How to gain value from “innovation units”
A no-nonsense quick guide to Corporate Innovation.
Dear CEO,
You’re tired of buying companies started by ex-employees who found a problem worth solving but didn’t have the time, mandate and support to solve it in-house.
Consequently, you initiate an “innovation unit” to build new biz and secure market position using your competitive advantage as an established player.
Instead, you end up producing expensive initiatives that are disconnected from the core business. Eventually, you devise an arbitrary PR- and branding value or simply close it down and write off the expenses.
Along the way you discovered that current employees;
- Don’t like change
- Use their time and effort on stuff they’re measured on
And the people you hire to spark innovation are;
- Spoiled from choice thus motivated by purpose and barista coffee
- Attracted to new ideas instead of actual measurable problems
Initially, you set up yourself for failure by;
- Engaging consultants to develop your innovation unit
- Placing the innovation unit in a separate physical location
- Hiring multiple “lightweight” people instead of fewer “heavy-hitters”
This is damaging because;
- Outsourcing helps you scale on behalf of detail level
- Initiatives should be C-level driven to ensure core business buy-in
- Physical distance leads to value detachment
- Inexperience foster idea-focused talks and heedless initiatives
Instead, you want to focus on;
- Establishing a small in-house team that can actually build products, not just throw Post-its on whiteboards
- Connecting existing key employees with tech-savvy people who can extract problems by asking good questions
- Questioning the background for existing faulty workflows instead of simply digitalizing them
And there you have it.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled back-to-back meetings. You’re looking sharp today.
