the mysteries of innovation culture€¦ · • innovation efforts should be closely tied to...

1© 2016 Jeremy Alexis

The Mysteries of Innovation culture

The following students contributed to this work:

Shanti Mathew, Gaurav Bradoo, Bryan Spence, Ellen Eberts


The difference between mysteries and puzzles


What is innovation?

Design / CHANGE / innovation (positive)


• Over 60 companies• In-depth interviews with individuals “responsible for innovation”• Across a broad range of industries, B2B and B2C, for profit and non-profit • Only large going concerns (not start-ups)

About the research


1. I will introduce each mystery (definition, what does it mean)2. Each mystery will conclude with a series of discussion questions 3. You will have 15 minutes to discuss the questions at your table

1. Identify someone to take notes that can be shared2. The goal is to have free open and open discussion. Share best practices

and challenges (bright spots and pain points)3. Identify someone in the group as the spokesperson (this role may rotate).

After the 15 minute discussion has concluded this individual will share a few insights from the table with the larger group. Focus on communicating the bright spots and best practices, not only the challenges.

4. Each section will conclude with a group share out.

About this session


• We know “culture eats strategy for breakfast” but do little to change our culture.

• The leaders in our organization that can have the greatest impact on innovation are not incentivized to do so.

• We want everyone in the organization to innovate but treat “innovation” like a private club.

• Innovation efforts should be closely tied to strategy, but are often disconnected and sometimes even conflicting.

• Designers are now asked to lead innovation teams, but leadership (in a substantive way) is not taught at most design schools.

The mysteries of innovation culture:


We know “culture eats strategy for breakfast” but do little to change our culture.


The five forces of culture

Policies (applied values)

Actions / practice

Incentives

HiringTraining

Analysis: does the combination of these five forces help you achieve your strategy on purpose, or do they result in

an unplanned situation and context?


Discussion: does our current approach make innovation easier or harder?

Do our policies reflect and support our stated innovation objectives?

What behaviors do our incentives facilitate?

Are we hiring the right people?

Do we train people adequately in innovation methods and mindset

Do our current actions and practices help us to

innovate?


The leaders in our organization that can have the greatest impact on innovation are not incentivized to do so.


The desire and ability to innovate is rarely evenly distributed across the organization.

Level What they say… What they do…

C suite We MUST innovate! Provides a vision, but no specific plan or resources

General managers / brand or BU leaders

That is nice, but… Has the resoruces availble but needs to use them for more immediate problems

Everyone else We want to innovate, just tell us…

Not given time or resources


Unless a leader is predisposed to fund innovation efforts, be strategic when you ask for a project to be funded and supported:

Leadership influence model

Before the “ask”, develop:

Customer pull

Crisis at hand

Collaboration / coalition

Credit

Control

Certainty of results

During the meeting, establish that they will have:


Leadership influence small group discussion:

Question 2: Considering a specific innovation effort, how might we build a coalition of organizational partners and customers to help illustrate the value of a new idea?

Question 1: How strongly do you agree with the statement: Senior leaders are playing to win (not just compete) when it comes to our innovation efforts.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

organization does not feel the commitment is adequate

Organization is uncertain about the commitment to win

Organization feels senior leadership is “walking the walk”


We want everyone in the organization to innovate but treat “innovation” like a private club.


Creating the evangelist mindset

The Aha! Moment, an authentic, personal experience

Create the desire to share with others

Develop sharable material

Mobilize Measure… thoughtfully


Sidebar: training approaches

Intuit / P&G approach

MM approach

Design fellow approach

Trained design catalysts to support teams when integrating design into their projects •Create a simple, broad definition of design •Create catalyst role / offer training•Catalysts are the “roadies not the rock stars” •Yearly recognition and rewards for integrated design projects

Boards of employees work on critical issues, learning and leveraging design methods• Participants apply and get accepted to boards• Learn by doing with expert designers • Work with leadership to make recommendations• Could be organizational issues, competitions, or

global challenges

Employees are given a one year fellowship to work in the innovation group • Employees learn about design and innovation • Required to write a paper about their experiences / share

experiences across the organization

Training activators and catalysts


Innovation evangelist discussion

The Aha! Moment, an authentic, personal experience

Create the desire to share with others

Develop sharable material

Mobilize Measure… thoughtfully

1. How can we reliably create “Aha!” moments at scale? Is is possible to create authentic design experiences for non card carrying designers that causes them to want to share design and innovation methods with others?

2. What materials do we need to create? Can we create a single innovation process that is customized to our organization and easy to share? Should we?

3. How should we mobilize our team? What is the best way to diffuse the message through the organization?

4. How should we measure success? Is it enough to just count the number of training sessions run or should we also include (however hard it may be) outcomes?


Innovation efforts should be closely tied to strategy, but are often disconnected and sometimes even conflicting.


An organization’s strategy and innovation efforts should be mutually reinforcing:

Two Channel Innovation

Strategy

Innovation

• Themes

• Metrics

• Investment

If there is only downward flow, all efforts will result in only incremental change (if any).

• Reframes

• Opportunity spaces

• “Ways of”

If there is only upward flow, the company will be directionless.

Continuous iteration and evolution


Innovation metrics should be:

Broad: they should work across the whole organization or business unit. Fair: they should not inherently favor one BU over the other Easy to implement: they should be reliable and easy to measure

They should focus on the following categories:

Finance: focus on size of the prize / revenue and / or structural attractiveness Employees: focus on retention and satisfaction Customers: focus on retention and satisfaction

Key learning: don’t try to get too fancy – people will game the system.

Sidebar: metrics


Question 1: How strongly do you agree with the statement: Our innovation efforts clearly flow from our strategy

Two Channel Innovation small group discussion:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

You may not have a clear strategy or any innovation efforts

Innovation can occasionally feel random

Strong connection between innovation and strategy

Question 2: how might we more closely tie our innovation efforts to the organization’s strategy? This could include new themes, metrics, and communication efforts.

Question 3: how might our innovation efforts inform strategy development? How might we reframe our competitive space or help identify new opportunities?


Designers are now asked to lead innovation teams, but leadership (in a substantive way) is not taught at most design schools.

Vs.


Matching leadership to structure and objectives

Consistent

or isolated

Undefined process

Emerging

or directionless

Embedded

or stifled

Ubiquitous

or random

Specific process

Cen

tral

ized

ca

pabi

litie

s Distributed

capabilities

Incremental

Fam

iliar

ity

Implementation timing

Stretch Sustaining

Long term

Near term

Low

Hig

h

Disruptive

StepSustaining

Desired leader:

Operators

Desired leader:

Connecters

Desired leader:

Visionaries

Desired leader:

Entrepreneurs

Group structure: Organization or program objective:


Leaders versus caretakersAre we currently acting as leaders or caretakers? What are some immediate steps we can take to move from caretaking to leading?

Coalition of the caring How can we find and activate the people in the organization that want to work on innovation and make positive change?

Small wins How can we use small wins to demonstrate effectiveness of the method? Are there any obvious small wins we can act on right now?

Limited meetingsDo we have too many meetings? What can we do to reduce meetings?

Air coverHow can we act as producers, protecting our teams from distractions and off strategy demands?

Discussion:

the mysteries of innovation culture€¦ · • innovation efforts should be closely tied to...

Documents