INNOVATION: what do we mean by it and what are we trying to achieve with it?...A discussion stimulant

2. What are you trying
to do?

3. Escape an environmental condition?

4. Fight some threatening forces?

5. Make (more) money ?

6. Find a stellar breakthrough?

7. What I’d like discuss with you:
• Myths related to innovation as a
management practice
• Thoughts and ideas on innovation

8. Myths surrounding Innovation
1. The case for innovation can be made
financially and from theoretical deduction.
2. There is a “clean” solution (a process/a
structure/flow) to the challenge of innovation.
3. You get what you pay for, including innovation.
4. There is a (qualitative, manageable) difference
between winners and losers.
5. Failure disqualifies an innovation.

9. Myth 1. The case for innovation
Conversation between an “Innovation Consultant” and
an organization who wants to be “more innovative”
Organization : - “We are thinking about making our
company more innovative. Can you tell us, however,
how we can measure the value innovation creates?”
Consultant: - “Happy to do that. Can you tell me
first, please, how you currently measure the value
your IT, HR, Legal department, and top management
creates annually?”
Organization: -… (They don’t call back.)

10. Myth 2. There is a “clean” solution
Staff
member(s)
submit an
idea as a
proposal.
Does initial
GC screening
panel accept
proposal?
Does extended
GC panel
accept
proposal?
Proposal is
rejected.
Test and Mature Phase:
Project teamaddresses
issues raised by
screening panel.
Project is
abandoned
Proposal is
rejected.
Does project
pass through
tollgate
meeting?
Does project
pass through
tollgate
meeting?
Action Lab(s)
Project is
abandoned
Does business
unit want to
commercialize
project?
Project remains
uncommercialized
Project transfers
to business unit.
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
NoNoNoNoNo
Maybe

11. Myth 3. Pay for innovation
• “If you put too much emphasis on financial
rewards, greed takes over.” Leo Roothardt, Shell
GameChanger
• “People engage in radical innovation not because
they get paid for it, but because they want to.”
Gene Meieran, Intel Fellow
• You know The Wright Brothers.
• Do you know Samuel Pierpont Langley ?

12. Myth 4. You can immediately tell a
winner by looking at it
“Many innovators are wrong in 99.99% of
cases but when they are right, they are
really right.”
The difference between innovative and
not-so-innovative people is that the
successful ones try more often.

14. Myth 5. Failure disqualifies
Yes, There are some Bad ideas…

15. Theory and practice
“The distance between theory and
practice is small in theory but large in
practice.” (Anonymous)
.

16. And the answer always is….

18. How do organizations create
value? Essentially…
• By efficient utilization of labor and resources
• By saving on market transactions
• By specializing and taking risks over time
• By sustaining institutions and social structures that
make life and work (sometimes) meaningful
• By sustaining complex relationships and
investments over time so that innovation can
mature
• Any other way you’d like to add…?

19. Innovation is not enough.
• Innovation as experimentation is relatively
well understood.
• Connecting innovation to core business
competencies, assets, and infrastructure is
not well understood (within many existing
organizational contexts).
The Challenge is
GROWTH& R E N E W A L

20. THE ADAPTIVE CYCLE OF RENEWAL

21. • Continuous growth requires continuous renewal.
It’s the only way to maintain continuity in a discontinuous
world.
And the fuel for renewal is innovation.
Not merely innovation at the margins but:
- deep
- strategic innovation
that impacts the core of your business model.

22. An Innovation Culture First!
1. Is rooted in management communication
2. Is seeking to advance simplicity (this slide is too wordy!)
3. Is theoretically informed, conceptually enlightened and
results-oriented with a long term view
4. Is empathetic to would-be innovators
5. Addresses the continuous flux between change, continuity
(and more change) in a firm
6. Adds to every employee’s and customer’s understanding
of how our firm creates value

23. Rdy 2 Innov8?

24. 5 really crazy questions
5 really crazy ideas
5 ratings
Translation2yourJob
EXERCISE!!!OhYeah!!!