How can those at the top ensure they and their organizations are fit for the future? Perhaps the biggest challenge facing leaders today is to ensure they are capable of navigating themselves and their organizations through a complex and rapidly evolving future landscape. The reality is becoming clear, a good future focused leader has to have a “futurist mindset”.
Over the years, Israel has accumulated a lot of experience with corporate open innovation. Over 350 global corporations selected Israel as their source for innovation, understanding that the rapid rate that technology changes and the fierce competition that exists, does not allow these companies to rely just on their R&D departments.
A chief product officer’s (CPO) job description often contains two tall tasks: Drive innovation, and create a compelling product roadmap that delivers business value.
Senior management is without a doubt a tough job. If you’re one of the few executives at the top of a large organization, there are likely hundreds of people; customers, employees, partners, and the list goes on; who are all looking for your attention regarding an endless sea of different topics and initiatives.
In our previous article we focused on some of the serious issues being faced by clients and vendors who are working with innovation / ideation platforms.
In an article by the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the authors addressed a recent study from the Bridgespan Group that identified an innovation in the nonprofit sector. Although 80% of nonprofit leaders consider innovation an imperative, only 40% of those leaders consider their organization ready for innovation. SSIR went on to discuss the six characteristics that empower nonprofit innovation.
Business innovation benefits business owners and consumers alike. It helps grow competitive advantage in saturated markets and time and time again have proven to be financially lucrative and socially inspiring. It's crucial to any organization's long-term success and especially hard to scale and maintain.
The increased focus of mature organizations in developing a more innovative culture and set of actions is a crucial opportunity for HR / Talent leaders to play a leadership role. This whitepaper examines a range of actions that HR / Talent leaders can take to drive this strategic imperative.
In-house innovation programs continue to proliferate and our concept of the innovator has evolved alongside them. Now we no longer think of a creative genius sitting alone in their tower coming up with creative ideas. Now, innovators can play a number of different roles within an innovation program beyond idea author. A lot of interest and attention is being paid to this concept, because organizations that are looking to sponsor and train innovation skills at their organization need to understand what skills matter most when it comes to creating meaningful change. After all, it’s an important part of professional development nowadays. Every employee at any organization needs to be able to keep up with the rapid pace of change. So here are a few of the roles that innovators play at large organizations.
Everyone wants to think that their innovation program is going to change the world and that feeling persists, because successful innovation programs can have enormous real-world returns. Businesses can save millions of dollars, new business models can disrupt markets, but some of the most impactful innovation efforts are genuinely in the healthcare space. Not only does healthcare innovation overall save the system money (for every dollar spent on innovative medicines, total healthcare spending is reduced by $7.20) but it also has the power to truly save lives as evidenced by research that states “between 1980 and 2010, medical advancements helped add 5 years to U.S. life expectancy.”
IdeaScale’s second largest customer segment is in the field of education (our largest segment is our work in government innovation) and it’s been growing steadily over the past four years. One of the reasons that we think there’s a renewed focus on innovation in education, is because numerous emerging trends impact education at every level: from remote learning to the maker movement and the gig economy.
Managing innovation is a big role that puts a lot of weight on the shoulders of management teams. Depending on how much a company cultivates an innovative culture and environment, innovative ideas either go through chains of command, or are workshopped in specific departments.
The most successful businesses and corporations in the world place employee satisfaction on the same pedestal as customer satisfaction. These corporations understand that without a loyal, creative, and cohesive team of satisfied employees, success cannot be attained.
As part of today’s changing technological landscape, it is vital to create a workplace culture that adapts to those changes. Doing so starts with having a comfortable workplace culture to begin with. Making your employees feel at ease in their current working conditions is the basis of creating a workplace that can adapt to changes.
Meet John. He worked in a company with a corporate strategy office but no innovation department. When our firm ran an innovation workshop at John’s company, he took to innovation like a duck to water. Unfortunately, the company’s innovation culture didn’t evolve quickly enough for John, which left him feeling stifled. He ended up leaving the company to pursue innovation full-time.
