Whether you’re a corporate changemaker,
a C-suite executive, consultant or MBA student, this book has something to teach you.
About this book
In this book, we talk about innovation.
Everything from rules for designing innovation labs and engaging with startups to adopting the latest methodologies in design thinking. But the truth is simple: innovation is about making life better by exploring new intersections. And the 6 Building Blocks framework can help.
What are the 6 Building Blocks?
From our interviews with innovators from around the world and scientific research, we’ve distilled six innovation Building Blocks. They’re essential when you’re starting or revamping an innovation program in your organization. Together, they provide a disciplined approach that helps you avoid common pitfalls and reach your goals faster.
The 6 Building Blocks at a glance
1. Make SPACE for new ideas
Becoming a more innovative company does not mean that everyone in the organization needs to be innovative in the same way. Some people thrive on ambiguity and big picture stuff. Give them a big task, and you set them up for success. Others have a wealth of knowledge about customers because they work directly with them. Give them a smaller task, and you set them up for success without scaring them away. Your organization’s structure needs to make space for new ideas and limit fear of failure. It’s vital to create an environment of trust where everyone can express their opinion and know they’ll be taken seriously.
2. Allow GUIDED VAGUENESS
Encouraging innovative ideas means handling people differently, and even highly standardized corporate processes, such as budget allocation, should follow different rules from the rest of your organization. You need to give innovators room to breathe. Provide broad direction to facilitate collaboration and exploration but do not impose strict guidelines. Design learning based KPIs rather than revenue or profit-based KPIs. This will leverage your team’s passions and natural inclinations rather than putting people in boxes where they will feel stressed about achieving something that’s ‘good enough’, rather than doing the best they can.
3. BUILD MOMENTUM
To innovate, you need to do things differently from other people, often in ways that have not been proven yet. But by testing quickly, you can validate all assumptions and learn. It’s about weeding out bad options rather than waiting for everyone to come on board. Accept that innovation is cumulative and you might only recognize it after it’s happened, so be open to ideas that you might not find innovative straight away, especially if they require few resources. Try to validate them quickly. Be very proactive in creating a circle of people to whom you can talk freely and don’t hesitate to tap into their years of experience.
4. SENSE the world
Too much emphasis on what competitors or innovators in other industries are doing can lead you to forget that innovation is about implementing something first – and that it happens when ideas from different domains intersect. Also, methods to understand what customers want today don’t guarantee that they will want the same thing a year from now, when your new product and service is ready. So you need a different approach to understand what customers want before anyone else, especially what they will want in future. To start sensing, we recommend monitoring cultural and technological trends, especially in leading cities from around the world, as well as leading academic research institutions.
5. EXTRACT meanings
Much of the latest trends focus on user centricity. This has benefited companies that want to fix something broken or develop an incrementally novel product with respect to their current offering. However, you can develop more innovative products when you couple user research and focus groups with deep understanding of cultural factors. That is, you become a creator of new meanings rather than products. And new meanings are more difficult to imitate as creating them combines many more resources and takes longer. They also last longer.
6. GENERATE consensus
Innovative ideas don’t sell themselves to internal and external stakeholders alike. They don’t sell by getting people in a room and faking a brainstorming session. Often, senior leaders see things in one way – what they’re used to. They may be too familiar with the business, or too detached from day-to-day work, to recognize an innovative idea. By helping them see possibilities rather than problems, you can stop them from killing ideas too soon. When you present an idea that changes the path of an organization and that requires new resources, capabilities or partnerships – or supersedes existing ones – you’re asking stakeholders to take a big leap of faith. Build consensus in steps. Don’t sell the idea in the same way to different kinds of people. The story you use to convince finance people, engineering people and marketing people should not the same. Meet them where they are.
Do you want to know where you stand in terms of the 6 Building Blocks?
It’s one thing to know what “perfect” means. It’s a completely different thing to know how far you are from achieving that ideal state. The same applies to an organization’s innovativeness.
Massimo and Moritz help companies large and small start or reinvigorate their innovation journeys. To find out where you stand to date and also to help you decide whether you need external advice at all, let the team run a free mini diagnostic. With it, you will receive a score and some guidance on what to do next. It takes less than two minutes.
Are you ready?
Buy the book
6 Building Blocks for Successful Innovation:
How Entrepreneurial Leaders Design Innovative Futures is available now.