I've had the fortunate opportunity to lead innovation efforts in a wide variety of circumstances. Some spectacularly successful. Others no so much. Where there has been success, the common theme has been the opportunity to extensively train creative people in how to think, experiment, collaborate and then harness innovations. In Gary Hamel's words:
"Today, innovation is the buzzword du jour in virtually every company, but how many [leadership teams] have put every employee through an intensive training program aimed at boosting the innovation skills of the rank and file? Sure companies have electronic suggestion boxes. slush funds for new ideas, elaborate pipeline management tools, and innovation awards -- but in the absence of a cadre of extensively trained and highly skilled innovators, much of the investment in these innovation enablers will simply be wasted."
Gary is right. Training is one of those fundamental needs to driving innovation. In fact, its the Petri Dish of Innovation - the place where you will first "see it grow." But to my way of thinking it won't take root unless you you build the correct foundation. Think of the following initiatives as a way to begin to re-engineer your culture for Innovation.
Ya. Training is important but not in a vacuum. Leadership needs to lead... that is, it needs to put some skin in the game and help to lead the innovation initiative. Management systems need to be put in place to manage innovators differently, including the rationalization of performance-based (standard) and learning-based (innovation) cultures thru proper Innovation Incentives. Management systems must also include co-creation initiatives with customers and partners. IBM does a great job creating Innovation incentives and I've talked about that here. Design Thinking needs to be deployed strategically across the organization to solve business problems. My favorite example of this is how Stanford D-School helped Firefox take on IE. Finally, a critical yet often forgotten element in this re-engineering process is change management, early and often. The process of driving change requires innovative communications that are conversational, bi-directional and enable the leadership and employees to communicate freely and openly on what's working and what's not! Social Networking provides a great opportunity to lay this communications platform. Taken together you'll be able to eventually transform a culture so it can stimulate new competencies, challenge orthodoxies, discover and leverage new trends as well as unarticulated needs.
