Category: Leadership of Innovation

Four Paradoxes for Leaders of Innovation

Leaders who want their organizations to be successful innovators face a number of difficult challenges- both in culture and in processes. The key dilemma is the tension between freedom and control. You want people to be free to challenge orthodoxies, run experiments and try fresh ideas. But if you let everyone do whatever they want the result will likely be chaos. You need some measure of... Read More--

The Vital Art of Elimination

In the modern corporate world, leaders are often focused on addition. Executives pride themselves on launching new initiatives, entering fresh markets, and expanding product lines. Yet, a better test of strategic leadership is not what you start, but what you choose to kill. Organizations accumulate operational clutter. Over time, businesses become weighed down by low-value activities, unprofitable... Read More--

Why the Unexpected is so Important

Think about the last time something genuinely surprised you. Maybe it was a shocking sports upset, a wild plot twist in a film that made you gasp, or maybe just bumping into an old friend in a city hundreds of miles from home. That feeling, the sudden jolt where the world doesn’t quite work the way you thought it should, is a powerful and sometimes disturbing experience. The word “unexpected”... Read More--

Build a Culture of Experimentation

Booking.com runs over 25,000 tests every year. This approach has transformed a small startup into a giant of the travel industry. Extensive experimentation has been crucial for their marketing and innovation strategies. According to Lukas Vermeer, Director of Experimentation, they run over 1000 experiments at a time. They run tests for individual website visitors to test specific ideas and learn... Read More--

Part of Leadership is to Create a Crisis

Paul O’Neill was appointed CEO of aluminium giant Alcoa in 1987. He is particularly remembered for his decision to focus on one key priority, safety. His first speech as CEO was to a group of investors and analysts. He started by saying, “I want to talk to you about worker safety.” He continued, “I intend to make Alcoa the safest company in America. I intend to go for zero injuries.”... Read More--

Five Reasons why You are Blocking Innovation.

What is inhibiting innovation in your organization?  There might be many reasons, but have you considered that one of them might be you?  What happens when a colleague or subordinate comes to you with a radical idea? Here are five good reasons why you are likely to reject it. You are smart.  The more intelligent and experienced you are the more problems you can see with their... Read More--

Status Bias Inhibits Innovation

Status bias is the term used to describe the unfortunate fact that communications such as ideas, proposals and papers are often judged not on their merits but on the status of the originator.  Researchers at the University of Innsbruck in Austria carried out a study in which they sent out the same academic paper to three groups of reviewers.  The first set of reviewers were told the... Read More--

How to Give Bad News

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Every organisation faces crises.  Sometimes these can be existential and only drastic action can deliver survival. Sooner or later every senior manager has to give bad news to their team.  It could be the cancellation of a project, the closure of a plant or a round of redundancies.    You will have carefully considered all options, discussed them with the executive... Read More--

Experiment, Experiment, Experiment

Here is a question for leaders and managers. Would you like your people to try out their ideas for better ways to meet the needs of customers or better ways to run the business? Most leaders I ask give a positive response – often guarded with a ‘within reason’.  They would like to see people trying to find new and better ways to do things on their own initiative.  Some bosses are... Read More--

How to Kill Innovation Projects

Which of these is the most important skill for a leader of innovation?  Setting the vision, goals and metrics  Generation of great ideas  Selection of the best ideas  Starting exploration projects  Listening to customer feedback  Managing the portfolio and stage-gates  Gaining support and resources from other departments  Killing the weaker projects  Launching new products or services  Celebrating... Read More--