The Real Work of Innovation

Being creative. Generating thousands of ideas. Making employees feel heard,

valued, more than a cog in a machine. These are the superficial by-products
of an in-depth discipline.
Unto themselves, these tiny crumbs of the vast buffet of genuine innovation
methods are not an Innovation effort. They represent mere pacification. Any
board member or C-Suite executive who believes they have the Innovation
boxed checked because they have an online idea submission forum and a
committee that ranks ideas needs to resign. Enough with lip service. Stop the
confusion of New Product Development and Innovation.
You must commit. Otherwise, close down the parade of ideas and quit the
charade. Your innovative competitors will buy you in a fire sale.
The real work of innovation is real work. The Studio has had to reframe and
then reboot entire innovation efforts at clients after they got a bad taste in
their mouth outsourcing whole projects and failing to embrace them - an
expensive learning experience.
There is a better way. Instead, embed several team members inside your
organization with project-based consultants who can help set up An
Innovation Framework and Process that works for your culture. Learn
processes and methods. Do not stop until you get resultsthen, you will find
no compelling business reason to stop.
Already you have begun developing a culture that embraces Innovation.
Otherwise, you will never reach a point of sustainable market leadership.
The same lesson can be applied to service firms and non-profits playing with
innovation. To innovate you have to do the work. As the old saying goes, No
one can do your push ups for you. You can hire a coach, but you have to do
the work.
The real work of innovation means having your employees working alongside
deeply trained experts to build muscle by completing real projects that can
dramatically improve top-line growth while signaling that real innovation is
part of the fabric of this culturenot just toyed with or outsourced.