INDEX

1 - What is innovation ?
2 - Understand the Art of Innovation .
3 - Why You Should Shift to Open
Innovation .
4 - Innovation Quote Creative Corporate
culture .

What is innovation ?
When someone asks you what is
innovation? what should you say? I think
that you should have an answer that
inspires whoever is asking. Why? Because,

innovation is a storytelling driver for

change and continuous improvement. Its
the reason that inspires people to work in
companies where creativity and innovation
can happen. Whatever you say as an
employee, team leader or a CEO, innovation
should be explained like a corporate culture
dogma. So if youre asked about innovation
be ready to give a clear answer related to
the way your organization innovation
management works.

Innovation is the creation of a sustainable

new offering. But it isnt that easy
Through the overuse, the misapplication
and the enthusiasm people have for
innovation, this word is losing his meaning.
People often confuse the outcome and the

process. In his book the 10 types of

Innovation Larry Keeley says that
Innovating requires identifying the
problems that matter and moving through
them systematically to deliver elegant
solutions.

To be fair, not all organization are

innovative and for most of them its
abstract and cant be grasped right away.
As an innovation consultant, I think that the
most important thing to remember, is that
innovation is a process. Its a step by step
management process to bring your ideas to
the market. You cant tell people that some
concrete thing or packaged service is your
answer to what is innovation. But,
creating new things isnt the result of a
single Eureka! moment; its the fruit of
an arduous but exciting process that could

be divided in 3 steps: Analysis, Selection

and Implementation.

What is innovation
Innovation is not invention
Innovation may involve invention but it
involves many other things like your
customers needs or understanding the
forms of interactions your organization is
having with your stakeholders. Essentially,
innovation is applying improved solutions
to problems and issues. The innovation
isnt the solution but actually the process
involved in formulating and implementing
the answers. Since it can be said that,
generally, there are really no new ideas
anymore, we can say that putting thoughts
and ideas that are already present to
create a new solution is a big part of the
innovation process.

What is innovation for business?

In the business context, innovation may
mean new products, services, processes,
partnerships, pricing models, customer
experiences, knowledge management or
even changing the way things are built or
produced. Your customers may be getting
the same product but the way youre
making them could be cheaper or faster.
The situation in Silicon Valley can show that
technology and advanced communication
techniques are catalysts for innovation.
These tools help enterprises develop new
ways for doing old things.

What is innovation for managers?

Labyrinth, Lsungsweg, Ausweg

Managers arent the people necessarily

innovating; theyre actually the ones who
enable their teams to create something
new. They should use innovation
management techniques that promote
creativity, co-creation, communication,
collaboration and creative thinking. In some
cases, a change of business model can
become the tool for letting employees come
up with great ideas.

What makes up innovation?

I think its a testament to how broad the
topic is that there are so many perspectives
on the elements of innovation. Some view it
as a response to a business development
need using appropriate processes, assets,
technology and an adequate amount of
resources. But this doesnt cover the
human factors like mistakes, failures,
communication, collaboration and all the

other wonderful birthing pains that are

inspiring the creative process.

How important is innovation to the

workplace?
People often forget that organizational
culture is an important factor when running
a company. Innovation is simply one of the
by-products of a better office culture.
Participatory models of management like
holacracy and democratic organizational
culture not only motivate your staff but also
produce great results.

Some companies often rely on the whole

innovation process to sustain them. Startup
communities need the fresh ideas and the
passion that innovation comes with to keep
their businesses going. Without their close
collaborations for products and services

that work with one another, the tech

business would be nowhere.

What is innovation without the right

organizational culture?
Technically, the two cannot exist without
each other. Even if a company has
something new to offer, the way they came
about this advancement needs to be a
product of a genuine innovation process. If
its come out of a R&D lab where
technicians work into the ground until they
get a break, then thats just a lot of man
hours eliminating possibilities.

Innovation can also come out when a

transversal business unit group of people
that share and collaborate to put ideas
together to solve a problem. Even then the

solution can only fail but thats simply part

of the process.

The question of What is innovation? isnt

easy to answer today as it was before the
tech boom, but at least people know how to
enable teams to bring it about.

Take-aways
Managers believe in innovation, but often
dont know how to explain and use it.
Innovation management must create value
for the stakeholders, the company or the
customers.
Embedding innovation in your organization
is a thoughtful effort that cannot be
incorporated quickly.
Innovation follows certain codes: it needs a
receptive organization culture, its step by
step a transversal approach,

communication is crucial, knowledge

management matters and everything must
happen in a systemic context.
In conclusion, I would like to say that
innovation is more than generating ideas;
its also managing change, stakeholders
adoption and knowledge. Its a systemic
strategy to develop and define
opportunities for value creation. Its an
ability to drive change and sell your ideas
to the market.

FOL
Understanding the Art of
Innovation
When I meet people active in the sector of
the art of innovation, I always find that

innovation in itself is hard to understand

because of the multiple working
approaches that are coexisting. Being in
this business myself, I often wonder why,
how and what Im doing. What is innovation
or creativity? How can you describe
creativity without lapsing into
psychobabble or semantics? How do you
explain people how to make a breakthrough
or get an awesome idea? How to perform
inception?

In order to clarify this way of working, I

think its best to start to define the
common patterns, that make up the art of
innovation breakthrough. According to me,
the basics are observation, ideation and
prototyping. These three steps are the
pillars of any innovation or creative
process. Lets take a more refined, concise

look at these three so you can fine tune

your own innovation process:

Three big words on innovation

1. Observation
Woman making finger frame around her
face

When you start an innovation process

always immerse yourself in your subject
and observe it carefully. You can for
example meet your users in order to collect
insights and see their world as youve
never seen it before. This sort of
observation is a great source of inspiration
that you can bring into your innovation
process. Here are some tips to follow for an
effective observation:

Observe without judging

Try to understand people. How they live,

what they feel, taste, listen
Divide your customer journey in small
step/moments in order to understand them.
Before, during and after their customer
experience.
Keeping your eye open and be curious. Use
your five senses.
Dont focus on the goal or the problem you
are working on because its not part of this
step.
Invite/meet new people. Dont let your
team become a closed system. Meet new
people, colleagues and topic experts. Invite
them in your workshops to collect their
insights.
Use technology to discover new
experiences and trends.
2. Ideation
child heads with symbols

Its simple to describe. After all, ideation

its just a group of people sitting together
and throwing ideas around. But its very
hard to perform a good brainstorming
session and its often an uphill task. Its
good to generate a lot of ideas, but what do
you do after that? How do you select them?
How do you inspire people when there are
no ideas? What are the tools to use to
create a global picture? How do you
transform an idea into a concept? How do
you make people interact with each other?
You see its more complex that just
throwing ideas around.

To make your ideation journey easier, here

are some great tips:

Focus on the task. Its very easy to get

distracted or segued in a brainstorming
session. The art of innovation comes in
when you can focus your efforts on the
problem at hand.
No idea is too wild. Although youve
identified the need or problem specifically,
let your imagination run wild when thinking
of solutions. Funny suggestions keep the
rapport and energy within the group high
and possibly open more avenues for ideas.
Set a benchmark. Call for an exact number
ideas. It gives a good structure to an
otherwise free-for-all imagination-fest. At
least you can move on to feasibility and
importance much easier when the number
is reached.
Transition the discussions smoothly. To
keep everyones brain ticking, use a
different ideation approach at each phase
but know how to make the shift.

Warm-ups are not corny or overrated.

Singing funny songs, small mental
exercises and icebreakers really help
especially if youre working with a newlyformed group. Never underestimate the
power of a warm-up session.
Use physical objects in aiding thinking.
Building blocks, draw your ideas on a paper,
try to visualise the ideas, use magazine,
picture, boxes and other 3D materials that
stimulate the brain .
Supply people with pertinent information.
Share information and insights for the
observation phase.
Reward risk-takers and rule-breakers even
if they fail. The point of this tip is that you
have to encourage people to think beyond
the traditional boundaries.
3. Prototyping
Eine Idee haben

This is one of the most iterative part of an

innovation process. Some organizations
might skip this step but its important to
master the art of innovation. The point of
the prototype is not to make your concept
work perfectly but to make the innovation
process go much faster.

How to do it?
Try a lot of prototypes, you will learn from
the failures and start all over again. You
dont need high tech materials for your
prototypes. I for example use Legos, toys,
paper, wood or even things Ive taken from
the trash. A great place to build your
products is a fab lab.

What can you expect from prototyping?

Ideas. The objective of prototyping is to

shape your ideas in order to improve them.
Get direct feedback. When you use fast
prototyping it helps you to have a direct
feedback from your users. They will provide
you new insights to improve your products
or services.
Taking chances. Second-guessing yourself
doesnt work with a prototype.
Implementing something out of curiosity is
perfectly acceptable.
Failing is part of the process. When the
prototype fails, you gain knowledge on
what not to do. This is a great leap in the
creative process.
Inspiration occurs more when you work
with your hands. When your mind and body
work together on an idea, its easier to gain
breakthroughs.

In the end, the art of innovation involves a

lot of practices that do not sit well with
traditional leadership and management
paradigms. Its up to you to implement
observation, ideation and prototyping
workshop attitudes in a way thats both
beneficial for your team and your
innovation projects.

FOL
Highway Signpost "Open Innovation"
Why You Should Shift to Open Innovation
Innovation is the buzz word of the business
world, but I think very few people
understand what it really is. Its easy to say
its about creating value, generating ideas,

gathering and interpreting data, making

decisions, implementing actions and
getting a burst of inspiration. When you
look at it, companies have been doing this
sort of thing for years now; thats how
theyve gotten so big and established their
brands. They have brainstorming sessions,
they hold meetings, they research, they
have their Eureka or Caramba (same
meaning as serendipity) and the new
product line is born.

Today things are changing and closed

innovation is shifting to a more
collaborative open innovation
Since communication and access to
information wasnt as good as it was many
years ago, closed innovation was the only
way a company could get ahead on the
competition. You had to keep your
intellectual property safe from competitors,

so everyone signs their non-disclosure

agreements and goes on with their lives.
Most, if not all the parts of your product or
service is developed in-house too, so you
have an established brand with its own
patents.

Now, big brands cannot afford to get

fresher and outside content. Why? Their
competitors are going to get a hand up on
them. The pure cycle of in-house research
and deployment isnt going to earn them
big money. Since talking about things
anywhere in the world is so easy with the
internet, things get old pretty fast. If you
cant bring out something exciting or
unique, people get bored and move on to
the next star of the moment. You need to
open up more ways for innovation if you
want to keep up with consumer demands.

You might miss something because youre

guarding your secrets.

So how is open innovation different?

Open innovation is not exactly the opposite
of its closed counterpart. In the latter, you
keep the money flowing through your
researchers salaries and keep the ideas to
yourself. While the former allows you to
hire outside workers to complement your
team or source some work to the crowd, in
other word innovation crowd sourcing.
What matters to open innovation is that
you give opportunity for outside elements
to influence your business processes and
insight.

Sounds scary and risky? It is, but the payoff

is something a closed model tries to
replicate and rarely succeeds.

How do you turn your company towards

open innovation?
Dompter sa crativit

The organization culture of your company

should be geared for continuous and
regular innovation. You should also have a
solid strategy on how youre going to open
up your system to new elements and at the
same time utilize all the new knowledge
and ideas.

Here are two major tasks to work on:

Define your organisation and innovation

management goals
Design the way your organisation will be
structured and managed to reach those

goals. For furhter information, here is an

article on organisation design.
Your business model strategy should also
reflect the kind of innovation youre looking
for. If your company is into giving luxury
products, make sure that your innovation
process reflects that. When you take in new
ideas and talent, these factors should still
be guided by your business model. I dont
think it makes sense that a company that
specializes in luxury goods should go for an
innovation that features cheaper materials,
right?

Aside from the processes, the way you

gather and deploy your resources for your
research, needs also to be effective to
achieve your goals. Producing your
products purely from in-house knowledge
and talent keeps the resources in a cycle
within your organization. When you shift to

open innovation, you have to be ready to

allocate your resources to people who
arent permanent fixtures in your hierarchy.
This may seem counter-productive, but the
key to open innovation practices is that you
have a diverse knowledge base thats
flexible and always fresh. Getting new
insight only when needed is a great way to
enact your shift.

Here are questions you should ask yourself

to define your resource allocation for an
open innovation project:

Why are you doing this (purpose &

mission)?
How do you want to manage your projects
(management style and decision level)?

How do you want to distribute your assets

to create value (are resources accessible to
any individual or group)?
How do you select knowledge, insight and
data? Crowdsourcing, recruitment,
consulting, design thinking
What are your performance indicators for
value creation?
I think the most important thing to
remember about open innovation is that
shifting isnt just a matter of open doors
and let new people in. You have to align
your business model, processes, resources
and goals as well.

FOL

Innovation Quote Creative

Corporate culture

With every single company from startups to

established brands looking for creativity
and innovation I think its equally important
to look for leaders. Not just any leader, but
someone who can harness the inherent
passion in creative people to innovate
things into concrete results and revenue.
Its your job as manager to make sure that
the whole creative process of your team
isnt hampered by drive for profit and at
the same time keep the creative people
happy with the result. Talk about a highwire balancing act.

There is no doubt that creativity is the

most important human resource of all.

Without creativity, there would be no

progress, and we would be forever
repeating the same patterns. Edward de
Bono

So how do you perform this balancing act?

Here are some tips to get you started:

1. Expect to do a lot of conflict resolution,

and do it well.
Right off the bat, I have something that has
a lot of managers shying away. How you
handle conflict resolution can either make
your team trust you or disregard your
authority. You need to be aware of your
teams personalities. Figure out which
approach works with each member. One guy
might take one approach badly while
another doesnt mind. Make sure that your
team knows you are dependable when

resolving issues and differences. Creativity

and innovation thrive even in the worst
conflicts and its your job to make sure
these two are what emerges from the
resolution.

2. Hire people on more than their resume.

I like to understand people beyond the
surface level. Even if you have an
extensive, detailed resume in your hands,
you only know the person at face value. You
cant know if someone is full of creativity
just from their CV. Whats more, the right
mix of people on your team is very
important. Your current members should
become part of the hiring process, since
theyll be the ones working closely with the
new team member. I also think that the
hiring process is something that happens
over time. (Here is an article on 10 profiles
you should hire)

3. Set up a culture where creativity and

innovation can flourish.
Office environment plays a huge role in
promoting creativity and innovation. You
need your workspace to be conducive to
individuality but at the same time invite
collaboration. This means that knowledge
sharing should be a big part of your team,
but at the same time a way for your
members to be recognized. Set up a room
where they can freestyle and bounce
ideas off each other without judgment. You
want people to be original but at the same
time contribute to a team effort. How do
you do this? Give concrete rewards and
acknowledgement to people who deserve it.
Share gifts with your team, and give the
best ones to people you know put in extra
effort.

4. Eat, sleep, live and breathe your high

standards.
I dont want to go around telling my team
about my high standards and the principles
I adhere to everyday. What I do want is for
them to know what I expect of them and let
them see I expect the same things of
myself. Keep your expectations clear and
show your team you support them
unconditionally. Creativity and innovation
arent confined to the office; theyre part of
your personality.

5. Your team should work with you and not

for you.
Genuine leadership is about being the glue
that sticks your team together. You have
the power to say who is an expert on what
and keep people secure in their positions.
You also have the power to say when
someone should ask help. Establish a solid

organizational structure that gives people

clear guidelines where they stand and that
you are there to guide them through their
work. Creativity and innovation happen
when experts come together under a
common goal with the best guidance; and
thats where you come in for creative
empowerment.

In the end, if you are an authentic and

effective leader if you perform the
balancing act of creating and executing like
a dance. You know who youre dancing
with, you know when to step left or step
right, when to lead and when to just let go
and let the process unfold.