Why I’ve decided to devote my career to corporate innovation

My perspective about why this is the 🔥 hottest career to embrace at the moment

It’s so much easier to devote your life to a career that everybody understands what it is all about. For instance, you could decide to become a Project Manager, a Scrum Master, an IT Director, CTO, CIO, Software Developer, Product Manager, Digital Marketing Manager — most of the people will understand what you do.

Now, let’s think about innovation or corporate innovation. What is this all about? Exactly. It’s hard to understand unless you are already in the context, which in most cases isn’t true.

My professional timeline

I’ve had many different roles in many different organisations during my career. The world of technology is so exciting that I couldn’t live without trying a couple of things. That’s why I can proudly share that I did software development, network and systems administration, data centre management and migrations, project management, agile project management, etc. I’ve also played in the field of IT Management and Strategy, as a CIO. And then I thought that consulting, sales and partnership management would be interesting to continue to develop my soft skills. And then came entrepreneurship, as a way to learn how to test innovative business models. Learn how to apply lean-startup, in particular. I’ve always been learning new things since I’ve started my career.

Presenting in an intrapreneurship programme in a large scale organisation | Internal Shark-Tank

Then, after approximately 15 years and many different challenges, I was invited to help to design an innovation strategy for a large legacy organisation. One with more than 100 years, more than 25 000 employees, in a highly conservative and ‘regulated’ industry called Government. In fact, called Department of Justice :)

Why me? Because of my t-shaped skills and relevant experience in the corporate world as well as in the start-up world. The best of two worlds.

In that role — as a corporate innovator — I’ve realised three important things:

1. What I really like to do is helping organisations to become more innovative — exploring new perspectives, new ways of working, finding new sources of value for the customer. Continuously.
2. There’s a huge opportunity to help legacy organisations — in particular after the boom of start-ups, where methods to explore new sources of value became mainstream (design thinking, service design, lean-startup, rapid prototyping, and many others)
3. We don’t find many people with the capacity to become a “pirate in the navy” (this term was coined by Tendayi Viki, I guess) — and that’s an opportunity

Helping legacy organisations to thrive in the age of disruption

How many people do you know that are currently helping large organisations to find new and better business models? Or reinventing the “core business”? Exactly, probably just a few. Why? Maybe because the start-up world is getting all the attention and there’s still a mindset that you should become “something”, and not a “t-shaped” professional. And that’s legit. Recruiters don’t get it yet, so in fact, it’s a risk to embrace Innovation Management and Strategy as a career path.

But what could be more exciting than helping legacy organisations to thrive in the age of disruption?

In a start-up, the challenge is to explore a couple of business models and value propositions in a short period of time. If it doesn’t work, one can shut down the organisation. And that’s the definition of a start-up.

But in an established organisation, one can’t simply say that shut down is the option. You can get killed by comparing a start-up with an established business.

The challenge in established organisations, is that we need to do three things:

1. Explore new opportunities
2. Improve the core business
3. Transfer the findings from 1) to 2) — Transforming the organisation. The new business model becomes the core business model

It’s a different challenge. It requires more diplomacy without forgetting that exploring new things requires a different mindset, methods, people and tools. It’s highly complex.

Digital Innovation Management and Strategy

The necessary skill set to define a digital innovation strategy and the corresponding management framework is quite new. That’s why it’s so exciting. It’s the opportunity to learn cutting edge methods, models and tools.

An example of methods/models/skills required to innovate.

It’s an area that’s still evolving. One can’t just say that there’s a magic formula to innovate successfully. there are different perspectives of it at the moment.

The lack of understanding regarding the skills and the role of Innovation Manager, or even Head of Innovation, represents a risk for the professional. Maybe that’s the reason why we don’t find many people embracing this career path. But, in my perspective, that’s an opportunity for the ones that are willing to embrace uncertainty with a smile — crazy people, for sure.

It would be more cozy and comfortable to stick with one traditional career path, in particular, after achieving the CTO/CIO status. But what’s the fun of stopping in a job category/role, if there are so many things to learn out there?

When we stop learning, when we feel comfortable, that’s the moment where we start declining and losing value. Being uncomfortable, in a permanent state of continuous learning and challenges, is the new normal.

If you also want to embrace Corporate Innovation or Innovation Management as a career path, bear in mind that:

1. Corporate Innovation is still evolving — there’s no single body of knowledge to study and apply
2. 99% of organisations don’t get it — yet. And that includes the recruitment team that still thinks of innovation as technology or a particular method e.g. design thinking,…
3. But, it’s exciting because there’s a lot to learn every single day
4. You need to behave like a diplomat and think like a pirate
5. There’s still a small community of ones like you — it’s important to understand who they are, where they are, and start to network with that tribe
6. …you might learn what it takes to become a Chief Entrepreneur, Chief Executive, Chief Innovation, or Founder/Co-Founder of your own business — it’s an endless world of opportunities
7. It’s fun! It’s 🔥! You should try it! :)

2015 — Prototyping in a large scale legacy organisation | Applying Lean-Startup

Hugo de Sousa

Hugo de Sousa is an experienced corporate entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience in the private and public sector. He likes to help organisations to become more innovative, fighting the “Titanic Syndrome”, and embracing new mindsets and ways of working. Hugo is the founder of #InnovationDaily, a publication on Medium and a hashtag on LinkedIn. Portuguese, living in Ireland since 2017.

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