There are always periods when, as a manager, you might feel that your team members aren’t as productive as they could be, when their morale seems a little low or when they don’t seem as fully engaged with their work as you would like them to be. This can lead to them leaving the company if the situation becomes really bad, which costs the company both money and time spent either hiring a replacement or training a current employee to replace them.
Leading CEOs worldwide expect major changes to their company’s business model until 2020. As a consequence, organizations are currently about to realize that, today, business model innovation has become as important as technological innovation. However, developing new and viable business models still represents a serious challenge for large incumbent firms despite their resources, know-how, and key technologies. This article provides 10 guidelines for mastering business model innovation challenges in established companies.
Innovation initiatives have a habit of causing excitement and expectation; the organisation is trying something different and wanting to do new things. Senior management are anticipating the brand new shiny ideas, and front-line employees can’t wait to be rid of their daily frustrations. So what could go wrong? However, in all this excitement, there’s a group that is usually neglected in the engagement strategy – the middle managers. Often it’s assumed that these managers will support all the company initiatives. It’s their role to toe the line and make sure others do. They’ll buy in surely? Actually, they don’t.
Engagement of teams is a must-have when addressing the key issues related to sustainable innovation programs. In the second of a series of articles focused on Innovation Culture, we are going to share our views about the way organizations should stimulate and encourage the creation of teams truly committed with innovation. Besides the more usual ad hoc requirements regarding team and individual creative performance, having a clear focus on team management is essential to achieve a more balanced and sound innovation program.
We bet you hear the word innovation at least a dozen times a day, if not more. Every single company seems to be thinking of, planning for, and somehow doing innovation in some way. With so many ideas, frameworks and success stories, how can you cut through the noise and capture what’s most relevant for your company?
Intrapreneurship is vital for all organizations to thrive in the 21st century - equally important for large firms, SMEs, and family businesses. Is there a proven recipe, a one size fits all approach to promoting intrapreneurship?
Innovation sounds easy, but it is not. The majority of enterprises report dissatisfaction with innovation performance. Three quarters of the CEOs of multinationals view external collaborative innovation as vitally important, but only half do it, and those only rate themselves as doing it ‘moderately well’. And remember - two thirds of organizational ‘change’ efforts fail. In case you are now asking yourself, why are these odds that low – we have a straightforward answer. It’s just one word.
We are moved by goals. The resolve to reach the finish line pushes us forward: at work, in life. Why then do we keep idea management initiatives alive when it’s not clear what results they deliver (if any)? And how often have we yearned for a formula that definitely makes it all happen?
Implementing open innovation requires a shift in mindset and a change in culture. It requires individuals to be open for external ideas and to share knowledge. This is not the way innovation is managed traditionally. For individuals to behave in a way that fosters open innovation, support from the top management seems to be crucial. Is this really the case? Or are top executives too far away from the action when it comes to innovation and open innovation?
Running a successful enterprise innovation management program can be a challenging mission. Multiple factors have to be considered,each of which affect potential outcomes. One key aspect is the level of support an innovation program receives from an organization’s management. Connecting the needs of top-down management with the strategy and architecture of an innovation program will always lead to greater levels of success.
Global business is currently undergoing one of the most significant changes seen in the last thirty years. What commenced as a computer hardware revolution in the 1980s has now given way to a software revolution that is impacting every organisation, a revolution which is accelerating at such a rate that many businesses are having difficulty keeping pace.
As the economy is dynamically changing and innovation becomes crucially important, a look into the management practices and risks that such projects face should always be welcome. In part two of this series of articles focused on identifying risks on innovation projects, the attention will be directed towards the identification of the internal and hidden risks of innovation projects.
Paul Sloane uses a gambling analogy to show how uncertain innovation is and why senior management isn't likely to approve a new idea after several failures in a row.
Two new research studies examine on the one hand personal values among young adults on the other the realities of corporate values and culture. Both have some harsh truths to tell. The two forms of ‘relative values’ these studies discuss, have implications for strategic flexibility and devolved decision making for market success. Coupled with greater transparency they may also mean that companies need to take a long hard look at their corporate cultures.
For years, management and business schools have vastly exaggerated the importance of tools and theories in delivering innovations to the markets effectively. As common sense indicates, the overwhelmingly important predictor of success for an innovation is not the use of tools, “innovation frameworks”, or handbook of rules, but the quality of leadership of the project and the talent and motivation of the staff carrying it out. In innovation management, we need to go back to basics.
