How to initiate an innovation program in a large corporation
You just got the green light: you’re assigned as the first global Innovation Leader ever in your company. Congratulations! What now? Three recommendations, based on my learnings.
Focus on a problem.
- DO. Make sure your leadership provides you with a clear objective: one (or a few) very specific challenges for which they need innovative solutions. The more specific the challenge, the better; the fewer the number of challenges, the better. Make sure all leaders and middle managers buy-in into this objective. Certainly limit the number of problems you focus on in the beginning of your journey as Innovation Leader: when innovation has matured, you can broaden/expand the number of challenges.
- DON’T. If the focus is too broad or too vague, employees will be confused, unsure about what you mean with innovation, uncertain which specific problem they need to find innovative solutions for. If you don’t have a specific challenge, you will also have difficulty to judge which innovative solutions to select and to resource. If the challenge is not clear or agreed upon, leaders may become frustrated, as they may have different innovation expectations.
- EXAMPLE. I received the objective to identify and stimulate innovations that addressed 3 key business problems: lack of adherence to a medicine, lack of access to a medicine (affordability & availability), lack of new ways to engage with key customers.
Get quick wins.
- DO. Get some results fast by identifying already ongoing innovations. If you can quickly show concrete examples of effective innovations, you’ll help colleagues understand what “good” looks like. Avoid pursuing perfection from the start: learn and adapt as you go (like innovation itself). Also, engage management early, e.g. as jury to help evaluate innovative ideas.
- DON’T. If you wait too long for “the right ideas”, you may loose momentum and support. You may create frustration, especially with the more skeptic members of the leadership team.
- EXAMPLE. I issued a global Innovation Challenge within 3 months after starting in my new role as Innovation Leader. Nearly 100 nominations were submitted. The variation of innovative solutions gave me a good idea of how employees thought about innovation. Asking leadership to be jury members gave good insights on what kind of innovative ideas they value. Some of the nominations were already in the final innovation stages, so they could be scaled relatively quickly and were able to demonstrate how innovation can drive business.
Create a network.
- DO. Establish a passionate local innovation leader in each country; they should be supported by their local management and assigned to stimulate innovation in their country. Also identify experts across specialized areas of the organization, like IT: they can be connected with those innovators that lack that specific expertise.
- DON’T. Avoid creating too many processes to maintain the networks, as this inhibits innovation. Focus on those colleagues that are passionate: they will make things happen (passionate innovators will innovate persistently) or they will provide support (passionate local innovation leaders will find a way to stimulate innovation and support their innovative colleagues). Keep it flexible, learn as you go and adapt.
- EXAMPLE. Creating part-time innovation leaders accelerated the stimulation of innovation in each of their countries. Reaching out to non-commercial silos helped to identify centers of excellence in IT, manufacturing and compliance. Based on the Quick Win example above, the most passionate innovators were identified, were provided with extra attention and resources and were connected with the mentioned centers of excellence.
There are many other initiatives an Innovation Leader can and should do. My experience is that the above ones are the most critical. Tracking systems, for example, can be set up later, when the focus is clearer. Another example, innovation training, can also be developed later, once the key barriers for innovation in the corporation are identified.
As Thomas Edison said:
“There’s a way to do it better. Find it.“
So, as Innovation Leader, I learned that having a very specific objective, generating a few quick wins and creating a passionate network laid the base for a very effective innovation program across the corporation.
More: Getting an innovation program started – advice for the first year, by InnovationLeader
Do you agree? Disagree? Please share below!
More of my blogs on innovation: Wim Vandenhouweele