
Everywhere we turn the pace of change is accelerating, and the lifecycle of products and companies is getting shorter. Markets are hyper-segmenting with customization and even end-user co-creation, and there is an ever changing landscape of players and ecosystems. Disruptions are becoming an expected occurrence in business models, design and production, channels, and whole industries. Growth is the imperative and creating a successful innovation pipeline is core to keep pace.
Yet what does corporate innovation look like? For some it is nurturing a different culture or mindset, or establishing a company-wide program that encourages innovative ideas from all employees, or forming an organization whose mission is to generate new products or businesses. Innovation can be about ways to play the current game better via product or operational improvements. Or it can be playing the same game with new rules, such as transforming business models or channels. Or it can be disrupting the industry with an entirely new game, product category or service.
Whatever the type of innovation, the best way to realize it is to focus on the actions to take, and signals to watch. Although each innovation journey will be unique, here are some key ingredients to success that I’ve learned along the way in navigating corporate innovation:
Establish A Culture That Changes How You See The World.
It’s important to create and fuel an aspirational-mission mindset which inspires the team to “transform” whatever arena you are aiming to disrupt. This will generate an ongoing source of energy within the team, and draw partners and influencers into your orbit. Also critical in corporations is to nurture an environment where ideas and perceived permissible actions are fully opened-up and unencumbered from the dominant logic of what drives the financial success, priorities and decisions in the mainstream business.
Secure Air Cover For Successful Incubation.
The benefit of corporate intrapreneurship is access to funding, resources and general infrastructure of the company, while the downside is often the unrealistic expectations of the return rate for that access which can smother the new endeavor. Lining up and continuing to cultivate executive champions plus choosing the right opening in the business cycle and alignment to corporate strategy will go a long way to provide the necessary air-cover beyond initial support of vision and funding decisions. Strike the balance of structure and agility by showing progress to mutual metrics with stage-gate processes while providing enough freedom to experiment, pivot and charge forward into the unknown with an agile learning environment for rapid creation of prototypes and testing new models against market facing guideposts you set to validate your assumptions.
Adopt a Bricolage Approach to Innovation.
“Bricolage” is a term more often used in art than in technology or business, and is the construction or creation of something novel from a diverse range of available things.
Many breakthrough innovations have followed a path of bringing together technology from adjacent areas into novel arrangements like the often cited Wright Brothers airplane. They combined the concepts of bicycle balance and steering into flight control systems, chain and sprocket technology to drive propellers along with revising the prior combustion engine invention into a light weight motor for propulsion, and aerodynamics based on three-axes of motion from experiments with kites and gliders. Likewise, Henry Ford’s disruption of mass produced automobiles brought together the approach of interchangeable parts used in sewing machines and clocks, plus assembly-line production flow techniques used in the food production industry. More recently 3D printing and additive manufacturing have grown from the intersection of CAD and inkjet printing technology with the need for fast-prototyping, mass-customization and on-demand manufacturing.
An innovation mindset is one that is open to looking at new ways to see and to solve problems by the use of bricolage. Experiment with seeing across other industries to discover what technologies or business paradigms can be applied to your problem, or what analogous problem constructs are solved differently in another industry.
Use “Cycles-of-Learning” To Put Strategy Into Action.
The hardest part of strategy is actually executing it. Approaching innovation as a cycle of experiments to prove your assumptions through a “why?”, “so-what?”, and “then-what?” process to refine your direction will enable faster iteration which implies faster learning-to-success.
Agile development is grounded in building features in small iterative steps or sprints to gain customer feedback quickly. Essentially apply Agile development concepts in an overarching way to all aspects of the innovation to provide the flexibility to change with customer and user interests as well as pace incremental investment levels.
It’s important to set unbiased metrics that are externally facing to help you see if your assumptions about customers or the market are on track or not. Be open to take action via the next cycle-of-learning if the metrics do not validate your path or if the opportunity cost is better applied elsewhere and you need to make the tough call to pivot or even stop. Using a stage-gate approach that anchors movement to the next stage upon key decision points in your product or technology readiness can help to align the team, partners and finance to what success means at each stage.
Friends and Foxes and Foes, Oh My!
Similar to external dynamics and influence with customers and ecosystem partners, it is critical to be aware of the internal influencers who can either accelerate or drive head-winds into your innovation mission. Watch for the “foxes”, or strong influencers, who you want to bring along into your journey as advocates of your mission who can break-down barriers and become part of your air-cover as well as scale plan. Cultivate “friends”, who are resources and information sources, willing to be part of your volunteer army as your transformation mission gains momentum. Keep your senses open for the ‘foes’, people who don’t get or are confused-by or don’t believe in your innovation initiative, as they may become obstacles to sustained funding or the perceived value or ROI to the company.
Mind the Momentum Inflection Point.
Go in eyes-wide-open that you are navigating a moving-front to keep the right level of tension between protecting a nimble team and early market learning while utilizing the assets and influence of the broader company and core businesses. In the beginning your energy is about evangelizing the vision, gaining interest and support to resource and keep funding alive, developing your product and learning the market, and engaging early influencers in the company who ‘get’ the long-term value of your new business or category.
If your ‘cycles-of-learning’ are successful, there will come a time when the momentum flips. Parts of the mainstream business previously ambivalent or unaware of your innovation, will see its value and jump on board. That is good, right? Yes, provided it is at the right pace and maturity level. If the momentum shifts too fast before the technology is scalable or product’s success is validated in the market, the inertia of the company culture, processes, existing customers interests and measures of success may potentially alter your disruptive trajectory to align more with the mainstream business. Being mindful to sense when this momentum shift begins is critical, yet steering at this stage depends on the air-cover, partner alliances and integration readiness that has been built.
Think-to-Scale and Cultivate a Smooth Exit.
Even intrapreneurs need think about what is a successful exit. Each company has its own philosophy and practices to harness innovation, though often new innovations at some point are folded into the larger corporation. Along the way, interjecting foundational capabilities needed to scale can help prepare for a smoother landing. These can include documentation and change governance, creating process for new operating models, building new ecosystem relationships and agreements with internal and external partners, and developing an innovation integration roadmap with alliances.
Whatever type of innovation we pursue, at the core, innovation is a learning journey. Regardless of the outcome, continuing to be curious and take bold steps, assessing what worked and what didn’t work, and forging ahead to swim upstream will lead into the next cycle of learning to innovation success.
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