Updated: Apr 12, 2022
by Richard Lawrence / Group Innovation Director Tiger Brands / Innovatr Founder
Are you frustrated with your Innovation Performance?
This has literally been my career’s key question since I started my corporate innovation journey or Entrepreneurial quest for the last 16 Years.
Working at Edward Snell, Distell, SAB, SABMiller, ABInbev & now being Inno Director at Tiger Brands- I have experienced so much frustration and joy when we have got it right- but 5 distinct themes have prevailed for me.
Innovation is such a damn struggle, and according to a McKinsey Study titled “Innovation beyond a crisis” their data made me feel a lot less alone- as clearly this is a challenge to most companies. Some data from their report that has stuck with me
· 90% (200 interviewed) believe that COVID will fundamentally change business over the next 5 years
· 85% believe needs & wants of their customers will change
· Only 21% have the expertise to innovate & grow
· 2/3 believe this is the most challenging moment in their career
Finally, 70% believe this post COVID moment will be their biggest growth opportunity
So, there is no lack of belief that Innovation can be a lever to unlock growth or defend against disruption.
BUT WHY IS INNOVATION SUCH A DAMN STRUGGLE?
Like the process of Innovation itself, its important before ideating and developing solutions- its critical to articulate the problem, highlighting the who… their needs, barriers … etc. More on this in future blog posts.
So here you go Innovation Entrepreneurs, Intrapreneurs, scholars of growth- this is my 2c, or maybe by now by R2’s worth.
#1: Your company culture won’t enable innovation
Ask yourself these questions?
1. X Axis: Do you have a culture of flexibility or stability?
2. Y Axis: How do your teams interact? With Independence or Interdependence?
See this nifty grid below, I love a good X & Y axis model (it makes me happy inside)
In my view you ideally need to be a #1 Purpose or #2 Learning driven culture, as a healthy innovation ecosystem requires flexibility as a basic tenet to solve problems iteratively and incrementally.
If you fall in any of the other 6 spots, you will likely have a cultural blocker to getting innovation right in your organization.
#2: Leadership are blockers
Ask yourself this question?
1.1 Is innovation in your company the responsibility of a single department?
If this answer is Yes, then leadership has not motivated the responsibility that Innovation needs to be driven & prioritized by all departments. Sure, the design and commercialization can sit within a single team- but If leadership doesn’t express the importance of shared ownership of this mission- you will likely have an uphill battle. The most disruptive companies today (think Tesla, Meta, Microsoft, Starbucks)- the CEO is often the unofficial Chief Innovation Officer.
#3: Innovation is slow to develop
Ask yourself this question?
3.1 Do you place more focus (capacity, time, budget, capability) on idea development vs. idea execution?
If the answer is yes again, then you need to balance the scale there mate! Ideas are easy but the focus should be on how you can bring this idea to life quickly and affordably…
and doing your best to find product market fit as soon as possible, even before you build anything. Innovation success sits learning & fixing faster. PPT ideas make my skin crawl.
Without giving solutions in this article- why do we Build, Test and then learn- when we should be Testing, Learning & then building?
#4: Governance isn’t fit for purpose
Yes, another question to ask yourself?
4.1 What behaviors does your stage-gate process enable?
Linking to the culture map, will your process, tools, signatories move you closer to becoming more flexible and ideally more team interdependent?
Governance is an ugly word, as it sounds so diminishing and not enabling. So can you have a fluid process that iteratively and incrementally promotes a learning culture at a minimum or even better transforms your business to put PURPOSE OVER PROFIT?
#5: Your teams lack the basic skills
This doesn’t need any question to ask yourself, as its pretty obvious- most businesses have been upskilling our marketers to do this core job, then we started plugging on digital skills and some media, sponsorship, and experiential training- but what % does innovation training get vs. core business skills or marketing development skills. I bet <10%?
Innovation is and should be a growth fundamental and universities and most online learning institutions don’t even offer Innovation courses yet or ones that are practical. There seems to be a mentality, that our teams just need to watch YouTube videos or read up on case studies on Elon Musk? Frankly your teams deserve more
This is why we decided to launch Innovatr.
Making Innovation less of a struggle by offering SKILLS + SUPPORT in the form of flexible courses & project mentorship in my view is step 1 in growing.
Make Big Ideas happen, fast.
Check out what we do here, you won’t be disappointed