Innovators: Here’s What We Know About You (So Far)
What makes an innovator an innovator? Why is it that some people just can’t help rocking the boat - stepping out of their day-to-day to say “why not?” and “what if?” - when others are perfectly happy with the way things are? To answer that question, we’ve been working with the team at the innovation company FourSight on a research project since…
Reflections On The Future of Corporate Innovation
I recently attended Innov8rs Syndey, an intimate event that placed emphasis on working in small groups to share stories and experience. I was struck by how openly both the speakers and attendees spoke of the trials and tribulations they had faced navigating innovation in a corporate setting. From what was a diverse, exciting and jam-packed few…
How Do We Get Better at Change?
Change management has become a priority for managers in all industries. And while it’s no secret that large corporations tend to have a problem with organizational change, startups and scale-ups often don’t fare much better. As founder of the change agency NOBL, Bud Caddell has seen this first-hand. With Fortune 500 clients he’s witnessed…
The Innovation Culture Opportunity of AI
With AI automation achieving better success in automating highly repeatable tasks we can expect to see companies allocating the surplus time this creates to innovation activities. In a recent study of businesses engaged in utilising (AI) cognitive systems, the Harvard Business Review essentially concluded that moonshots were fool hardy and instead…
Magic Happens When You Bring Great People Together
Somewhere on the continuum between the one-on-one sit-down and the many-to-many gatherings, lies that sweet spot – where the magic happens. It’s a function of a multitude of inputs - the physical environment, the programmed interactions, the words and minds that shape the experience. Outcomes. Decisions. Alignment, Ownership, Actions. These are…
The Three Types of People You'll Meet When Implementing Change
We’d all like to think that our attempts to improve the workplace will be enthusiastically welcomed and embraced by our teams. In reality, though, when launching any new change initiative, you’ll encounter three types of people: Champions. They’re inspired by the possibilities of change. In fact, they may already have tons of ideas on what and…
Every Company Needs An Innovation Thesis
As the importance of innovation is starting to become clear for corporate leaders, there are a few myths and bad practices that are also taking hold. For example, I have heard several innovation leaders talk about letting a thousand flowers bloom and espouse the notion that there is no such thing as a bad idea. In my experience, this premise is…
How 30 Years of Radical Decisions Has Kept Haier On Top
If someone handed you a sledgehammer and told you to start smashing your company’s products, would you do it? That’s exactly what Haier CEO Zhang Ruimin did to prove a point to his employees. That was the first in a long line of radical decisions that have transformed the company from a fledgling refrigerator maker to the world’s number one…
Want A Future In Innovation? You Need The Skills, And The Tools, To Sell Yourself
iD Tech has been running summer tech camps for kids and teens since 1999, and their mission - to create life-changing tech experiences that embolden students to shape the future - hasn’t changed. But along the way, they realized teaching students tech skills wasn’t enough. In order to achieve their mission, and meet the growing need for skilled…
Recognizing & Overcoming the Corporate Immune System
What is the biggest threat to your organization, right now? Many organizations would answer “our competition.” In the race for sales, customer loyalty, and market share, it’s easy to look over your shoulder at the other lanes and feel like your biggest threat are external. This leads many organizations to ignore a deadly internal threat: resisting…
Innovation Is About Making Progress, Not Running Experiments
In my experience, there are plenty of innovation and startup teams that feel stuck. Despite using lean startup tools, they feel like they are running around in circles and making no progress. It seems as though they have forgotten why they started using lean startup methods in the first place. They have run a few experiments and they have learned…
How to Use the Science of Storytelling to Win Support
Once upon a time, in a high rise not too far away, I had an idea. A change to our business that would make us more attractive in tough regions. A killer idea, I thought. I checked Facebook one last time, freshened my coffee (long black, thanks) and locked myself away to create a 15 page Powerpoint (the business case tool of choice). After many…