In a recent survey of 246 global CEOs, 51% of respondents stated that innovation was one of their organization’s top priorities. In that same survey, 64% affirmed that they considered excellence in innovation to be as important as operational excellence for the success of their company.
Clearly, innovation is a key top of mind issue for practically every senior leader in the corporate world today.
The battle for market share and margin is fierce in every industry. Innovation is viewed as the silver bullet that will make companies more competitive, more productive and more profitable.
However, for many organizations, innovation often equates to no more than wishful thinking.
We would all like to be innovators who can crank out disruptive new products and implement organizational transformation that will change the world, but it is just not that easy.
Your innovation initiatives will have a greater chance for success if you keep these 10 points in mind.
1. Innovation is not an option; it is your mission.
Every product or service your organization offers goes through a predictable cycle. What was an innovation at the beginning will quickly inspire imitators, discounters and even competitors who will take your idea and make it better.
You never have the luxury of resting on your current success.
If you aren’t planning several years ahead in terms of new innovations, you are not really committed to innovation.
2. Never confuse true innovation with early adoption.
New, exciting, leading-edge ideas are coming to the market every day. Many of them represent fresh, out-of-the-box thinking, and some of them can really help your company succeed.
But being one of the first companies to take a chance on that new product does not mean you are a true innovator. You have only become a customer of a true innovator.
3. Innovation = solving problems.
At the core, innovation is simple: identify a problem your customer (or your organization) is having and find a fresh, exciting, unique, effective, productive way to solve it.
Don’t settle for a repackaged version of the way things have always been done. Look for new ways to approach the problem; new technologies, new processes and new outcomes.
4. Anticipate problems your customers don’t even know they are having yet.
This is the fast lane to innovation.
Anyone can come up with an idea to solve a problem everyone is already talking about. An innovator has the ability to look down the road, see what customers will need a year or more from now, and create a disruptive solution that will solve that problem and meet that need before anyone else saw it coming.
5. Innovation starts by questioning everything.
Every day you and your team must be asking: “What? Why? How? When? Who?” And the very powerful “What if …?”
Empower your team to ask these questions of themselves, their customers, their colleagues and their executive leaders.
Reward people who ask great questions and come back to you with great answers.
6. Listen to your customers.
Spending time with customers and really getting to know their hopes, dreams, fears and challenges is the best way to inspire “What if …?” thinking. Don’t assume you have an answer until you really understand the problem.
7. Keep an open door and an open mind.
Invite everyone in your organization to come to you with new ideas.
Also, set aside time at least once a year to take your team out of their daily workflow (which is another term for “the way we always do things”) and put them in an environment that encourages them to share thoughts, feelings, and ideas that might prime the pump for innovation.
Make it feel like fun instead of work.
8. Innovation doesn’t mean perfection.
Don’t wait until you have everything all figured out before taking it to the next level.
Often, you won’t figure it out until you tinker with it for a while in the real world.
Salesforce.com has been tops on the list of Forbes Magazine’s World’s Most Innovative Companies for the past 4 years. Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com founder and CEO, is to hand his people new projects that are little more than a concept scratched on a napkin.
According to an article posted on Forbes.com (“Salesforce Innovation Secrets: How Marc Benioff’s Team Stays On Top” 8/20/2014), when they ask what to do next, he simply says, “You’ll figure it out.”
9. Encourage your team not to fear failure.
Since innovation doesn’t start with perfection, some people are afraid to start at all.
Encourage your team to explore innovations without fear of reprisal should the idea fail. Remind them regularly that the road to success is paved by multiple failures.
Jack Welch, legendary former CEO of General Electric, once blew up the wing of a chemical plant when he was a junior chemical engineer. He was testing a new idea and it literally back fired. He expected to be fired. Instead, his boss just told him to be more careful next time.
10. Innovation begins and ends with executive support.
Among those 246 CEOs mentioned above, 87% said they believed their role in driving innovation was as Leader, Visionary, or Facilitator.
No matter how you define it, innovation won’t happen unless senior leadership is passionate about it, dreams about it, talks it up with the team, and devotes constructive time and energy to making innovation a reality.
One last thing to consider:
In another recent survey, 44% of current employees said they will leave their jobs if they don’t see any meaningful innovation coming in the future, and 55% said they would leave their current jobs immediately to work for a company they perceived to be more serious about innovation than their present employer.
Truly, “innovate or die” is not just a slogan it is your future.
