Innovation is not the objective
One of the questions we as Innovation Leaders in a large corporation get is “what is Innovation?”. Often, our internal stakeholders assume they need to come up with disruptive, exciting, company-changing initiatives. This can create discouragement and cause innovators to give up trying.
My answer is simple: (commercial) innovation is about solving our business and customer challenges in ways never tried before.
- For example: at a certain time, the global leadership asked me to focus innovation on 3 key business challenges: patients do not adhere to medicines, patients lack access to medicines (availability, affordability) and how we can increase engagement with customers.
Once this kind of focus is understood, innovation becomes purposeful, supported and manageable.
Or better: should become purposeful, supported and manageable. I learned it was a challenge to get this simple message through across the corporation. To address this communication challenge, I used multiple approaches, e.g.:
- Focus Innovation Challenges/Awards on the 3 key challenges areas above
- Discuss these 3 areas at every meeting/presentation I had with regional, country, other division leaders and employees
- During every inspirational talk, give examples of innovations grouped in these 3 areas
- Collaborate with IT colleagues to search for start ups that innovate in those 3 areas
- When reviewing innovative initiatives, ask as first question in which of the 3 areas it fits
- When discussing metrics for an innovative initiative, ensure it is related to one of the 3 areas
- Create a visual portfolio of innovations, reflecting those 3 areas
- Define 3 Centers of Excellence, one for each of the 3 areas, who can provide technical expertise for innovators experimenting in those areas
After each effort, I noticed an increase in innovative experiments in the 3 challenge areas. However, this focus faded after time, requiring a continued effort to reinforce the communication.
As Gifford Pinchot III said:
”A vision is not a vision unless it says yes to some ideas and no to others, inspires people and is a reason to get out of bed in the morning and come to work.”
So, as Innovation Leader, I ensured the leadership team provided sponsorship for the focus of innovation and then I consistently repeated, repeated, repeated this focus across the innovation community.
More reading: How to Align Innovation with Your Corporate Strategy and The importance of aligning innovation strategy with business goals.
More blogs? Click here: Wim Vandenhouweele
Any other thoughts on how to communicate and ensure innovation focus? Please share below!