aggressive growth plans will be driven by organic growth (93%) and not by previous means of M&A activity.

They are talking more radical and breakthrough innovation. BCG in its 2013 report on most innovative companies is equally far more bullish on innovation. Continue reading “Beyond the previous boundaries of innovation long gone”

Risk readiness and innovation growth – board room tension

I recently provided a post on a very upbeat PwC report on innovation and its growing importance to growth in the coming years. The PwC report “Breakthrough innovation and growth” was a survey of 1,757 C-suite and executive respondents, on their thoughts on innovation and where the new growth was coming from in approach.

The top line was companies are seeing innovation transforming their businesses and their need to take a more sophisticated approach to innovation, so as to achieve the growth plans they are setting for the next five years.

There was a strong indication that the innovation that was going to be pursued was going to follow a far more radical set of innovation practices that have the potential for offering a real impact on companies future growth ambitions.

Yet I have also been reading another report issued by Corporate Executive Board (CEB), a leading members-based advisory company called “Growth Readiness- prioritizing investments to drive executive commitment” discussing the secret to effective investment prioritization is demonstrating your organization’s readiness to pursue growth. (N.B You need to fill out the form to obtain the report)

Both correlate on the strong need for growth. CEB suggests as the global growth has stalled that in response, companies have planned to boost non-incremental growth investments by almost two-thirds.

The CEB defines non-incremental investment as a large growth opportunity that requires some change to the business. Continue reading “Risk readiness and innovation growth – board room tension”

Value realization comes through innovation and our business models.

Everything, it seems we work towards in business, is for seeking out new value creation, for new growth and wealth creation, for providing improved returns on the investments we have been making and this is where innovation becomes so important.

To achieve this we consciously have to set about the value capture and what contributes to its realization. This is where innovation plays such a vital part. If we don’t build our innovation capital we will certainly have a much harder, perhaps even impossible time of realizing new value.

We are more than likely to just maintain our existing value or see it steadily decline. So a constant focus upon renewal is always needed. Do we consciously do that on a daily basis or just once a year at annual review time?

Value-adding activities need to be central in nearly all of our decisions. The how we can turn our resources into being more productive, more creative is increasingly becoming one our biggest strategic areas of future investment decision.

Our resources are those all-inclusive assets, capabilities and processes that make up the Enterprise. Continue reading “Value realization comes through innovation and our business models.”