IISD/ENB | Kiara Worth A drone on display in the exhibition area at the UN World Data Forum in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. 23 October 2018.
1. Small and sustainable: ‘Tiny houses’ could be solution to world’s housing problems
UN News/Matt Wells
UN Environment (UNEP) and Yale University’s Ecological Living Module; a sustainable tiny house exhibited at UN Headquarters in New York.
They’re small, self-sustaining – and they could revolutionize the way we think about housing around the world, as building materials become scarcer.
Measuring just about 22-square-meters, or some 200-square-feet, a “tiny house” comprised of one room with a loft or pull-out bed, hidden storage, a kitchen and a bathroom, was presented last September to get people thinking about decent, affordable housing that limits the overuse of natural resources and helps the battle against destructive climate change.
The design was created by the UN environment agency and the Center for Ecosystems in Architecture at Yale University in the United States, in collaboration with UN-Habitat.
2. Boat made of recycled plastic and flip-flops inspires fight for cleaner seas along African coast
UN Environment
The FlipFlopi dhow, a 9-metre traditional sailing boat made from 10 tonnes of discarded plastic, will be the first boat of its kind to launch a world expedition on 24 January, 2018.
After completing a historic 500 km journey from the Kenyan island of Lamu to the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar, the world’s first ever traditional “dhow” sailing boat made entirely from recycled plastic, known as the Flipflopi, was created to raise awareness of the need to overcome one of the world’s biggest environmental challenges: plastic pollution.
The Flipflopi Project was co-founded by Kenyan tour operator Ben Morison in 2016, and the ground-breaking dhow was built by master craftsman Ali Skanda, and a team of volunteers, using 10 tonnes of recycled plastic.
The boat gets its name from the 30,000 recycled flip-flops used to decorate its multi-coloured hull.
3. Polyester made from recycled bottles, wardrobe recycling…: solutions to make the fashion industry more sustainable
UN Photo/Manuel Elias
Models at the UN-hosted event “Fashion and Sustainability: Look Good, Feel Good, Do Good
It takes around 7,500 litres of water to make a single pair of jeans, equivalent to the amount of water the average person drinks over a period of seven years. That’s just one of the many startling facts to emerge from recent environmental research, which show that the cost of staying fashionable is a lot more than just the price tag.
Despite the grim statistics, producers and consumers of fashion are increasingly waking up to the idea that…Continue Reading…
Industrial companies have found highly effective ways to scale their digital innovation efforts, resulting in much higher returns on digital investment, according to new Industry X.0 research from Accenture.
These “Champions” consistently scale more of their proofs of concepts (PoCs) and achieve higher-than-average returns on their efforts compared to their peers.
For the research, which was unveiled at Hannover Messe in Germany on April 3, Accenture surveyed 1,350 senior and C-suite executives from industrial businesses across 13 industries, representing both discrete and process manufacturing. The key finding: while all companies surveyed were investing to scale their innovation efforts beyond the PoC stage, only a small group of them – the 22% Champions – reached expected earnings.
Industrial companies have found highly effective ways to scale their digital innovation efforts, resulting in much higher returns on digital investment, according to new Industry X.0 research from Accenture.
These “Champions” consistently scale more of their proofs of concepts (PoCs) and achieve higher-than-average returns on their efforts compared to their peers.
For the research, which was unveiled at Hannover Messe in Germany on April 3, Accenture surveyed 1,350 senior and C-suite executives from industrial businesses across 13 industries, representing both discrete and process manufacturing. The key finding: while all companies surveyed were investing to scale their innovation efforts beyond the PoC stage, only a small group of them – the 22% Champions – reached expected earnings.
“Scaling innovation is critical for digital transformation success, but clearly presents a challenge for many organizations,” said Mike Sutcliff, group chief executive of Accenture Digital. “The key question is, therefore – how can companies succeed at it? The Champions we found in our research are very strategic. They leverage four specific management best practices to specify the value they’re seeking to create, and then focus on changing their organization. To them, it’s not about scaling more – even though they do that – it’s about scaling better.”
The Rewards for Being a Champion
Industrial companies have found highly effective ways to scale their digital innovation efforts, resulting in much higher returns on digital investment, according to new Industry X.0 research from Accenture.
These “Champions” consistently scale more of their proofs of concepts (PoCs) and achieve higher-than-average returns on their efforts compared to their peers.
For the research, which was unveiled at Hannover Messe in Germany on April 3, Accenture surveyed 1,350 senior and C-suite executives from industrial businesses across 13 industries, representing both discrete and process manufacturing. The key finding: while all companies surveyed were investing to scale their innovation efforts beyond the PoC stage, only a small group of them – the 22% Champions – reached expected earnings.
“Scaling innovation is critical for digital transformation success, but clearly presents a challenge for many organizations,” said Mike Sutcliff, group chief executive of Accenture Digital. “The key question is, therefore – how can companies succeed at it? The Champions we found in our research are very strategic. They leverage four specific management best practices to specify the value they’re seeking to create, and then focus on changing their organization. To them, it’s not about scaling more – even though they do that – it’s about scaling better.”
The Rewards for Being a Champion
The best-performing companies in the sample scale more than 50% of their PoCs. They also expect much higher returns from their efforts than their peers. Most importantly, they tend to not only meet these high expectations – but to exceed them.
By Christopher Boone, Dean and Professor of Sustainability, Arizona State University
By the time the application window closed, Amazon had received 238 proposals from cities and regions throughout North America looking to become the second headquarters of the behemoth tech company.
Amazon invited proposals especially from places that looked a lot like its native Seattle: metro areas with more than a million people; a stable and business-friendly environment; communities that could “think big and creatively” about real estate options; and a location that would attract and retain technical talent.
In the race to attract high-tech companies, what can cities and regions do to become centers of innovation? At the moment, some places are clearly in the lead.
By my analysis of data from the U.S. Patent Office, Santa Clara County, California, is sprinting ahead of the country. Between 2000 and 2015, more than 140,000 patents were granted in Santa Clara County. That’s triple the number for second-ranked San Diego County.
Four other counties in California – Los Angeles, San Mateo, Alameda and Orange – make the top 10. Washington’s King County, Massachusetts’s Middlesex County, Michigan’s Oakland County and Arizona’s Maricopa County round out the list.
These counties are in large metropolitan areas that are known as technology and innovation centers, including San Francisco, San Diego, Boston and Seattle. The other metro areas in the top 10, not the usual tech-hub suspects, are Greater Los Angeles, Detroit and Phoenix.
Higher education
Besides large concentrated populations, these metro areas share two other ingredients that support innovation. All of them have one or more leading research universities and a large proportion of college-educated people.
Santa Clara County is home to Stanford University, an institution that has become synonymous with the high-tech and innovation economy of Silicon Valley.
Stanford’s rise as a world-class research university coincided with a rapid increase in federal and military spending during the Cold War. The university’s suburban location gave it an advantage, too, by providing land for expansion and for burgeoning high-tech companies. Stanford’s leadership aggressively courted research opportunities aligned with the priorities of the military-industrial complex, including electronics, computing and aerospace.
As a leader in patents, Santa Clara County benefits from a well-educated population, with more than half a million adults over 25 years of age holding a bachelor’s degree or higher, the 10th-highest figure in the country.
Nationally, there is a strong relationship between the number of college-educated adults and the number of patents filed in those counties. I found that, for every increase of 1,000 college-educated people, one can expect 33 more patents to be granted in those counties.
For counties that contain one or more of the country’s “131 Doctoral Universities with Very High Research Activity,” as ranked by Indiana University’s Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, the average number of patents filed was 6,686, compared to only 371 for counties lacking one of these research institutes.
Cost of living
Another common trait about most of these centers of innovation is the jaw-dropping cost of housing.
The median sale price for houses in San Jose in Santa Clara County exceeded US$1 million for every month in 2018. Between 2000 and 2017, house prices more than doubled in the California and Washington state counties with the highest number of patents.
Competition for higher-wage talent pushes up housing and other costs in these innovation centers. Although housing prices increased in greater Boston, Phoenix and Detroit, they remained relative bargains compared to the West Coast.
The threat of rising housing costs and gentrification was one of many reasons why residents protested the planned building of Amazon’s second headquarters in the New York City borough of Queens. The company has now decided to pull out.
As a manager, you know all too well that every organization endures periods of change. Maybe it’s due to a long-needed digital transformation. Perhaps it’s the result of a series of innovation projects or an aggressive move by a competitor. Maybe you had to replace a departing superstar or cut your team because of budgetary constraints.
The reason for the change doesn’t matter one iota if a crucial element is missing: trust. Without trust, avenues of communication experience gridlock. Collaboration ends up stifled and stilted. Everyone feels on edge and misaligned. A lot of this falls on the manager’s shoulders.
A team that lacks trust is a bad setup for innovation. It’s also risky, because no company can adapt without the confidence of its people. Consider the jarring findings from a December 2017 study by Ultimate Software: 93% of employees said trust in their direct support is crucial to staying satisfied at work, and a majority said they’d turn down a large pay increase to stay with a great boss.
Here’s the disconnect: 80% of managers think they are transparent with their employees, while only 55% of employees agree. And, 71% of managers say they know how to motivate their teams, while just 44% of employees agree.
Trust on both ends of this dynamic is lacking.
Warding off the troubles of distrustful teams
Have you ever been on a team whose members don’t trust one another? It isn’t really a team at all, just a group of people working on similar efforts. Plus, most of its members spend too much time protecting their work, not to mention wasting energy battling over rights and responsibilities.
It’s a shame. Without the bonding that comes from colleague confidence, no team or department can be innovative, creative, or productive.
Ironically, many leaders and managers forget this fact when they agree to implement digital transformation endeavors. Instead of making sure their people have faith in one another’s abilities and motives, managers move full steam ahead with programs and strategies. Then, they watch in surprise as talented members leave, infighting begins and trust dissolves.
As one piece of Forrester research showed, battles over digital ownership negatively affected 43% of reporting businesses. That’s a significant number of organizations trying to compete in their industries with limited trust.
On the flip side, companies that clearly define their team players’ roles and talk about innovation transparently from Day One have a better chance of constructing cohesive teams — and ultimately winning the digital revolution race.
When team members can clearly see their purpose in any effort, they naturally worry less about one-upping each other and concentrate on hitting overall goals. As they see and celebrate real-time progress, they foster a culture of innovative thinking that’s not limited by change-related fear. Without the presence of suspicion, loyalty grows and objectives come to fruition.
Establishing levels of trust prior to transformation
Considering a digital quantum leap of one or more corporate processes? Be certain your team members are ready to work together seamlessly by taking a few necessary steps:
1. Share your game plan
What do you hope to accomplish with your upcoming change? Hold nothing back and tell the full story to team members. Don’t feel you have to sugarcoat difficulties. Instead, talk about them honestly and discuss how you expect to overcome them. Being realistic, positive, and honest from the jump will help your team feel less anxious about working together to tackle the unknown.
2. Give your teams a wide berth
If you want your teams to take full ownership of their tasks, don’t hold them back with unnecessary red tape. Allow them to make decisions on their own — with parameters that you have precisely outlined upfront — so they can adapt as needed. The more agile they are, the faster they’ll achieve their expected goals.
3. Make listening to everyone’s ideas a must-do
Promote thought diversity along every step of your digital transformation, encouraging your players to toss out ideas originating in their personal experiences and knowledge. As employees open up, they will naturally grow closer. They’ll also start offering solutions that wouldn’t be considered in a less diverse forum, and their faith in you as a manager will flourish.
4. Get buy-in from less-enthusiastic workers
Have some team players who aren’t thrilled to embrace their roles? Get their buy-in as soon as you can. Be empathetic to their concerns while remaining firm about going forward with the digital transformation. After your conversation, they should feel heard but should also recognize that their contributions are expected. The last thing your team deserves is a naysayer who strives to resist, not commit.
Digital transformation can be a game changer for any corporation, but it doesn’t happen without strategic planning. Innovation won’t just find you. Instead, go out and discover it yourself by empowering and educating a trust-infused team.
A NEW SURVEY SHOWS ORGANISATIONS PLAN TO OVERCOME STAKEHOLDER SKEPTICISM AND RESOURCE SHORTAGES WITH STRONG INVESTMENT IN PEOPLE. BUT 38 PERCENT RANK LACK OF STAKEHOLDER SUPPORT AMONG THEIR GREATEST CHALLENGES. FOUR IN FIVE BUSINESS LEADERS WILL PRIORITISE INVESTMENT IN PEOPLE TO DELIVER DIGITAL STRATEGY. THIS IS AHEAD OF INVESTMENT IN NEW TECHNOLOGY, AT 71 PERCENT ANDE 70 PERCENT OF ORGANISATIONS WILL INVEST IN THE CLOUD NEXT YEAR, BUT ONLY 20 PERCENT ARE INVESTING IN DATA INTEGRATION. CONTRIBUTOR STEPHEN LONG, MD – KCOM ENTERPRISE.
Research commissioned by KCOM, the IT services provider, has revealed that despite considerable enthusiasm to innovate, organisations are being thwarted by tight resources and strong internal resistance.
The findings show that a lack of senior stakeholder support is the greatest inhibitor of change, followed closely by budget and a lack of specialist skills. Each appeared in the top three challenges, highlighted by 38 percent, 35 percent and 34 percent of respondents respectively. However, organisations are also limiting themselves by turning away the specialist skills and experience that could help them advance, through overly predictive procurement processes.
The survey captured the opinions of 250 business leaders and C-level decision makers – including CEOs and CTOs – in government, financial services, retail, healthcare, and transport and logistics.
The year of the cloud Eager to be more competitive, organisations are making big investments in innovation projects. Almost half (43 percent) consider driving digital transformation to improve competitive advantage to be their top priority in the next year. A further 32 percent are allocating at least 20 percent of their IT budget to new projects.
When it comes to innovation, organisations are overwhelmingly looking to the cloud. Almost three quarters of businesses plan to invest in cloud migration (70 percent) and the implementation of cloud native applications (68 percent) in the next twelve months. This is followed by efforts to increase data security, with 65 percent intending to invest in improving identity management services.
By contrast, only 20 percent will invest in integrating data across systems to improve business flow and customer view. Both public and private sector organisations are also taking an increasingly people-centric approach to digital transformation. In the next year, 80 percent said they would incentivise staff retention through training, accreditation and career development to deliver on their innovation strategy. This is compared to 71 percent who said they would do so by investing in new technologies.
Limiting the possible However, the survey also found that organisations are constrained in what they can achieve. A range of organisational factors are preventing them from identifying the problems they face as well as the solutions they need.
For instance, companies have to contend with the high chance of failure when innovating. Willingness to fail is essential to the success of new projects. Fortunately, the majority either embrace failure if it is recognised early enough to limit costs (46 percent) or see it as a natural part of innovation (10 percent).
However, the definition of ‘failure’ depends on the industry. Over two in five (44 percent) of those in health and social care view late delivery as failure, whereas only a fifth (20 percent) of those in financial services feel the same way. More than 72 percent of the total respondents define a project that comes in over budget as a failure. This is compared to nearly half (45 percent) who define it as a failure to achieve the original designated outcome.
While the definition of failure may differ across industries, it’s comforting to see that whatever the failure, companies are willing to embrace it. Only 28 percent regard failure as frowned upon or career-limiting and, for these organisations, this attitude is highly likely to stifle innovation. Yet for the majority, failure is embraced as step towards innovation.
Stephen Long, MD at KCOM Enterprise, said: “It is positive to see that organisations are embracing cloud technology as the path to innovation, and they recognise some of the challenges holding them back. However, too many are stopped from giving their all to innovation projects by fear of failure.
Innovation, by its very nature, involves pushing the boundaries of what is known and understood. Organisations must accept that failure plays an important role in doing this. Only by obeying Samuel Beckett’s dictum to ‘Try again. Fail again. Fail better’ can companies truly unlock the value of the cloud and new ways of working.
Fortune favours the bold, so companies need to prepare to fail, and build in a fast failure stage into all their innovation projects.”
In the Chicago Tribune the 7-Eleven CEO states “‘The Landscape is Changing So Fast.” While on the same day Bloomberg writes an article about the myriad of companies entering the market using AI to change the way retail is done to compete with Amazon Go. The takeaway is simple; hold on to your hats!
“Mighty AI spent much of its first five years building software that helps self-driving cars recognize real-world objects. The Seattle startup went so far as to open a Detroit office to cozy up to the auto industry.
Then last February, Mighty AI’s sales team received an unusual request: Instead of identifying pedestrians and cars, could they track items plucked from store shelves by shoppers? A few months later, Mighty AI signed a deal to do just that, joining the race to help brick-and-mortar retailers keep pace with Amazon.com Inc.
A year ago, the e-commerce giant opened a cashierless convenience store called Amazon Go, marking its biggest effort yet to change the way people shop in the physical world. Today a fleet of companies are working to replicate elements of Go or invent other ways of streamlining store operations.
Many are startups like Mighty AI, but established giants are wading in, too. Walmart has been testing Go-style technology, and Kroger and Microsoft recently announced a joint venture to bring elements of the e-commerce shopping experience to the grocery store.
Mighty AI chief executive Daryn Nakhuda says Amazon Go showed “how far you can go.” Very quickly, he says, the state-of-the-art went from you-scan checkout technology to Amazon’s ‘just walk out’ approach and everything in between.
Amazon, which today operates nine Go stores in three cities, has announced no plans to sell the proprietary technology to other retailers. And even if the Seattle leviathan did offer to license the system, fierce competition with other retailers would probably preclude most partnerships.
“What we are seeing is Silicon Valley at large, venture capital at large, trying to come up with some solutions” to sell to retailers, says Steve Sarracino, founder of Activant Capital, a Greenwich, Connecticut, investment firm that has stakes in retail technology startups. “There will be a huge market” for other technology firms to capitalize on, he says.”
Then there is Swyft, a company that is attempting to offer total transformation to retailers by providing automated walk-in stores, a supply chain analytics and delivery system to keep those stores stocked, and even analytics to drive consumer marketing. Retailers like 7-Eleven and others know this is a game changer. This has moved more quickly in Japan driven by a labor shortage. Lawson moved to self-serve and mobile pay late last year. Particularly intriguing is that all of this is based on machine learning savants that, from a technological innovation perspective, are brand new in the market. As machine learning tools evolve, so will retail!
Overview by Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group
Public opinion about global warming is changing in the face of additional scientific information, reports from national and international organizations, and, most importantly by far, increasingly frequent disastrous weather. Various measures to address climate change have been undertaken, some with very promising effects, but no effort has been proposed in the U.S. that actually addresses the size of the threat caused by global warming. A massive long-term problem requires a massive and long term response.
This is why The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act is important. The policies established by this Act will, over the coming decades, reduce levels of carbon emissions sufficiently to dramatically reduce the damage caused by global warming and will do so without wrecking the economy. The act was introduced into both the House and Senate late last year with Republican and Democratic sponsors and will be reintroduced this year.
We support the Act because the carbon fee that it introduces, starting at $15 per ton of CO2 which rises steadily by at least $10/year, is a basic change in the whole economy that will reduce atmospheric CO2 to tolerable levels over a time frame of decades. The proposal has careful steps to deal with imports and exports and other details. Its essential feature is simple: no new rules, no new bureaucracy, just a fee initially small but steadily increasing in a predictable amount that encourages every person and every institution in the society to save money by using less CO2. The Act does not require a return to earlier lifestyles and does not rely on self-sacrifice. It relies on accelerated use of existing clean energy sources and assumes many new inventions as the market encourages new ways of generating and using energy.
The justified concerns of those worried that rising costs of coal and oil will have disastrous consequences for typical households are addressed by the second major feature of the bill. The Act requires that all of the money collected as a carbon fee be returned to households in equal monthly checks. The Dividend protects individual people from the economic impact of the price increase and gives everybody a good reason to use less energy.
Sharply reducing our emissions cannot be done overnight, but we can do it over the long term with this change in how we price CO2. The Act means dramatic and painful change for people working in industries like coal. They will need and already deserve support. Americans mobilized the whole economy to win World War II and reaped a vibrant economy after the war. The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act will stimulate the market to meet the challenge of another historic emergency by creating a strong, healthy, clean energy economy. We urge all Michiganders, including Rep. John Moolenaar, Senator Debbie Stabenow and Senator Gary Peters, to support this critical legislation.
Mountain Dew Kickstart is a product that combines the effervescent flavor of Mountain Dew with five percent juice, Vitamins B and C, and caffeine. Who knew that this combination would grow to a billion dollars in annual sales, soon after its 2013 launch?
The customers who inspired it probably did.
For PepsiCo, the journey of discovery started with convenience store sales data that revealed a surprising amount of Mountain Dew purchasing in the early morning hours. Brand manager Greg Lyons and his team decided to speak with consumers and dig into the granular details of their morning routines. What they discovered was a curious practice of younger guys stopping by a convenience store, buying an OJ and a Mountain Dew, and mixing their own concoction to kickstart the day.
Huh?
They discovered a rich story of a young guy groggily dragging himself from bed and eager to be at his best for a demanding workday. He didn’t care for coffee but wanted the caffeine, and orange juice felt like morning but provided no boost. Energy drinks were great, but he was looking for sustained energy – not a quick jolt. He loved Mountain Dew, and it had the caffeine, but it didn’t quite feel morning appropriate and walking into work with a 20oz. soda made him feel a bit uncomfortable. So, this was the hack: stopping by a convenience store to mix his morning elixir.
This story provided the brief for the Mountain Dew brand team and a clear North Star for the desired experience, the relevant performance attributes, and the customers’ decision criteria in play. What resulted was the billion-dollar, category-creating Mountain Dew Kickstart.
It’s worth noting two responses Greg and his team didn’t take. First, they didn’t dismiss their discovery as the bizarre behavior of some small subset of consumers. Second, they didn’t leap to the easily executable obvious option: an orange flavored Mountain Dew. Instead, exercising an unusual degree of marketer curiosity, they felt that there was something important that they didn’t fully understand – and they dug deeper.
Digging deeper gets beneath the ‘what’ of customers’ behavior, to the ‘why’ of their motivations. But digging deeper into mainstream behavior reveals only mainstream motivations, which tend to reaffirm today’s understanding and may drive some incremental improvements. Digging deeper into unexpected behavior reveals unexpected motivations – the ones that can open up a whole new category. That’s when the deductive ‘Why?’ gives way to the inductive ‘Huh?’
We have seen the same story in many industries. Take accounting software. “For three years we were ignoring how…Continue Reading
Economists have been studying human behavior for centuries, determining how our ever-changing desires fuel supply-and-demand paradigms. They have conducted in-depth analysis of the legal frameworks responsible for current trading regimens for SMEs, and government enterprises. These centuries-old systems, developed though they may be are now being upended by new-age technology that is adding value, cutting costs, and increasing efficiency like never before. Innovative new technologies are being designed to be more inclusive, more transparent, and more rewarding. These systems allow for easy, quick, and efficient information dissemination.
Of course, these concepts encompass so many other attendant technologies. Innovation management technology has the capacity to radically transform financial, legal, medical and information dissemination networks across the board. These disruptive processes are already yielding results in the way that enterprises function. Global management systems have evolved dramatically over the years. Prior to his passing, Nobel laureate Douglas North pioneered new institutional economics. The institutional economics that he referred to were the rules and frameworks that were established, and the systems that were used to enforce trade. We have evolved from hunter gatherers to formal institutions where banks were involved, and later to online institutions. The global economy has now metamorphosed into a large interconnected online system. Within this online network lies innovation management par excellence.
Dramatic Trade Transformations Pay Dividends
Human economic activity is now facilitated by way of online institutions through ecommerce operations including Alibaba, Amazon, eBay and the like. Every new iteration that humankind develops through innovation and dynamism – the latest being online connectivity via the Internet – is designed to lower levels of uncertainty when creating value. Before, management systems relied on the banking sector and government for their operational functionality.
Now, we can use sophisticated technology without banking or government to define our new-age economic system. This has resulted in dramatic innovation management systems and a new breed of employees who are bringing this dynamism to life. For many folks, the concept of innovation management remains shrouded in mystery. The power of these new-age management systems is extraordinary, and enterprises are using disruptive innovation management solutions to facilitate cutting-edge systems that are rendering traditional economic models defunct.
Unleashing Corporate Innovation and Coupling It with State-of-the-Art Technology
We are seeing a merger of innovative technology and innovation management right before our eyes. The traditional system of authoritarian management has given way to collective systems where feedback is encouraged, fostered, and engendered in organizations since the employees have a vested interest in furthering their own objectives alongside those of the enterprise. Even new ICO companies are springing up rapidly, fusing blockchain tech with innovation management systems. These enterprises are proposing new-age solutions that have traditional institutions running scared. The magic of innovation management is that it offers exponential benefits to corporations since these companies are drawing on the synergistic power of their human capital.
It is against this backdrop that companies are able to reshape their activities, redesign their products and services, and refocus their creative wells of inspiration to draw from their strongest assets – their employees. Whether it’s incremental innovation or disruptive innovation, it is thanks to out-of-the-box thinking in concert with innovation management technology that we are able to achieve amazing feats of human ingenuity, trustless systems, and efficient operations.
Innovation is about disrupting the comfortable for the sake of improvement. No one innovates to decrease a process or reduce the benefit. People innovate to bring life to a higher plane because improvement is a deeply held instinct.
Yet innovation doesn’t just happen – it requires cultivation of forces that will disrupt the comfortable. If you are the leader, your number one job is to provide an environment of innovation that will bring your team or business to the next level. Below are five powerful ways for leaders to unlock innovation within their organization.
#1 – Look For and Enlist Your Innovators
Every team has their innovators. They are the ones who speak out by making suggestions on how to do things better, often challenging the status quo. Innovators have big ideas and want to share them with the teams, which can create friction.
As a leader, your job is to enlist these innovators and turn their energy into actions that cultivate results. For example, a manager of one of our professional services groups presented me with an idea to build a new training program. The idea has merit; however, it needs more vetting beyond the “I have an idea” conversation. I asked him to build out the framework of the plan, and develop a model of how it could work within our business. He left the conversation energized and ready to take on the next phase of this innovation.
As a leader, you must have an open door policy of idea vetting. The key is willingness to listen and encourage innovators so they will be motivated to share their creative thinking.
#2 – Create Safety
Leaders create safe environments. Obviously, physical safety is the highest priority, but emotional safety is also important. Emotional safety gives people the opportunity to challenge and question the status quo without fear of retribution.
Strong leaders know that emotional safety is a key leadership tenet and it is not an accident. I recall a situation when two colleagues worked on an idea that resulted in strong results for the team. But during a company meeting, an executive took credit for their work, naming them only as a creative force behind the win. The team that had worked so hard were hurt. To fix the problem, the executive had to go back and quickly correct the misinformation.
Emotional safety is critical to a successful innovation engine. When team members see that action is taken to protect them and give them their due credit, they feel safe to try again.
#3 – Disrupt the Comfortable
Innovation’s job is to challenge the status quo and disrupt the comfortable, which brings with it complaints and dissatisfaction for those being disrupted. As a leader, your job is to get out in front of disruption through strong communications. No one likes surprises and unless you are clear with your messaging, the teams will revolt and hunker down for a fight.
Look for your allies in this process; you will need support to help move innovation forward. Enlist new recruits who see what the innovators see. Your goal is to get people to recognize that although disruption is painful, it is a necessary part of the innovation you need for a more successful organization.
#4 – Sponsor Initiatives
Leaders bring forth initiatives and sponsor them through funding and emotional support. This means you must have some control or influence over budgets, and you’ll need to allocate funds to promote your initiatives.
However, funding is only half of the equation. You will also need to support your team as they run into obstacles. Innovation is about calling out current processes as weak, flawed, or broken. Of course, the people within the current process may…Continue reading…
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