With the right actions you can transform your company to become the innovative company on the planet
How can you make your company the most innovative in the world? Is it even possible? Can your company become more innovative than the ones you admire most? No matter who you are, what industry you are in, whatever potential disruptors may be out there, with the right actions you can transform your company to become the most innovative company on the planet.
But it won’t be easy, and it won’t happen overnight. This is why you should immediately stop using the “quick fix” innovation offerings you read about or are being sold. They never work.
Creating the most innovative company in the world is not about implementing innovation programs. It is about large-scale cultural changes that transform your entire workforce into an innovation engine. It is about an entire organization learning to innovate, not just a handful of folks sequestered in an innovation department or external agency.
Whether you are a large or a small company. Whether you are part of the “new” or the “old” economy. Whether you are a disruptor or getting disrupted, there are some things you need to do–and many things you need to stop doing–to create the most innovative company in the world.
Here are the first few steps to get started. (and while all of these steps are necessary, they are not a complete innovation solution.)
Step One: Develop your innovation approach
Becoming the most innovative company in the world has to start with your leadership’s willingness to make the right moves (that often involve broad changes) as innovation is the cumulative effect of many decisions. The first step is developing your own unique approach for innovation that is best for you and no one else. Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Toyota–considered by many to be the most innovative company in the world at a certain point in time—each did it their way. Each organization developed a unique approach that worked for them and fit their culture.
Amazon’s approach centers around customer obsession, working backwards, and a few other well documented tenets. Apple is famous for their innovation through design approach. Toyota’s approach historically had been around continual process improvement and kaizen. These approaches work for them, they may not work for you.
Many companies try and copy what Apple or Amazon or Google do. That’s not likely to work. You need to develop the approach that works for your company. If you are unable to do that, innovation will always be a shot in the dark: it may happen, but it’s not likely.
Step Two: Build societal value
You need to be clear what innovation means to you because it means something different to everyone. The definition that I recommend (adapted from the United States Patent and Trademark Office) is: “Innovation is a series of steps that begins with human imagination and creativity and results in the creation of something of value for society to enjoy.”
If you are creating something new that enhances societal value, you are innovating. So naturally the first step towards creating the most innovative company in the world is a singular focus on creating offerings that create value and improve your customers’ experiences.
For innovation to thrive, you need to forget about the buzzwords we live by such as monetization, addressable market size, creating moats, synergies with core offerings, or other similar terms.
Instead, ask yourself these fundamental questions: are you truly enhancing value for a user? Are you creating something that would make your life or the lives of your loved ones better?
If yes, proceed. If no, return to the drawing board.
While making money from ideas is important, for real innovation to happen the focus has to be on the creation of customer value. You have to believe that if you create value for society, society will find a way to reward you. The business landscape is filled with companies being very richly rewarded, sometimes in ways they least except, for the creation of societal value.
Step Three: Make innovation everyone’s job
You can’t create the most innovative company in the world by making innovation the job of a few people. Unfortunately, that is what happens in most companies. The average Fortune 500 company has about 50,000 employees. In most companies no more than one to three percent of employees believe innovation is part of their job.
Every employee has the ability to innovate but very often they squander the opportunity, or are afraid to do it, or believe it’s someone else’s job.
Innovation has to be everybody’s job. It does not belong a single person or department. It does not belong to the R&D group or the product development group, nor is it the domain of internal innovation units created to drive innovation. It comes from everywhere. It comes from people who deal with customers every day and know how things can be improved. It comes from people who build and sell products, or folks who simply think of an unusual way to do things.
The most innovative companies in the world extract and pursue the best ideas from the entire organization. If you are not doing that, you are doing yourself a disservice.
