Sparks to fire up your innovation combustion
This coaching session discusses who’s job it is to innovate in a corporation.
Starring: Inna (Innovation Leader in a large Pharma corporation) and Wim (coach for Innovation Leaders). [Transcription far below]
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Are you looking for a personal innovation coach?
- Do you want a soundboard, a sparring partner?
- Do you want to run an idea by a passionate outsider?
- Did you just start an innovation program or want to improve it?
- Do you need practical ideas to stimulate innovation?
- Do you want tips on how to manage an innovation portfolio?
If yes, I’m ready to help you!
- I believe in KISS: Keeping Innovation Super Simple. High focus on passion, low focus on processes.
- I have coached more than 50 innovation leaders across the globe in Pharma/healthcare.
- I work as independent coach: per hour or as long as you consider valuable.
- I can be reached (Wim Vandenhouweele) at wimvand@outlook.com
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Transcript
Inna:
⁃ In a corporation, is innovation everyone’s job?
Wim:
⁃ In my opinion: yes and no!
Inna:
⁃ Why “no”?
Wim:
⁃ First, passion. Not everyone has the passion to innovate. And that’s OK. Innovation is not easy. One needs a special mindset.
⁃ Second, capabilities. Not everyone has all the capabilities to innovate. Innovation has different steps: ideation, experimentation, Pilot. Some employees are good at coming up with ideas, some are better at experimenting and some are best with pilots. And some people are just more interested and/or at their very best in execution. Imagine a corporation with 10,000 employees. If all of them are innovating, who will be executing? Corporations need those employees too.
⁃ Third, turnover. You can of course train all employees in all the innovation capabilities. However, training is expensive. And training is especially unproductive in those regions where there is a high employee turnover. By the time some employees are trained, they may already be looking for a job in another company.
Inna:
⁃ Why “yes”?
Wim:
⁃ In a way, Innovation is indeed every employee’s job. Those employees who want to innovate, should be able to innovate.
⁃ The other employees should encourage and support their innovative colleagues. For example: Marketing could communicate the key problems that need to be addressed with innovations and commit to scaling succesful innovations; IT could collaborate with innovators from other departments and offer their expertise; Compliance could provide constructive guidance to facilitate experimentation in new, uncertain situations; Finance could provide funding; HR could offer specific training programs to innovators; Etc.
Inna:
⁃ So what is my role then, as Innovation Leader?
Wim:
⁃ The Innovation Leader is the promotor, the glue, the catalyst, the supporter, the guide to make all of this happen. The Innovation Leader identifies the barriers and finds solutions to overcome those barriers, communicates and celebrates innovation across all levels of the corporation and build networks inside and outside the organization
Inna:
⁃ Employees: Innovators innovate; Everyone is supportive.
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