Change execution best practices with Enterprise Innovation Transformation

Last week, I had the pleasure to catchup again with the senior leadership team of one of our ASEAN clients and their entire one-down community to walk through the Working Backwards Toolkit. The WB Toolkit is a set of hands-on, practical tools that allow any company to deploy Amazon’s famous Working Backwards approach to innovation even if that company lacks all the other aspects of Amazonian Peculiar Culture. In previous posts, I have spoken about the great innovation outcomes enjoyed by DBS, Changi Airports, Astro, and Petronas, just to name just a few.

As usual, it was a jam packed session. But uniquely, since we happened to have several very experienced coaches in the room, we added a panel discussion on implementation bugbears and surprises – challenges faced by other customers in scaling change and challenging the legacy barriers to innovation that all firms have.

There were a few really nice gems of implementation wisdom that came up, so I wanted to record them here for the larger audience.

1.??????Successful change at scale requires a multi-pronged approach that engages the 4 levers of MASS (Mindsets, Abilities, Systems and Structures). Addressing MASS piecemeal leads to stalls – for example, Systems and Structures without the trained people with the right mindsets will just be hamstrung and passive aggressived to death.?Likewise ready and excited leaders that lack systems and structures will flail and fail to scale.

2.??????For WB to scale, leaders need to be ambassadors of the “scientific method mindset” of Observation, Hypothesis, Experiment, and Analysis.?This cycle needs to be talked about and used even beyond the process of innovation (for example, use it in strategy).

3.??????We need to be sensitive to HiPPOs in the organization and not turn them into enemies. But, at the same time, we need to Insist on Highest Standards and stop HiPPO behaviour and decision making. This can be done with good neurolinguistics, a dash of patience and flexibility, and careful language in general. At the same time, we should all be humble about our own HiPPO qualities and make sure we put in place mechanisms to protect us from our own proclivities.

4.??????It is impossible to communicate too much.?Celebrating wins and communicating in a radically human way was a critical success factor for all previous customers. Communications and events must be coordinated, explicitly themed, and aggressive.

5.??????We must constantly remind ourselves that innovation is never about special time, special activities, or special people.?To scale, Innovation must be incorporated into everyone’s day-to-day job at every level of the organization.?It should not require “after hours” heroics or theatrical activities like hackathons or idea campaigns.

6.??????Use the tools and trust the tools.?WB is actually about discipline. It is about using the 10 tools in the right ways, in the right order, at the right times, and with the right people. Don’t cut corners and don’t drop your standards. One way to do that is to engage coaches and bar raisers or to build your own coach and bar raising communities internally.

Are you feeling a stall in your digital transformation program??Maybe it is because you over invested in technology and platform and under invested in people, mechanisms, and culture.?We’ve seen that MANY times!?Gimme a buzz if you would like to learn how we can help you supercharge your innovation capabilities at scale and get back to enjoying the business returns promised by technology and platforms.

Bill Randall Navin Wathan #kornferry