Five Tips for Innovating from the Inside
Sally Susman
![Sally Susman]()
Sally Susman
Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Pfizer, Author of WSJ Bestseller Breaking Through (Harvard Business Review Press)
I had a fantastic time last week at the Pennsylvania Conference for Women with four dynamic women, Nathalie Molina, Gayle Jennings-O'Byrne, Morgan Berman, and Andrea Conrad. Our panel, Innovation Quotient: Making Your Mighty Idea a Reality, sparked a lot of creative thought. I came away with five tips for innovating from the inside:
- Be an Insider: Understand the business and support it. Become a trusted partner to your business leadership and take the time to truly understand the business realities at your company. It is when you earn that trust, that you will then be trusted to bring new thinking into the organization.
- Take a “Time Out” for Creativity: Carve out time to let your mind think freely. To percolate. Whether you are walking to work or working out, let your mind wander and observe the world around you. Most of the time, the best ideas come when you are outside of the office. We recently held a writer’s workshop for the department where we talked about the importance of freeing our minds to allow creativity to flow.
- Pilot First: Sometimes a phased launch will go a long way to see how consumers and stakeholders initially respond to your creative. For example, we did a “soft launch” on the web of our Driven to Discover the Cure ad to test the waters before it went on national TV.
- Be Nimble: Know when it is time to move on. Not every idea works out and sometimes you have to shift focus or acknowledge failure. Do it swiftly, but take the time to do a post-mortem to better understand why it failed and reflect on lessons learned.
- Commit: Make innovation part of your annual performance goals. Commit each quarter to doing something differently. Even if it is just trying a new approach at an internal meeting. The more you innovate in your day to day, the more the instinct to innovate will become part of your routine.
Student at Allama Iqbal Open University
6 年I love u
Student at Allama Iqbal Open University
6 年I love u
Communication Problem-Solver??Construction, Ag companies, & Associations call me when they want to retain a workforce, increase accountability & solve communication problems. Bestselling Author. Wine concierge wannabe??
6 年Great tips Sally. Another one for your list: Volunteer your ideas. So many times people have good ideas, but the don’t get to the table. We need to be willing to volunteer our ideas. Speak up, volunteer to sit on committees, and participate in the process. Don’t wait to be asked. Thanks for the tips Sally!
Chief Marketing Officer | Cloud | AI | SaaS
6 年Innovation is something I always try to keep front of mind. Constantly a/b testing strategies, technology, etc. in uncovering what works and what doesn't, all in an effort to provide better value to customers in enhancing the customer experience.