6C Innovation Framework

“Innovation”, “Disruption”, “Emerging / Future Technologies” are some words that are part of the lexicon of all modern corporates. If it is not so, the corporate is either already delinquent or fast approaching its demise. But, how can an organization get to become innovative? How can they bring these words to life? I am constantly asked these questions – what do we need to do to build a sustainable innovation that keeps as relevant for years to come?

Below is my proposed 6C Framework that enables sustainable, relevant and actionable innovation. The key to implementing such a framework is that this has to be done at the “right” level. Any more or less can alter the balance and ruin it.

Each of the 6C’s is critical but the sum of the whole is much larger and effective than the sum of the parts.

Culture: What will the culture of a buoyant innovative organization feel like? I believe that in such an organization, the executive leadership unwaveringly supports innovation; helps promote it through the ranks to reach the furthest node; collects and implements the ideas in a transparent manner, and, most importantly, embraces failure. The employees of such a firm will be informed (knowledgeable) about and involved with innovations. Thus, slowly, innovation becomes part of the company's DNA, rather than being yet another "flavor of the month". The customers, consequently, reap the benefit of such employees who confidently bring the best innovative thinking / attitude to them.

To promote this culture, the executives of the firm use all possible “signals” -- values statements, awards, success stories, posters in the hallways, catch phrases, acronyms, road shows for employees; newsletters etc. These actions send a comforting signal to the stakeholders (innovation partners; employees and customers) in the ecosystem on the intent and commitment of the firm to innovation.

Although I honestly believe that all the 6 C’s are critical to establishing an innovative firm; Culture overlaps with all the other 5 C’s.

Collaborate: “The biggest winners in the 21st century business will be those that assemble a global ecosystem of partners, emphasizing flexible access to materials, products, talents, and expertise, not ownership.” - The New Age of Innovation, C.K. Prahalad and M.S. Krishnan

Just as a single R&D team cannot innovate in isolation, an organization cannot innovate by itself. It needs an ecosystem - a strong internal and external network. The internal networks (employees) contribute with ideas of applicability of the innovations in their business areas. These ideas are then cross-pollinated with external network (tech partners, universities) to make the end product cutting edge and future proofed. The participation of both the networks ensures that the ideas / innovations stay pertinent and do not fall off the curve of relevance.

Capture: For innovation to be alive in an organization, it is important to generate ideas – lifeline for innovation, fuel for the innovation engine. But, I feel, it is even more important to build processes and tools to capture these ideas that are generated through multiple ways – external / internal networks; ideation workshops; or brainstorming sessions. A transparent ideas management process enables companies to gather, filter, enrich, share, analyse and execute the ideas. The transparency of this process encourages the networks to continue to contribute with new ideas as they can track their ideas through the funnel.

Control: Innovation Steering Committee provides structure (control) to the activity that is unstructured (chaotic) – a left brain action to manage a right brain activity. Governance aligns the leadership behind the innovation initiative which, in turn, avoids duplicated innovation effort across business units / regions. With innovation governance, the short and the long-term innovation opportunities are balanced and ideas are business-led and technology enabled.

In order to optimize the impact of the Steering Committee, this should be a central body comprising of senior decision makers and influencers. A buoyant Steering Committee is a great signal to the employees of the company’s innovation intent.

Communicate: Many pages in multiple books are dedicated to the topic of communication. This, however, I believe, is a very critical part in establishing an innovation culture in the organization. A robust, omni-channel communication plan, that is social by design, can spread innovation to the end nodes and build inclusivity amongst the employees. By sharing failures and promoting success, an organization signals its acceptance of failure and celebration of success. Along with disseminating news / updates on innovation; communication strategy also facilitates a way for employees to be heard on innovation. Most importantly, knowledge of successful operationalization of a PoC in a BU, could possibly trigger further applicability of it in another BU. Communicate and grow!

Critical Success Factors: According to McKinsey, more than 70% of corporate leaders tout innovation as a top three business priority, but only 22% set innovation performance metrics. This is a significant problem.

Thomas Edison once remarked "Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility and utility is success". The most innovative organizations carefully consider what goes into the innovation process, but also consider what should come out of it. They focus on different types of measurements, and include both the quant side of the business (# of ideas generated; # of poc’s; # of ideas operationalized) and the qualitative side (innovation awareness; employee satisfaction). It is critical to be innovating in areas where the PoC’s can demonstrate clear utility to the stakeholders – the innovation should impact their lives.

Innovation is a journey and as an organization gets up the maturity curve on this journey, their success metrics will change.

This concludes the 6C Framework. I hope that this was useful. I am keen to get your feedback to make the framework more robust.