Category: Leadership of Innovation

Silos Impede Innovation – So Break Them

Within larger organisations one of the biggest obstacles to innovation is poor internal communication.  A ‘silo’ mentality develops so that departments guard information and ideas rather than share them.  People work hard – but in isolated groups.  Internal politics can compound the problem with rivalry and turf wars obstructing collaboration.  It can reach the ridiculous stage where the... Read More--

Can you train people to be innovative? You can and you should.

Is innovation some chance occurrence that comes in a flash of brilliance by the CEO? Is it the domain of just a handful of creative geniuses? No. You can establish a culture and a process for innovation throughout the organization. It takes leadership. A good place to start is with training.How did your organization acquire its skills in quality, sales, marketing, people management, finance and all... Read More--

Is Your Management Structure Helping or Hindering Innovation?

Should You Destroy the Hierarchy? The traditional top-down structure in organizations can be a powerful inhibitor to innovation. It is a reflection of a command and control style of leadership where orders are issued at the top and followed by the ranks. People lower down the organization who have great ideas can feel inhibited about promoting them. They feel it is disrespectful to challenge the... Read More--

Leadership lessons from your GPS guidance system

If you want to be a better leader then take a look at the satellite navigation system (GPS) in your car. Here is what it can teach:   1. The Sat Nav stays focused on the destination. Regardless of blocked roads, obstacles, traffic and diversions it continues to focus on finding a way of reaching the strategic goal – the destination. In the same way a great leader continues to focus on the... Read More--

Success is the Enemy of Innovation

Success can be innovation’s greatest foe.  When thing are going well we can become blinded. Success becomes a prophylactic against disruptive ideas. Why should we change a winning formula? Don’t mess with success! These are the sorts of things people say. And yet the business cemetery is littered with companies that were shooting stars – a brilliant success for a while followed by... Read More--

How to Overcome Customer Resistance to Change

Sometimes the biggest resistance to innovation comes from the person who should benefit most from it – the customer. Customers can be very conservative. When you come along with an unorthodox new product or service they are often initially unimpressed. Why should the buyer take a risk with your unproven new gismo? He knows that new products often have bugs and he does not want to be the guinea... Read More--

Give Everyone Two Jobs – their current job and finding a completely different way to do it

As the leader, how can you continually improve the performance of your business and at the same time innovate? Should you just focus on making the current model work better or should you seek to find different ways to do things? The answer is that you and your team need to do both. Give all your people two key objectives. Ask them to run their current jobs in the most effective way possible and at... Read More--

Welcome Failure

Very often the best way to test an idea is not to analyze it but to try it. The organization that implements lots of ideas will most likely have many failures but the chances are, it will reap some mighty successes too. By trying numerous initiatives we improve our chances that one of them will be a star. As Tom Kelley of IDEO puts it, ‘Fail often to succeed sooner.’ Honda Motor Company... Read More--

Why Do People Resist Change?

We all experience change and most of us grumble about it. We know that change is necessary. We cannot keep doing things the old way.  But we do not like changing.  Why do people oppose innovations and what can we do about it? In a survey we asked why people resisted change. The main reasons identified were: Fear of the unknown Suspicion of motives Bad prior experiences of change leading to low expectations People... Read More--

The Innovative Leader needs to be an Arsonist and a Firefighter

Innovative leaders are comfortable with ambiguity. They know that there are many ways forward. They are evangelical about the vision but agnostic about how to achieve it. They have a clear strategy but are quite prepared to change tactics. They recognise the need for different leadership styles at different times. When it comes to innovative ideas they are alternately arsonists and fire fighters. They... Read More--