What’s the Career Path for Innovation Leaders?
How do we put ourselves out of business?
When a panel I’m on leaves me with provocative ideas, I consider it a big win. When that’s combined with inspiration from great colleagues like Anthony Ferrier, Gina O’Connor and John Metselaar, that’s a bigger plus. I experienced both of those benefits and more, based on Hans Balmaekers’ framing of the lively panel conversation that cut through cliches and hit on the burning questions for leaders in the global Innov8rs community focused on a tough topic:
Is leading corporate innovation a career with a future or a career killer?
What should the role of innovation leaders be today?
The conversation brought refreshing new thinking and optimism about the importance of the Innovation Leader role today, and four distinct areas of emphasis to amplify the impact of innovation and integrate the innovation capacity into the fabric of every company.
MAKING INNOVATION HISTORY
One of the most compelling slogans of an organization is MD Anderson Cancer Center’s:
MD Anderson Cancer Center. Making Cancer History.
A single phrase sums up so much: the commitment to patients, investment in brilliant research, adherence to / establishment of the highest standards, dramatic impact throughout a large global ecosystem.
Interpreting MD Anderson Cancer Center’s pledge, they’ll know their job is done when cancer is a disease of the past.
Recognizing that the mission to save lives is in a different category than the impact companies might have, it’s still worth considering the spirit of commitment that drives an organization’s pledge to put themselves out of business and applying it to the vision of corporate innovation.
What about corporate innovation? How will we know when our job is done? When can we put ourselves out of a job?
SIDEBAR QUOTE: When you ask a fish, How’s the Water, a fish will say, What’s Water? That’s a good litmus test for when a new dimension has been internalized by an organization. To ask, How’s the Innovation? And for the belief in and capacity for innovation to be so ingrained that it’s part of the everyday fabric of running a business.
INNOVATORS WILL KNOW OUR JOB IS DONE WHEN 4 CAPABILITIES HAVE BEEN INTEGRATED INTO THE ORGANIZATION
There’s an ideal state for every organization that creates the Scorecard for Innovation Integration. When a company achieves a 10 in each of these dimensions, they can become like the fish who’s asked, “How’s the water?” and replies, “What’s Water?” In that state, companies will live innovation, will have 4 capabilities mastered by everyone inside the organization, and will have matched the aspects of innovation that matter most to the jobs to be done in multiple pockets of the company.
Our future state—which will mark the state where innovation is in the mainstream—will be when we can safely eliminate the word “innovation” from the formal lexicon and simply “be innovation.”
We’re far from that state today, but I have experienced signs that by focusing on 4 sets of capabilities that go beyond a simplistic and historical definition of innovation as simply generating ideas. Once we master all of them, we can dramatically accelerate our path toward making (the need for the term) “innovation” history.
CAPABILITY ONE: ROLES INGRAINED INTO THE PERMANENT ORG CHART.
In today’s era of innovation, there are key roles we need to nail and embed into our leadership:
- Translator of Emergence opportunity + meaning + vision + making.
- OPPORTUNITY. We need to proactively scan opportunities that rarely fall within a conventional SWOT mindset. Look at cross-industry shifts, ecosystem forces
- MEANING. We need to recombine and shuffle data to figure out what it means. Reflection and Sensemaking can’t be a luxury that gets put on the back burner in favor of today’s operations.
- VISION. Our organizations need a time during every week that’s rooted in tomorrow. A disciplined function that drives us toward purpose, societal impact, and a broader Why.
- MAKING. We need teams in the “Test Kitchen”. Co-creating, Sensemaking Out Loud, engaging with others to prototype, model, experiment, and make real our early-stage initiatives. Engage with others to Build It Bigger.
Gina O’Connor: “If your ‘Urgent’ isn’t to create the future, you’ll never create the future.” (38:00)
CAPABILITY TWO: TRANSFORMATION VALUE GENERATOR. Internally Credible Value Generator impact driver + uncertainty manager + risk mitigator.
Anthony Ferrier: “What’s the right way to assess transformational change?
(Ultimately it’s about impact…and linking an innovation role to the overall strategy and metrics of the organization.) Why are innovation leaders out of their jobs after only a few years?… Within a corporate setting, the value of an innovation leader will be judged based on contribution to overall strategic success, customer impact, organizational differentiation.” (39:00)
CAPABILITY THREE: LOVE OF LEARNING CULTURE. Catalyst for Perpetual Refresh curiosity + learning + mastery + organizational capabilities
John Metselaar: [Based on experience at P&G and his original Culture Triangle] “I believe the best way to navigate uncertainty is to establish a Love of Learning Culture…That requires a growth mindset, leadership vulnerability, and the ability to establish a culture of psychological safety.” (48:30)
CAPABILITY FOUR: BRINGING INNOVATION TO ACTIVATION BRILLIANTLY. Fueling an Activation Engine is the final frontier for Innovation Leaders.
My final word: “If we model, entice, initiate, disrupt and create without getting full buy-in and activation from the organization or without links to a ‘Maximum Value Ecosystem’, we’ll be left with Science Fair Projects that never reach scale.” (44:00)
