Innovation Leadership TrainingDay Five

February 20, 2009

All materials © NetCentrics 2008 unless otherwise noted

Welcome• Welcome back to innovation training• We’ll recap the training on innovation

processes and roles• Then we’ll look at the attributes of an

innovation leader

Recap

• Last session we examined innovation processes and roles

• We determined that sustainable innovation capabilities require a consistent innovation process

• Supporting that innovation process is a number of innovation roles – idea submitter, collaboration, idea evaluator, prototyper, steering committee member

Discussion

• Any thoughts or comments on innovation processes or roles?

Pre-work

• You were assigned several short white papers on innovation leadership

• What are your takeaways from your reading?• Have any of you participated in an innovation

or new product development initiative?– What worked well? Why?– What didn’t work well?

What We Want to Accomplish

Goals for this section

• Our goal for this section– Examine the importance of leadership and

facilitation for innovation– Identify the roadblocks to innovation and what

you can do to enable innovation in your organization

Key Points• As we’ve seen so far, innovation requires a

significant commitment and leverages a number of tools and techniques– But the ultimate success is driven by the innovation

leader

• Innovation efforts require a leader linked in to the corporate strategy but able to identify a new vision and style of working– This requires overcoming or changing corporate

culture and the existing working mentality

Key Points• Innovation must be presented as a sustaining

capability – not as a discrete project– There’s simply too much change and risk involved to

define it for the short term

• The management team must walk the talk – actively supporting innovation– Innovation isn’t free and isn’t cheap. Your active

support and patience will reap benefits

• Innovation is a journey, not always a destination

University Innovation

• There’s not a significant amount of innovation in the traditional university settings– Some incremental innovation– Very little radical or disruptive innovation

• More innovation is underway in organizations and commercial firms that seek to disrupt your position– For profit universities (Phoenix)

University of the Pacific

• However, you’re lucky to be part of a university that places a significant emphasis on innovation– Clearly part of the strategy of the organization– Teams and methods defined to spur innovation in

all facets of university life

• Take advantage of this innovation opportunity

What does it take to succeed?

Align to strategic intent

• We define strategic intent as what you intend to do well– Apple – customer experience– Google – management of information

• Most firms innovate best when they innovate around their strategic intent

• What is the strategic intent of Pacific? How can we leverage that for innovation?

Define specific goals

• What do you want to accomplish?– Generate new programs, new channels, new experiences

• Increase attendance X% • Increase offerings Y%• Increase placements Z%

– Become viewed as the innovation leader

• What’s your time horizon?• Can you incorporate these goals as part of your plan?

Address Innovation barriers

• In any organization there are formal and informal barriers that stand in the way of change and innovation

• Let’s examine three critical inhibitors for innovation

Inhibitors – 3 C’s• The three inhibitors to innovation are:

– Communication– Compensation– Culture

• These factors influence what people do and where they spend their time. They communicate what’s important and what should be discounted or ignored.

Compensation

• When innovating, we ask people to take on new roles and work in new processes with risky ideas that may not succeed

• We must consider how innovators will be:– Evaluated– Rewarded– Recognized– Compensated

Compensation

• Evaluated– How does the innovation work get recognized or

reflected in ongoing evaluations?

• Recognized/Rewarded– How will innovators or people called on to

participate be recognized, rewarded or compensated?

Overcoming compensation issues

• Demonstrate that your innovation project is aligned to strategic goals

• Identify the people necessary to make the effort successful

• Leverage existing innovation processes and tools

• Engage with HR or Talent management to adapt an evaluation or compensation model

Culture

• Organizations that successfully innovate have a culture that embraces innovation

• What are some of the cultural barriers to innovation?– Elimination of variance– Avoidance of risk– Fear of failure

Embracing innovation

• Move from “not invented here” thinking– Change from a “negative bias” to a “positive bias”

• Reinforce the value of experimenting, failing and learning

• Change attitudes– “we tried that 10 years ago”– “that’s never been done here before”

Changing the culture

• Encourage more risk taking and “out of the box” thinking in every situation

• Use innovative tools and techniques whenever possible, demonstrating they are available for consistent use, not just disruptive use

• Celebrate successes and failures

Communication

• Innovation requires change which leads to uncertainty

• Good, consistent communication about methods, processes and objectives will reduce uncertainty

• You must overcommunicate in an innovation project, constantly reassuring the team of its mission and goals

Solutions for communication

• Invite senior administrators and faculty into your work to encourage their discussion about your efforts

• Involve a communications person to help structure your communication efforts

• Consider the formal and informal communication channels

• Hold open meetings to invite others into your work and to discuss your initiatives

Building Skills

• As innovators, eliminating roadblocks for innovation is critical

• However, we must also increase our capabilities and skills for innovation

• Let’s look at three enablers for innovation

Enablers – 3 P’s

• Just as there are inhibitors, there are enablers for innovation

• Those are three “Ps” that HR can influence– People– Process– Permission

People

• Identify individuals who bring unique skills and viewpoints into the business

• Identify people within Pacific with a knack for innovation and capabilities to add to an innovation team

• Provide training to help people think creatively

People Skills

• Identify people who are likely to innovate or have a proclivity for great ideas– Use the FourSight or KAI models

• Train the people around you in creative thinking and innovation processes

• Recruit people to your team or to your company with unique skills or perspectives

• Link up with other innovative people

Permission

• People want to innovate, but they often feel inhibited by the culture or compensation models

• They need permission to:– Take on new projects– Add more risk to the portfolio– Innovate occasionally– Fail without fear

Granting Permission

• Schedule one or two ideation sessions a month over lunch or before work

• Conduct rolling ideation events that require just a few minutes every day

• Conduct scenario planning sessions once a quarter to reconsider the trends, the market and the strategy or new opportunities

• Use the tools and methods in every situation

Process

• For any business function to work effectively and sustainably, it must follow a consistent process

• Innovators need a defined process to generate, manage, evaluate and select the best ideas to become new products and services

Strong Leadership

• A strong, capable innovation team leader makes a significant difference

• Capabilities/Competencies– Vision– Commitment– Fearlessness– Communication

What’s required for success?

• Top down management commitment• Establishing clear objectives and goals for

innovation• A defined innovation process to convert ideas

into new products and services• The elimination of sacred cows• Adequately funding and resourcing the teams• Rewarding success and failure

Innovation Requires Leadership

• Chicken or Pig?– At breakfast, the chicken’s involved but the pig’s

committed.

• Too many innovation programs are false starts because of uncertain management commitment– At the first sign of financial trouble or innovation

failure the teams are disbanded

• What can you do to demonstrate your commitment to this effort?

Innovation requires clarity

• Establishing clear objectives helps drive innovation, since the teams have clear, measurable targets

• Innovation often fails when the objectives aren’t clear, aren’t measurable or innovation doesn’t align to strategic objectives

Innovation requires process

• Innovation projects are easy. Innovation as a sustaining capability requires a recognized process– Every other activity within a business is organized

around a clear process– Innovators need to understand how their ideas

will “flow” and be converted from a concept to a new product or service

– Without a define process, ideas usually fail

No Sacred Cows

• To be truly innovative, the team must eliminate or at least sharply curtail sacred cows– Disruptive innovation may mean cannibalization or

dramatic changes to the existing industry– Innovators need freedom to consider a broad

range of ideas

• Define the “available” scope of work and degrees of freedom broadly

Innovation isn’t free

• Innovation requires full time focus, just as any other business process has staffing and resources

• “Part time” innovators are rarely successful– Usually absorbed back into their existing “day job”

• Funds required for the innovation teams, their infrastructure and work, and to validate ideas

Get what you reward

• Rewards and recognition systems are important for innovation– If we ask people to participate in a new, risky

venture, how should their involvement be recognized and rewarded?

– How should their time in this endeavor be evaluated?

• Can you reward a failure that leads to even better ideas?

Agenda for today

• For the rest of the day we’ll discuss innovation leadership from the CEO, from senior management and from your specific role

• We’ll consider the enablers and inhibitors in more detail

• We’ll look at the characteristics of an innovation leader

Questions?