can innovation occur without cultural change?

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INSITUM is a leading innovation consultancy. We partner with organizations to solve business problems and develop innovation capabilities through design, strategy and social science.

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Can innovation occur without cultural change?

Companies are realizing that introducing buzz words, toolkits and even change agents are not enough

Research on cultures of innovation reveals the need to re-design organizational bridges.By Ric Edinberg, Hannah Calderón and Claudia Ruge.

How many organizations do you know that are attempting to incorporate ‘creativity’ through newly hatched innovation departments? How many of these very same departments face cultural challenges as they work towards

achieving their desired results? Many of INSITUM’s clients bring us on board as sup-portive partners in these eff orts toward creativity. They are realizing that introduc-ing buzz words, toolkits and even change agents are not enough.

Transforming a culture is no small task. Embarking on this task requires an in-depth and honest understanding of the current state of an organization’s culture. As a result, an internal diagnosis is crucial. In our work across myriad industries, we’ve observed that organizations’ approaches to Research & Development often fall into four potential extremes that can get them stuck in a rut:

Too much eff ort framing problems and perfecting details before launch ends up wasting a lot of money on research eff orts that never make it past early defi nition and design.

Moving quickly from a business case to a full blown pilot creates strong personal attachments to projects and a bias towards forcing small fi x after small fi x rather than considering the need to pivot or move in another direction.

Competing mindsets create friction and even when launch happens successfully, the internal culture becomes too focused on where credit and fault is due.

Collecting ideas from many sources and quickly converting them into small-scale solutions for testing without framing or analysis of the problem at hand becomes overwhelming, circular and reactive.

Research for research’s sake

Perpetual pilot

Clashing cultures

Putting out fi res


Manifestations of these four pitfalls can be found in all sorts of organizations. Diag-nosing the state of innovation in Fortune 500 companies reveals some of the chal-lenges organizations face as they attempt to foster a new culture within the organi-zation at large.

The case of a Fortune 500 industrial supply company

INSITUM US was brought on to help a newly formed innovation team generate con-crete metrics for a more informed understanding of their achievements, needs, and barriers since the team’s inception, and to provide the team with a working tool for benchmarking their progress and conveying their worth to the rest of the company. We started by conducting an “x-ray” of the team and key stakeholders using ethno-graphic interviews in order to diagnose the state of innovation in the company.

These fi ndings helped us develop both “hard” and “soft” indicators within our metric so that it would resonate with the values of both the innovation team and the company at large. Examples of “hard” and “soft” indicators include the amount of money saved by deciding not to move forward with ideas early and the team’s ability to gain inter-nal support through an employee coaching program. This was measured by employee sentiment of those who were coached in innovative practices and tasked with imple-menting these practices within their respective departments. In essence, our fi ndings helped determine next steps for the team to continue their progress and make a more meaningful impact within the organization by bridging the culture gap.

Mapping the Innovation Territory

Mapping the Innovation Territory in an Industrial

Supply Company

The company’s values fell on the left side of the diagram while the innovation team’s values fell on the right, highlighting a clash

of cultures within the organization.

AnalysisParalysis

AnalysisParalysis

Problem Framing

Problem Framing

Problem Solving

Problem Solving

Just Do It

Just Do It

Research for research’s sake

Perpetual Pilot

Putting out fi res

Two clashingcultures

Perfectionism& Effi ciency

Speed & Agility

HierarchyNetwork, Collaboration& Collective Inteligence

Stability &Fine-tunning New Ideas

Expansion & Scale

CustomerIntimacy

Structure & Control

Creativity & Freedom

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The case of executive leadership

We were contracted by a global furniture manufacturer to explore the needs, be-haviors and motivations of executives in the US, Europe and the Middle East in their workspaces to inspire new environment designs.

The research revealed two sets of values and beliefs that guide how leaders work, communicate and feel about their professional environments. Their behaviors are often aimed at complying with or transforming existing structures, systems and work practices.

The traditionalist’s values can often push a culture towards ‘analysis paralysis’ while the change agent’s values can drive a culture more towards a ‘just do it’ mental-ity. Interestingly, this is exactly how the larger culture played out in the industrial supply company with those championing the core values tending towards issues of ‘research for research’s sake’ and ‘perpetual pilot,’ while the innovation team was struggling with issues of ‘two clashing cultures’ and ‘putting out fi res.’

Mapping the Innovation Territory of Diff erent Types of Executives

Believe in creating change through existing processes and structures to stay competitive; motivated by pragmatic change.

Believe in the need for new pro-cesses/structures and the need to demonstrate the value of these processes/structures to stay com-petitive and create change; moti-vated by breakthrough change.

Traditionalist Change Agent

AnalysisParalysis

Problem Framing

Problem Solving

Just Do It

Traditionalist Change Agent


Achieving Zen

When an organization feels stuck it will often attempt to change its culture. This may mean shifting its culture entirely from one extreme to another or more commonly, bringing in an agent of change to promote practices that end up representing the opposite extreme, which then causes a culture clash.

Ideally, organizations should focus on balancing existing structures, systems and practices with the new ones they choose to implement. Yet of course, this is easier said than done.

We see three fundamental strategies for successfully integrating an innovation team’s practices into the foundation of organizational culture whether this team is centralized or decentralized:

Balancing the Innovation Territory

How does a vision or strategy from the top get effi ciently communicated and carried out once it is two to three levels removed from its original architects? Trying to put a plan into action that was not communicated by the plan’s designer can quickly become like a game of telephone where the vision becomes fragmented as it is interpreted by diff erent department heads with distinct agendas. With the many buzz words fl oating around offi ces today that could have a myriad possible meanings, organizations should allocate more time towards alignment around a common vision, making sure every-one is on the same page.

Align around a commonly understood objective and vision1

AnalysisParalysis

Problem Framing

Problem Solving

Just Do It

Explore Do

ScaleLearn

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What does this mean for you?

Each organization is different so the tactics for achieving these strategies need to be tailored. Diagnosing the cultural status quo is a great starting point. This will inform the specific tactics such as alignment, visioning or framing workshops, team-building exercises, success metrics or coaching in user-centered design methods that will be most effective.

There can be competition between those who value operational structure through hard data and monitoring and those who champion a culture of innovation and exploration, using practices that are often viewed as ‘chaot-ic’ and ‘unstructured.’ Yet, both of these mindsets are valid and both have their advantages and disadvantages. In order to work together to unlock the unique benefits of each set of cultural values, there must be mutual respect and an understanding of which mindset is better suited for a certain context or step in a larger vision and when they can be put to use synergistically.

One of the biggest challenges innovation teams face is when it comes time to hand a project over to other teams within the organization. This is because the linkages between teams are often built with operational structure and processes in mind.While these types of linkages may work well between two teams of the same mindset, introducing an innovation change agent into the mix requires more flexible pathways that resonate with both sets of values.

Understand and respect the benefits of each other’s values

Re-orient the system to integrate practices from both sets of values

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IN

Ric Edinberg is the Director of INSITUM US office and a pragmatic dreamer who blends ex-

periences in design planning and fine art to forge an approach to develop tools and systems

that people can relate to and use, and that also add economic value to his clients.

> [email protected]

Hannah Calderón a Project Lead at at INSITUM. Her knowledge of language and her back-

ground in discourse analysis give her the unique ability to develop insights about perceptions

and expectations that are key in forging opportunities and business strategies for clients.

> [email protected]

Claudia Ruge is a UX Design Reseacher at United Airlines. She combines expertise in user

research, usability, insight generation and design with business perspective to help United

Airlines develop delightful digital experiences for their clients.

> [email protected]


Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen...“

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...and thinking what nobody has thought.

Albert Szent-Györgyi


For over a decade, INSITUM has helped global organizations solve a wide range of business problems across diff erent functional areas.

Our innovation approach is centered on understanding and co-creating with the people who use, buy, distribute, sell, infl uence and/or interact with our clients’ products and services.

Our process is not step-by-step, but dynamic, intended to approach diff erent facets of a project simultaneously, refl ecting how organizations and people think and work.

Our experience with this approach spans a wide range of industries and more than 1500 successful international, regional and local innovation projects regarding Strategic Research, Brand Development, Product Strategy, Digital Interaction, Service Design and Organizational Innovation.

1500+ successful projects for diff erent industries

Our approach

Problem

Understand

TIME

EF

FO

RT

Envision

Ideate

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We have offi ces throughout North America, Latin America, Europe (and partners throughout Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia) composed of seasoned professionals with eclectic backgrounds that combine unique skills, experience and know-how.

In our daily practice, we collaborate by integrating expertise in research, strategy and human-centered design, integrating ideas, theories, tools and methods from anthropology, sociology, cognitive psychology, economics, product and service design, architecture, marketing, and business strategy.

Our work combines methods from the Social Sciences, Design and Business world

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Exploring successful farmers’ strategies

Through their CocoaAction strategy, the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) and its leading members in the global chocolate and cocoa industry are working to design a package of productivity and community development intervention programs that will reach 300,000 cocoa farmers in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire by 2020.

For this project, INSITUM helped WCF understand and document the characteristics and decision-making processes of successful farmers in Côte d’Ivoire. We then identifi ed insights that will potentially inform future intervention programs for the general cocoa farming population.

INSITUM + FARMACITY

Private label architecture

INSITUM developed a new brand strategy that aligned with the business objectives of both company and consumers’ perceptions and expectations.

Based on an ethnographic research approach, we crafted a new brand identity refl ecting customer’s expectations, arranging the complete portfolio and creating a new set of sub brands for diff erent targets. This led us to the fi nal design of the entire Private Label Brand Architecture which was successfully implemented by Farmacity between 2013 and 2015, bringing growth revenue to the company.

Ethnography & InsightsStrategic SegmentationTrends Forecasting

Understanding your clients and trends that are aff ecting your business.

Strategic Research

Brand PositioningBrand ArchitectureBrand Experience Design

Developing the most relevant and diff erentiating brand strategy for your company.

Brand Development

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INSITUM + INTEL

Classmate PC

INSITUM worked with Intel in several projects during three years with the objective of providing a constant fl ux of insights and ideas on technological products and services for the education market in Latin America.

Since the beginning of this collaboration the Intel’s understanding of the educational market has increased substantially, and the Classmate PC was created within Intel Learning Series. As of 2011, 750,000 PCs were distributed, providing learning for all students and training for all teachers.

INSITUM + AMÉRICA MÓVIL

Claro Video

America Movil asked INSITUM to design a Video on Demand service based on a deep understanding of behaviors and expectatios of potential users in Mexico, Colombia and Argentina.

Drawing from qualitative research and co-creation sessions, we developed the information architecture, interaction design, user interface and implementation roadmap of the new service. With this new solution, in less that a year, América Móvil achieved second place in subscriptions among their competitors.

Concept DevelopmentProduct DesignDesign Language

Product Strategy

Developing a more competitive product portfolio to your market.

Information ArchitectureUser Experience Design (UX)Multi-Platform Usability Research

Delivering the ideal digital experience for your customers.

Digital Interaction


Customer ExperienceProcess InnovationService Experience Diagnosis

Strategy & PipelineCapabilitiesProcess & Methodology

Designing the best customer experience to your clients at every service touchpoint.

Implementing and boosting an innovation culture within your company.

INSITUM + BANCO GALICIA Galicia Move

A major Argentinan bank asked INSITUM to design a new experience of banking service aimed at young people between 16 and 26 years, aligning the entire customer journey to their lifestyle, needs and aspirations.

By identifying the key benefits that Millennials require for a bank product, we defined a new value proposition, designed guidelines and an implementation roadmap. The clear and visual deliverable of this project helped the client successfully launch a new user-centered product, that gave the bank 30.000 clients in the first 6 months and won them 2 innovation awards (Fast Company and CLAB).

INSITUM + MAPFRE Ad-hoc innovation process and methodology

MAPFRE called INSITUM to carry out an innovation diagnosis and implement an open innovation strategy that would allow detecting opportunities, capturing ideas and executing innovation projects focused on all aspects of the company.

We detected low, medium and high priority innovation landscapes for the different operational areas, and designed innovation challenges based on which employees could develop desirable, viable and feasable solutions. The company had a 300% increase in the number of initiatives, and the new strategy was taken to the corporate level where it is currently being assessed for reproduction in several countries.

Service Design

Organizational Innovation

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can innovation occur without cultural change?

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