At Google, employees are expected to spend up to 20% of their time on side projects of their own choosing.  Managers provide input and support, and colleagues jump in to assist on hot ideas when additional viewpoints or skills are needed.  Innovation is everyone’s responsibility – and it’s treated very seriously.

You are not Google.

Chances are that most of your employees need to focus on delivering high-quality customer service, or executing defined processes in a reliable and predictable way.  There’s space for innovation, but it isn’t going to become a major activity for a lot of people.  Instead, you need a few people focused on innovation, with others involved in a specific, time-limited way.  Key infrastructure and skills include:

• Top leadership team to set policy and make key decisions
• Designated leader for innovation
• Innovation champions throughout the organization
• Cadre of facilitators to guide innovation activities
• Project team members to tackle selected innovation opportunities
• Active involvement of customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders

Taking care to establish this infrastructure will create accountability and engagement, and prevent that “martyr syndrome” that often occurs when a program head is left to scurry around recruiting volunteers and currying attention.

The top leadership team needs to take an active role in innovation, setting strategy and policy, making decisions, and allocating resources.  And just as important are the supportive behaviors: recognizing accomplishments, communicating, and clearing obstacles.  The leadership team (or committee) should meet on a regular basis and ensure that innovation goals are being accomplished.

While the whole leadership team needs to actively engage with innovation, a single innovation leader should be designated to serve as the focal point.  This position carries leadership accountability for innovation, and would require deep prior experience in developing and sustaining an innovation capability in a similar industry or setting.  Skills include leading change (culture / resistance, communications), product or service development / management / marketing, creativity and ideation, project management (especially applied techniques such as stage gate), business strategy / risk, resource allocation, and others.  It’s a tall role, one that even seasoned executives are not always prepared for.

Often in organizations there is a disconnect below the executive level, where strategy gives way to the focus on daily operations and goals.  To bridge this gap, innovation champions should be designated.  These individuals can come from the ranks of middle management, and their role is twofold: to translate down the overarching innovation strategy, and to promote and support innovation wherever it might arise.  These champions should receive some benefit or recognition, and be granted access to top management for discussions related to innovation.

The skills needed to move an idea through design and development are not present in everyone, and nor can most organizations afford to train everyone (even if “just in time”).  For this reason, a cadre of innovation facilitators is needed across the organization.  Like sherpas for a difficult journey, these specialists can help coach individuals and teams who are trying to innovate.  They should be very informed of the organization’s innovation strategy, processes and policies, and have the skills needed throughout the journey: ideation, project planning / management, meeting facilitation, prototyping, user feedback, cost analysis, and other topics.  Most likely, these skills will be present across the cadre, but not in each individual.

Some industries (especially those with heavy R&D investment) have dedicated staff to allocate to innovation projects.  But more often, innovation teams are formed by hand-picking individuals across the organization to staff a project.  While this can be an excellent way to spread the word about innovation, and expand involvement, there are perils that must be avoided.  And the two most challenging perils involve time.  Individuals on these projects are often “on loan” from their department; regardless of the agreement, their absence often creates pain, and soon the invisible strings begin to pull them back to their home unit, the one that pays their salary.  The second dimension of time is the length of the project.  Whether left open-ended or time-bound but frequently extended, projects that go on indefinitely lose steam and often end in a whimper.  To prevent these risks, innovation projects should be scoped to last no more than 90 days, and launching and closing three or four in parallel can help enforce this constraint.

These days, “open innovation” is all the rage: involving known stakeholders such as customers and suppliers in one’s innovation efforts.  It’s a good idea; these groups are invested in your success and aware of the context, but also bring a fresh perspective to problems that may be viewed as intractable.  In addition, organizations are invoking open innovation to engage experts from across the globe to contribute to solving problems and innovating into selected opportunities.  Firms like InnoCentive have emerged with the capability to push needs out to thousands of potential “solvers,” and payouts as high as $50,000 or more are a fraction of what the sponsoring organizations may be used to investing.  But even without going this length, a strategy to involve stakeholders can create breakthroughs in thinking.

For an organization’s innovation strategy to succeed there is no substitute for skilled people deployed into a thoughtful infrastructure of temporary and full-time roles.  While some level of investment is needed in experts and training, much of the work can be accomplished by current staff.  Organizations have a latent capacity for activity that often arises in times of crisis, and failing to innovate can certainly become a crisis if not reverted in time.  Click to assess your organization’s innovation capability and receive an interactive report comparing your responses to others.

About the Author

Andy Beaulieu As a Senior Consultant with Strategic Partners, Inc. with over 20 years of experience, Andy brings incredible depth and insight to each performance improvement engagement.

He has consulted to management, helped groups form and succeed, developed leaders, and reengineered business processes. He has managed projects, conducted all aspects of consulting assignments, coached client staff, and presented to large audiences. Read more about Andy.

Much has been written about corporate culture, most of it pointing to the same woeful conclusions: culture is a major determinant of success, and there is no easy way to influence it in one’s favor. Cultural incompatibility has brought down giant mergers, and cultural inflexibility is cited in the decline of major corporations. While changes in strategy and business models, and even huge infusions of cash, can all be accomplished amazingly quickly, culture change can defy even the most determined and persistent leader. And to make matters worse, the culture needed to support innovation is contrary to the “default culture” that exists in organizations that do not manage culture: avoid mistakes, do not surprise your boss, do not “make waves”, do what’s expected. For innovation to flourish, these natural tendencies must be up-ended.

The message of this article, however, is that culture can be channeled and aligned to support innovation. The following four aspects are critical:

• Understand the many different cultures that exist in every organization
• Communicate accomplishments, not intent
• Stop talking about failure
• Reward and recognize appropriately

Understand the many different cultures that exist in every organization

As challenging as culture can be, it gets even more mind boggling when you realize how many different cultures exist in parallel in any given organization:

• Headquarters culture (ivory tower, politics) versus other locations (pragmatic performance)
• Executive culture (big moves in strategy, finance) versus middle management (maintain control) versus individual contributors (tired of status quo)
• Functional cultures: engineering (perfect design) versus marketing (fast to market) versus customer support / service (planned change) versus finance (manage risk)
• Ethnic cultures of international locations – and ethnic mixes in many locations

Each of these cultures views innovation differently, and “opportunity or threat” is just one crude way of assessing these views.

Communicate accomplishments, not intent

In their zeal to promote innovation, leaders tend to focus on principles, frameworks, models, and unrealistic comparators (e.g., “be more like Amazon”). The allure of a great graphic and tidy message fits neatly into executives’ strategic view of the organization. Unfortunately, neat does not change attitudes and behavior. To change the culture, focus on specific examples of desired innovation behaviors and outcomes, such as the following:

• Someone hanging around with customers, distributors, or retailers to learn about their problems and come up with solutions
• Someone jury-rigging a new product or changes to an existing product, to be able to demonstrate how something new might look and function
• Someone buying a competitor’s product or service, to gain hands-on experience
• Someone venturing far outside the industry for other ways to solve a problem (“this is how ants deal with this same kind of thing”)
• Someone taking home the pieces of a cancelled project, and working on it in his/her spare time
• Someone working with “lead users” to discover needs and adaptations that might appeal more broadly

Stop talking about failure

When the innovation literature encourages organizations to “make it okay to fail”, I am reminded of Gary Larson’s cartoon about the dog, Ginger, being scolded by her owner – from the perspective of a tail-wagging Ginger: “Blah blah blah blah Ginger blah blah blah blah blah Ginger . . .” Same thing happens when leaders say things like “Failure is not a bad thing, we all have to become more comfortable with failure, and learn to fail faster.” Instead, reframe the goal around learning: learning faster, learning from everything we do, sharing learning across the organization. Ask, “What have you learned lately? What experiments have you conducted? What feedback have you gotten? What are you going to try next? Who else needs to know about this? Is there any way I can help you?” People who are learning are fueling your organization’s future; those who steadfastly maintain the status quo are useful today but also prone to be an obstacle to innovation.

Reward and recognize appropriately

So much has been written about the contrary effects of rewards that I’ve lost track of the state of the argument. Here are some simple principles that should support your innovation efforts without backfiring:

• Words count for a lot – tell stories about individual efforts and accomplishments, being sure to mention names – and don’t forgot to recognize those supervisors who provided the necessary “air cover” or at the very least turned a blind eye to someone’s little side project.
• Opportunity counts for even more – those who are innovating are thinking ahead, taking risks, and demonstrating initiative – exactly the behaviors you need from your future leaders. Give these kinds of individuals the opportunity to take on bigger roles and to tackle other innovations, and keep an eye on their career progression.
• Avoid the money pit – awarding money means you need formal nomination and selection processes, which means that some will be deselected and hence demotivated . . . avoid this trap and focus on other forms of recognition.

It would be naïve to expect a simple four-point plan to quickly align an organization’s many cultures to embrace innovation. Indeed, aligning culture takes time and persistence on the part of an organization’s leaders; for most, it feels like an inefficient activity with no concrete outcome of any magnitude. However, an innovative culture can trump strategy, structure, process, and other controllable variables, either rendering impotent a well-designed innovation approach, or conversely driving innovation results in an organization with few formal mechanisms. Either way, you need culture on your side.

Click to assess your organization’s innovation capability and receive an interactive report comparing your responses to others.

About the Author

Andy Beaulieu As a Senior Consultant with Strategic Partners, Inc. with over 20 years of experience, Andy brings incredible depth and insight to each performance improvement engagement.

He has consulted to management, helped groups form and succeed, developed leaders, and reengineered business processes. He has managed projects, conducted all aspects of consulting assignments, coached client staff, and presented to large audiences. Read more about Andy.

1. History and Results
2. Strategy and Leadership
3. Culture, Communication and Incentives
4. Infrastructure, Skills, and Resources
5. Ideation Process
6. New Product / Service Commercialization
7. Technology
8. Program Evaluation and Improvement

Some of these dimensions will seem obvious – Strategy and Leadership, for example – and others not so apparent.  To assess your organization’s innovation capability against these eight dimensions, and receive a customizable report comparing your responses to others, click here.

It’s no coincidence that the eight dimensions start with results, the outcome of your innovation efforts.  Similar to the old catchphrase, “The past is the best predictor of future performance”, your ability to innovate is enhanced by having an innovation history – both ancient and recent – and by leveraging those successes going forward.

The most critical determinant of innovation success is leadership.  And because innovation nearly always challenges the status quo, the need for active leadership is constant.  On a formal basis, leaders must develop a strategy for innovation, complete with definition, scope, goals, objectives, and metrics.

Few organizations have the luxury of a culture that encourages risk-taking and views failures as learning opportunities; rather, those who innovate often work “against the grain.”  But, culture can be shaped through interventions such as communication and incentives aimed at emphasizing and rewarding the desired behaviors.

Even organizations that make innovation “everyone’s business” must invest in a team to focus the effort, manage the innovation pipeline, and select projects to invest in.  Often these teams will serve as an innovation incubator, which requires a range of skills, as well as the resources to conduct research, execute projects, and conduct market experiments.

Much has been made of the idea development process, which attracts attention due to its glitz and glamour.  But beyond the brainstorming are a host of other ideation approaches to adopt: trend watching, market needs research, TRIZ, crowd-sourcing, etc.

If you’ve ever witnessed a new product or service that you “thought of ten years ago”, you know that idea conception is not the end of the innovation journey.  Some firms excel at generating good ideas, but fall down in the hand-off to commercialization functions such as supply chain management, product management, marketing, operations, and customer service.  Innovations need to be tracked through these hand-offs to ensure continuity and follow-through.

Another attention-grabber in the innovation press has been technology, where idea management systems providers have made more noise than contribution.  While technology can enable innovation processes, and engage audiences outside the organization’s borders, it cannot thrive without strength in the other dimensions.

More important than perfect first-time execution of each dimension is a healthy approach to evaluating what’s working, what’s missing, and what needs to be improved.  Starting small and constantly improving yields a program that can be nurtured, sustained and enhanced over time.

Subsequent articles will zero in on these dimensions, providing specific tips and examples to help you implement an innovation capability in your organization. Hey, if you’re going to write about innovation, shouldn’t you take some risks and be a little creative?

• Many feel like we are already doing that
• Many feel like this too shall pass
• Some see it as their ticket to the executive suite, and are planning a pre-emptive strike

And, to make matters worse, there may be an unflattering “history” to this topic, consisting of the scattered remains of pricey false starts:

• Ideation sessions with a creativity whiz or hip design firm
• Glitzy presentations by an innovation guru
• A seemingly intuitive idea management tool that no one really uses
• Hundreds of employee or “open innovation” suggestions waiting to be evaluated
• Marketing types trumpeting blue ocean opportunities, sales types trumpeting customer needs, and R&D/IT types trumpeting next gen technologies

These days, organizations can’t afford the ramifications associated with poorly conceived programs, misaligned objectives, and high rates of new product / service failure.  Fortunately, research about innovation is starting to mature, and the key components of program success are becoming more evident:

• Innovation initiatives must be situational, reflecting who you are and what you are trying to accomplish
• Innovation initiatives need to adopt a systems perspective, addressing ensuring the alignment of eight critical elements
• Innovation initiatives must take a page from the change management body of knowledge, leveraging the principles of results-based program introduction

Over the coming weeks, stay tuned to this space for strategies, tips, and examples to get your innovation program singing – along with free tools you can apply for an immediate impact.

What if… when you are going to an event with people from your office, you agree beforehand that you won’t sit together. Instead, you choose to arrive early to talk to the movers and shakers. What if you decide you’ll have conversations with 4 people you don’t know or want to re-connect with? What could the impact be?

Networking can be a vital tool to uncork bureaucratic bottlenecks, work cross-functionally, and collaborate more effectively with internal and external partners.

In this complimentary eBook industry leader Lynne Waymon shares “31 Tips for Successful Networking“  that can help you (or even your employees/leaders) hone the skill of networking to impact organizational outcomes, including tips on:

• How to Benefit from Your Professional Association
• Ways you can Enrich a Good Networking Relationship
• Specific steps YOU can take After Someone Provides You with Information. . .
• And much more…

Please contact Taylor Fitzpatrick at tfitzpatrick@spisolutions.com to download your copy today and see the impact these simple tips can have on your career.

“The 4 essential roles of leaders are master strategist, change manager, relationship/network builder, and talent developer.”

-Developing Business Leaders, The Conference Board

“Leaders who are skilled networkers have access to people, information, and resources to help solve problems and create opportunities. Leaders who neglect their networks are missing out on a critical component of their role as leaders.”

-Leadership Networking, Center for Creative Leadership

 “Successful managers spend 70% more time networking than their less successful counterparts,”

-Academy of Management Journal

 “Networking is an essential activity for the ambitious manager – and a requirement even for those focused simply on doing their current jobs well.  Strategic networking to help uncover and capitalize on new opportunities for the company puts the tools of networking in the service of business goals.”

-“How Leaders Create and Use Networks,” HBR

In a recent poll of 100 HR Managers, 91% said they saw a need to strategically manage the creation, maintenance, and growth of social capital in their organizations, yet 81% said their organizations did not have a well-defined, enterprise wide strategy for developing the social capital of employees.

-Contacts Count Research

“In one organization, employees with the most extensive personal digital networks, were 7 percent more productive. However, employees with the most cohesive face-to-face networks were 30 percent more productive.”

-Alex Pentland, from MIT, in the HBR

“Social capital is even more necessary to managers’ advancement than skillful performance of traditional managerial tasks.”

-Harvard Business Review

“Expanding my professional network is important,” say 72.5% of executives, but only 34.5% are satisfied with what their companies are doing to help them. 

-The Wall Street Journal

 “It’s not enough to be technically adept or even to be interpersonally pleasant. Power goes to the ‘connectors:’ those people who actively seek relationships and then serve as bridges between and among groups. Their personal contacts are often as important as their formal assignment.  In essence, ‘She who has the best network wins.’

“Network stars have social capital – a stockpile of personal relationships with many people whom they regularly connect to one another.  Even the most technology-savvy leaders rely on their own personal networks to find the best resources quickly.  The human networks are what count.”

-RosaBeth Moss Kantor, Harvard Business Review

“Much technical knowledge, even in the hard sciences, is highly tacit and therefore far more effectively transmitted face-to-face.”

-“Restoring American Competitiveness,” HBR

“Being intentional about developing . . . relationship excellence that comes from connection is the key to unlocking corporate potential.  It is the next step in the evolution of organizations.”  

-Michael Lee Stallard,   “The Science of Engagement,” Talent Management Magazine, Feb. 2010

“There is a key distinction between networking and successfully networking:  Indiscriminate linking, inviting, attaching, following and aggregating lists of names won’t yield the same benefits as conversation, dialogue, and interaction with others.”

-Dave Opton, ExecuNet Founder and CEO

FREE WEBCAST on August 22, 2012 from 1:00pm-2:00pm ET

THE WELL-CONNECTED EMPLOYEE: Networking Competencies that Foster Engagement, Social Acumen, and Business Results

REGISTER NOW – Space is Limited.

About the Experts who Compiled the Quotes

Anne Baber and Lynne Waymon are co-founders of Contacts Count LLC and co-authors of 5 books on networking and career management.  Visit them at www.ContactsCount.com.   Their Networking Competency Assessment shows which networking skills you’ve mastered and which to give attention to next.  Go to http://www.contactscount.com/testyourskills.html for details.

What ails your network? Most people’s networks are under-developed. People assume that by joining a group that automatically gives them relationships with the other members.  Not so!  And many people make the mistake of asking for too much too soon . . . or too little too late.

Here’s a fresh look at the various kinds of relationships that are possible with the people you meet.  Even more important, if you know what kind of relationship you have with someone, the next step you can take to develop the relationship becomes obvious.

Imagine your network as a bulls-eye.

Accidents float around outside the concentric circles.  You’re in seat 14A.  Next to you, in 14B, is an Accident.  An Accident is a person you’ll never see again, unless you make it happen by exchanging contact information and getting back in touch.  In one study, 27 percent of people developed a relationship with someone they met on an airplane.  But it’s not smart to rely on meeting people by chance.

Inside the outermost circle, put the word Acquaintance.  An Acquaintance is a person you could find again, if you had to because you know someone in common.  Think of the architect you met at your cousin’s daughter’s wedding.  But you’re not going to run into her in the normal course of your life, but you could find her again.  Remember your Acquaintances when you want more diversity in your network.  Cultivating an Acquaintance will bring you in touch with people you don’t normally see.

Inside the next circle, put the word Associate.  An Associate is a person who belongs to a group you belong to.  That means, you’ll see her repeatedly.

We believe it takes six to eight “meetings” before two people know and trust each other enough to go to bat for each other. So Associates, whom you’ll see again and again, are your easiest contacts to develop. However (and this is one of the biggest mistakes networkers make), if you don’t develop these relationships, you will remain only co-members of a group.  You won’t have begun to act as resources for each other.

Once you have acted – exchanged something of value – a tip, a resource, some information – you and your Associates become Actives.  Actives are people you are actively trading with.  When you give first, you plug into a quirk of human nature that’s the basis for strong networking relationships:  The Reciprocity Principle.  It goes like this.  If you give somebody something, she will try to give you something back.  Two-way swaps are the meat and potatoes of networking.

But there are ways to make relationships even more relevant. When that happens, you and your contact will be able to help each other even more. Advocates (inside the next circle) know you so well and trust you so completely that, when they see an opportunity that’s perfect for you, they’ll grab it and give it to you. Because you’ve taught them so much about yourself, they’ll unhesitatingly pass your name along to others.  Advocates can give vivid examples of you in action, serving a client, saving the day, solving a problem.

Finally (in the center circle), you’ll have a few Allies.  Allies are on your personal board of directors of your life . They know where you’re headed and will do all they can to help you reach your goals. They will actually seek out opportunities for you.  (You’ll do the same for them.) They’ll celebrate with you when things go well, commiserate with you – and even tell you the truth – when things go wrong.

Take a minute to think about your networking contacts.  Draw out the bulls-eye and decide, which A best describes each contact.  Then you’ll be able to determine what your next step could be with each person.  As you weight the risk and value of any next step, you’ll be networking strategically.  And you’ll avoid lots of the turn-offs and mistakes that people typically make when networking.

If you want to move from Active to Advocate with a contact, for example, tell stories so that your contact will be able to describe your capabilities to others.  Ask for stories from your contact, so you can reciprocate.

Using this As model will help you create a fully developed network and help you make networking an art, not an accident.

FREE WEBCAST with Lynne Waymon on August 22, 2012 from 1:00pm-2:00pm ET

THE WELL-CONNECTED EMPLOYEE: Networking Competencies that Foster Engagement, Social Acumen, and Business Results

REGISTER NOW – Space is Limited.

About the Authors

Anne Baber and Lynne Waymon are co-founders of Contacts Count LLC and co-authors of 5 books on networking and career management.  Visit them at www.ContactsCount.com.   Their Networking Competency Assessment shows which networking skills you’ve mastered and which to give attention to next.  Go to http://www.contactscount.com/testyourskills.html for details.

Why do I need coaching skills?

Executive Coach and CEO for Cylient, LLC., Dianna Anderson shares her insights on the power of coaching. True coaching is founded on an appreciative view of the world and a willingness to help others learn, grow and develop. You can’t force people to adopt a new way of looking at the world; rather, you invite them to open to a new way of working. It’s easier, faster, and more effective to start with the people who are most likely to accept your invitation.

In this e-book learn how coaching-based leadership opens up learning opportunities, creates engagement and realizes potential. This includes:

• The distinction between problem-solving and coaching
• The strategic advantage of coaching
• The power in turning everyday challenges into learning opportunities
• Specific steps YOU can take to have effective coaching conversations
• And much more…

It’s the real deal.

Please contact Michelle Mehler at mmehler@spisolutions.com to receive your copy today.

The current change management orthodoxy is very much about “command and control.” This approach assumes you have to start with the C-Suite and roll down an initiative from there in order for the change to take hold. The backlash created by this kind “steam rolling” approach dooms many change initiatives to becoming a “flavor of the month,” as people understandably resist what is being forced upon them. When it comes to instilling coaching capabilities into an organization it is far more effective to take a coaching approach to creating the change.

Coaching is much more than just a set of tools. True coaching is founded on an appreciative view of the world and a willingness to help others learn, grow and develop. You can’t force people to adopt a new way of looking at the world; rather, you invite them to open to a new way of working. It’s easier, faster, and more effective to start with the people who are most likely to accept your invitation.

Who are the willing?

Look for people who are open to change. Consider leaders of more progressive departments or functions that tend to embrace change before others. Also, look for areas where instilling coaching capabilities will help address signficant challenges, such as an IT department that is having difficulty getting people to implement a major systems upgrade. The willing are the people who see the value of trying something new. Start with them.

Then what?

Support the early adopters to successfully integrate coaching-based leadership into their day-to-day activities. Identify the kinds of follow-up support that will work best for them. It’s important to have a variety of options available to align with different learning preferences and work circumstances. As these early adopters become more confident in their coaching capabilities ask them to partner with you to recruit others to experience coaching development workshops. Continue this process until the “buzz” about the value of coaching creates so much pull that people are asking to attend the coaching workshops so they can be part of the action.

Sustain the momentum

Continue to look for ways that people can support each other in the learning process and deepen their experience with coaching-based leadership. Share success stories and encourage people to let others know how coaching is making a difference for them. This attracts more people who are willing to learn about coaching and helps to build the kind of learning network needed to make coaching a way of life.

FREE WEBCAST on July 25th, 2012 from 1:00pm-2:00pm ET about Coaching-Based Leadership

REGISTER NOW – Space is Limited.

About the Author

Dianna Anderson, MCC is the Chief Executive Officer for Cylient, a professional services firm offering coaching-based leadership development, culture change and MetrixGlobal® evaluation services. Dianna is an accomplished leadership coach, author and management consultant, with a true passion for partnering with individuals, teams and organizations to create lasting transformational change that delivers real value. Dianna is recognized by the ICF as a Master Certified Coach and whose publications in the field include her book Coaching that Counts.

©Dianna Anderson, MCC

CEO, Cylient, LLC