How To Enhance the State of Innovation in Your Organisation


Those of us working within the innovation space know precisely how nuanced and subjective this discipline is, so much so that a lot of individuals and organisations have very different perspectives on it.

I’ve gathered experiential data of such perspectives by engaging over 100+ organisations, and enabling 2500+ individuals, over the past decade and a half.

However, to quantify the same, I conducted a LinkedIn Poll in which I asked my extended network to choose between four perspectives that I have predominantly come across.

The number of perspectives which I could share were limited by the LinkedIn feature, and hence, I synthesised these into four discreet ones.

To keep the options open for more and varied perspectives, I invited respondents to share anything else in the comments section.

The poll options and the percentage of responses were as follows:

A.  Joke: Taken lightly/ ridiculed     … 11%
B.     Buzzword: Only talk, no action … 22%
C.    Task: High action, low impact   … 22%
D.    Growth-driver: Adds to goals   … 46%

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/shreyasbakshi_growth-innovation-innovationstrategy-activity-6966689613444714497-D8u-

Over the week that the poll was active, it gathered votes with respondents comprising of Founders, Chief Executive Officers, Managing Directors, General Managers, Presidents, and Heads of Innovation, from organisation sizes ranging from <10 to 100,000+ globally.

What can we infer from this?

The results broadly matched with my experiential information but it was good to see my perceptions being quantified.

It was highly encouraging to see that:
    1)    The hierarchy of responses increased from A to D.
    2)    Only about 10% responses were for A.
    3)    Nearly 50% of the respondents were utilising innovation as a growth driver.

To those who responded with option D - ‘Growth-driver’, when asked to share the contribution of innovation to their organisational goals, they were unable to provide specific data points. This may have been due to various reasons e.g., confidentiality, inability to quantify the outcomes, and others.

Hence, debatably, we can also infer that organisations are unable to openly share the contributions of innovation to their organisational goals.

What can Organisations in state A, B, C do?

Based on my experience, I have observed that it starts with the intent of the leader – whether s/he is the head of the organisation, department, region, function or own life. If the leader genuinely intends to innovate, s/he will innovate based on his/her intuitive abilities.

Such outcomes survive until the tenure of the leader in that context, and to some extent, slightly beyond too. A new leader in that context will drive things as per his/her abilities.

So, in any organisation/context, for innovation to move from being perceived as a ‘Joke’ to a continuous ‘Growth-driver’ (or ‘way-of-life’, as it is commonly expected), the leader has to strive to:

  • Generate meaningful outcomes.
  • Make outcomes visible to all the relevant stakeholders.

It is easy to measure and demonstrate the outcomes in areas where innovations are directly impacting the top-line and/or bottom-line for e.g., revenue, profits, market share, cost reductions etc.

However, it is not easy to measure and demonstrate the outcomes in areas which do not directly impact the top-line and/or bottom-line. In such cases, it is advisable to evolve some scale or formula that is aligned with all stakeholders. This scale or formula can be refined as more data points are available.

Some commonly known examples of such scales are Great Place To Work (GPTW) scores and ranking, Brand Score, Customer/ Employee/ Supplier Satisfaction scores etc. To have all the stakeholders, including the respondents, on the same page, the scale should have a descriptor that is easy to interpret.

Take the example of the poll options that I had set-up. Instead of saying rate the level of innovation on a scale of 1 to 5, I attempted a descriptor for each point on the scale.

We will find many scales with very generic descriptors i.e. Not Satisfied to Extremely Satisfied. We will also know, how we feel, as respondents, when we fill such surveys. Hence, it is best to avoid such descriptors and give the ones that are relevant to the point for which the response is requested.

What can Organisations in state D do?

During my engagement with organisations that were already leveraging innovation as a ‘Growth-driver’, I realised that they could scale it up further if they measured and shared the impact of outcomes with all relevant stakeholders.

Some of the outcomes were:

  • 10% additional profits actualised across the organisation.
  •    2x higher impact than other methods in all areas where it was applied.

Apart from this, some of the things that were done were:

  • Co-evolved an innovation strategy that was contextualised for the organisation as a whole and each of its sub-unit as well.
  • Defined an approach/ methods for innovation that was customised based on various approaches/ methods that had worked in the organisation.
  • Developed a small team of internal facilitators who imbibed the approach and continued to customise it and enable others in the organisation to  apply it.

Even prior to my engagement, these organisations were leveraging innovation as a ‘Growth-driver’. After deploying these aspects, they could:

·        Make it more impactful.
·        Take it wider and deeper across the organisation.
·        Sustain the culture over a longer period of time

For more details of these engagements and client’s views as well, please refer to my book, Dealing with the Mirage: Institutionalising Innovation.

In this book, I have also attempted to share many dilemmas that the leaders have faced around innovation, and how have we worked together to resolve these.

More information on this book is available on https://dwm.sbakshi.com.

In the interest of mutual learning, please feel free to share your experiences on making innovation more impactful and sustainable in your organisation.

To discover more aspects, that can make innovation deliver higher value in your context, feel free to comment or DM. We could have an exploratory conversation in mutual interest!

 

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