In conversation with innovation expert, Cris Beswick.

In conversation with innovation expert, Cris Beswick.

Welcome to ONETalk, an interview series where I talk to some of the world’s biggest game-changers in their respective fields. ONETalk is all about sharing knowledge, ideas, and inspiration from leading thinkers, makers and influencers from around the world. Today I’m talking to Cris Beswick - author, speaker and expert in innovation, and founder of the content platform, The Future Shapers.

Sabine:

How important is innovation to an organisation’s survival?

Cris:

I think it’s fair to say that there are many things that are important to an organisation’s survival but, in many cases, innovation has been made out to be the panacea. Driving growth and value is actually a multidisciplinary quest, however, there’s no doubt that innovation is one of the key ingredients.

The pace of change that organisations now have to match, means that building corporate innovation capability has become more important today than ever before. If you look at many of the global innovation surveys produced annually by the big consultancies, the evidence is clear that CEOs and senior leaders now value innovation more than ever before. In many surveys, seventy percent or more CEOs admit their companies are too reliant on fading revenue streams1 and similar figures are true for how many CEOs say the pace of changing market conditions is forcing them to reinvent themselves faster than ever before2. So it’s not surprising then, that in the same surveys, anywhere between ninety and one hundred percent of CEOs say their long-term success is dependant on their ability to drive innovation3.

The challenge is that innovation now needs to be driven at a different pace and scale. And as we’ve also seen a shift from a pure product focus to creative mixes of product, experience, business model etc., the challenge of delivering innovation has also become more complex.

Sabine:

In your opinion, what is the single biggest barrier to organisations driving innovation?

Cris:

We know from the work we do and the research that we curate every year that there are still significant areas holding organisations back from driving the kind of growth and value that they want and/or need. But, if I broadly categorise them for you, the majority of barriers fall into three areas, strategy, leadership and culture. One of the biggest strategy challenges, for example, is organisations not being able to align an innovation strategy to the core corporate strategy. That is of course if they even have an innovation strategy!

And from a culture perspective, core challenges around day-to-day working practices in most cases being the opposite of what is required to create the right behaviour and ecosystem for innovation, are still proving to be significant barriers to building corporate innovation capability.  

However, the biggest challenge I see from the work we do and all the research still absolutely supports this, is leadership. There’s still evidence around core gaps in senior leaders actually understanding innovation, being able to think about innovation strategically and also, how to then lead specifically for innovation. In my experience, in most cases that’s because organisations haven’t actually developed their leaders to be ‘innovation’ leaders and that’s a corporate education issue.

The majority of the organisations I’ve advised have invested significant budget over the years in developing their leaders but that executive education or development has been focused on traditional and generic leadership. Every time I ask a group of senior leaders whether they’ve had lots of support in helping them develop as leaders the answer is an almost unanimous yes. However, when I then ask what percentage of that development has focused on leading for the future, the response is always far from adequate. Because of that there’s a sense across the boardrooms I have conversations in that leadership development is broken, or at best outdated and solving that is one of the priorities for driving innovation. I think we need to reframe the leadership excellence many of our organisations have and think of it as the foundation for developing innovation-focused leadership. We need to challenge leaders in new ways and add things like empathy, bravery, adaptability, curiosity, exploration and much deeper purpose if we want them to become pioneers.

Sabine:

Can you describe what you mean by ‘culture of innovation’?

Cris:

I think the first thing to do is deal with the elephant in the room. What actually is innovation? My perspective and what we help companies understand is that innovation isn’t a ‘thing’ - it’s an outcome. The challenge we have is that the word has been misused and over-used and, therefore, devalued. So, reframing exactly what it is and defining it for everyone in an organisation is always the first thing I like to do. So, if we think of innovation now as an outcome (i.e. something others, competitors and more importantly, our customers label what we do) it changes the way you look at innovation. The goal we seek as organisations is not to self-profess that what we do is innovative, but to have our customers say “wow, that is really cool, amazing, that’s innovative”. That validation is the key.

If we then agree that culture is the sum of the values, actions, behaviours and working practices of all the people across your organisation, the leadership challenge is building an ecosystem where the collective output of your organisation is customers saying “wow, that’s really innovative”. 

That for me is a culture of innovation. However, despite my last bestselling book actually being called ‘Building a Culture of Innovation’ it’s more accurate to say ‘a culture where what we do as an organisation every day is labelled innovative by our customers’ but that’s not a title I think I could have convinced my publishers to go with!

Sabine:

What are some things organisations can do to create that culture?

Cris:

The main thing to do is build a picture of the required culture then reverse engineer back to where you are today. When you de-construct that future culture, you then unpack the working practices that need to be true to enable that culture. You then figure out what the core enablers of those things are and put them in place, constantly watching for disablers as the new working practices develop and become part of how people collaborate on a day-to-day basis.

The more fundamental things though are around providing clarity on the innovation strategy and, more importantly, visibility of senior level sponsorship and ownership of the innovation agenda. Then it’s about helping everyone understand how that translates into working practice and the surrounding ecosystem.

Sabine:

Is it better for innovation to come from the inside or the outside of an organisation?

Cris:

The truth is that organisations need both. To grow, any organisation needs to unearth and then solve internal problems, efficiencies, structures and its people. But it also needs to unearth customer problems and opportunities in order to drive growth and value and compete on the world stage.

So collaboration both internally and externally is now crucial. The reality is that the world is moving too fast for organisations to always have all the skills they need to solve all the problems and opportunities they uncover. So, new models of collaboration and corporate innovation ecosystem design are now emerging.

Sabine:

What do you say to organisations who are monopolies or market leaders by a long shot, who don’t believe in investing in innovation?

Cris:

The truth is I fear for organisations who think this way. In my experience, complacency and the resulting lack of action and failure to adapt to the shifting environment is the single biggest killer of organisations, and that’s been particularly true post-Lehman Brothers. We all know many of the global brands, once billion-dollar companies, that have gone bust over the last decade.

Adapting and shifting is crucial to staying aligned with customers and is key to

providing exceptional products, services and experiences for them. The other issue and thus requirement for innovation, is shrinking organisational lifespan. Research now suggests at the current rate, half of the S&P 500 will be replaced within the next decade.

Sabine:

How does an organisation get started in innovating?

Cris:

The core thing every organisation needs to do, is start by measuring where they are today. The best way is to measure your current level of innovation maturity. Think of a satellite navigation system in your car. The first thing it does when you turn on the ignition is to triangulate your exact position, not a ‘rough’ position but accurate to within a few feet. The analogy is the same for organisations who want to build a culture of innovation. Understanding your exact start point enables you to plot the best route towards where you want to get to over a given timeframe. 

Mapping out that journey actually requires reverse engineering the journey from the desired future state back to the current state. However, there also needs to be a hypothesis based approach to this. Just like the sat nav system, the journey isn’t set in stone, as things change along the route and an organisation must be able to adapt to that along the way, always keeping the future in mind. A hypothesis-based approach is a much better way of pushing forward in a constantly adaptable mode.

Sabine:

How important is innovation to customers/to the public?

Cris:

Customers and consumers now demand innovation more than they ever did, even if they don’t specifically ask for it. Because of this, the price of entry is being pushed higher and higher as people demand more for less, faster and better and that we meet them where they are at.

The convenience, connectivity, gratification etc. that people want, means we as innovation-focused brands need to continuously delight them, connect with them and help make their lives better. That means innovation has now become the common ground, a conduit between companies and their customers, and, if used in the right way (i.e. co-unearthing problems and opportunities with customers not for them, and genuinely co-creating solutions with them) builds proximity and relationships that are incredibly powerful.

My fundamental passion is solving problems, and the more systemic problems we solve, the better we make the world and the more we shape the future. And that’s really what customers, the public, and people want us to do.

  

Thanks for reading this ONETalk interview with Cris Beswick. I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on this post. If you want to keep updated with the game-changing conversations I’ll be publishing, please follow my ONETalk series on LinkedIn.

 

You can find out more about Cris Beswick by following him on LinkedIn, checking out his website, and reading his book, Building a Culture of Innovation.

 

 

 

Sources:

1 https://www.prlog.org/12314834-new-study-three-in-four-uk-corporates-rely-on-dying-revenue-streams.html

2 https://www.innovacion.cl/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Accenture-Why-Low-Risk-Innovation-Costly.pdf

 



Iteration is NOT Innovation. ... just sayin.

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Cris Beswick

C-suite Strategic Advisor on Innovation-led Growth | Co-founder of OUTCOME | Award-winning Author | Keynote Speaker | Investor

5 年

Thanks Sabine SCHEUNERT?- really enjoyed our conversation - it's always inspiring to work and collaborate with people who share the same passion for?#innovation?#innovationstrategy?#innovationleadership?#innovationculture

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