Creating an Innovation Culture (2/3): The Stage

Part 2/3 on Creating an Innovation Culture. Part 1 talked about goal-driven, pervasive innovation culture. To create it, you - as a leader in the company or team - need to first set up the right Stage. Part 3 covers the Ritual to keep the innovation beat going towards specific goals.

The Checklist for Take-off

Check if you have the following items in your company. Start creating what's missing. Southwest Airlines has every one of these and they have not had a loss since 1971 (financial, accidental, or lay-offs) and have been the best performing US Airline company! Enuff reason I think to learn from them.

1.Define the WHATs and WHYs

1. Define business goals & metrics 
• Because we want innovation to be focused on results that matter
• Metrics should be broken down from the business goals (e.g., profitability, affordable service) all the way down to EVERY Employee in a way that they can track and influence their own metrics
• e.g., our airline company is profitable when the average luggage loading time is less than 10min. A luggage loader needs to see how his job affects the company in a quantifiable way.
2. Create an incentive scheme (financial, recognition, intrinsic)
• But it's not all about incentives. Once money stops being an issue, the real drivers for people to innovate are Autonomy, ability to Master a skill, and a Sense of Purpose for their work (youtube video). 
• Also discussed this on "What motivates creative people?"
3. Form an innovation board
• With top management and known innovators in the company
• Why? To communicate, evaluate, motivate, maintain focus, help execute
4. Guarantee CEO commitment
• This is the Killer. When things are tough, the first thing to kill are risky ventures like innovation. But those are precisely the times where innovation is needed the most and people innovate the best.
• So, set aside some money - away from your P&L statement - just for innovation and DON'T TOUCH IT!

2.Implement The HOWs

1. Create a forum where users can share ideas and collaborate
• Can be as fancy as the spigit tool with nice gaming elements
• Or, as simple as a Jive-like platform for employees to engage with each other
• Depends on how much "push" your employees need to start innovating: leave them in a big room (jive) or hand-hold them through an innovation staircase (spigit)
• Check out an evaluation of gaming platforms for innovation
2. Make it easy for people to track progress towards specifc, drilled-down business targets
• Display on laptops, at the gym, at the cafeteria. Make it feel like a NASA mission!
3. Set up physical and online forums where employees, partners, customers, leaders interact
• Innovation happens on the interconnect - when people talk and new knowledge flows
• These are also opportunities for different groups to collaborate (developers helping inventors)
4. Create sessions and material on business drivers, innovative thinking
• Get Edward de Bono-type sessions, or
• Or, If you can't afford him, check out my recipe for innovation 
5. Make a plan for idea selection, piloting, and scaling
• Much of this depends on the specific goals you set for a certain round of innovation ritual
• This forms the crux of the Ritual we will look at in Part 3
• Create an Incubator where the ideas can be protected from the rest of the company, at least for piloting and hopefully for 1-2 years

3. Communicate and create an exciting buzz

1. The power of buzz marketing, a passionate leader, and energetic role model innovators is immense. 
2. Don't just send out newsletters and intranet articles. Have Soapbox sessions where your employees are hearing it straight from the leadership team

thanks, vishy

Vishy Poosala

innovate & impact