How to Create an Innovative Mindset?

In sixty percent of all organisations only a little minority (less than ten percent) has an innovative mindset. That's why I share this article on how you can create an innovative mindset and a culture for innovation to 'let the old elephant dance again'.

Most Organisations Lack People with an Innovative Mindset

My LinkedIn poll of this week shows after four days and 426 votes that most people are not innovative. In 61 percent of all organisations less than ten percent of all people have an innovative mindset. In only eleven percent of the cases it's more than fifty percent. It confirms what we all see around us: organisations are stuck in operational excellence. It made them once profitable but they are lacking a culture for innovation to transform themselves to stay future-fit.

It does not surprise me that so many organisations and their people are fully in the 'operational excellence mode', focussing only on profits today. Of course people work very hard, and improve their offerings forced by changing market circumstances. But they still get surprised when new players enter their market with totally new (digital) solutions ...

What is an innovative Mindset?

Creating an innovative mindset is a catalyst for creating a culture for innovation. Lets start defining it ...

People with an innovative mindset are future-thinking, creative and willing to experiment [Gijs van Wulfen].

Future-thinking

People with an innovative mindset are future-thinkers. They are curious: observing and questioning the present market circumstances, - customers, and technology. They are trend spotters and reflect on them with what-if questions opening their minds for new solutions.

Creative

Operational excellence creates a pattern how to be successful today. People with an innovative mindset are creative. They are able to break the present patterns and imagine other new ways of delivering value to their partners in the value chain and to their end-customers.

Willing to Experiment

To innovate is a verb. It means you actually have to DO something different to make changes happen. That's why people with an innovative mindset are willing to experiment, because that's what successful innovation is built on. It's all about doing (small) experiments. The ones which are not successful, you stop. And the ones which have potential value for your customers and yourself you scale up fast.

How to Create an Innovative Mindset?

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, when the internet was just emerging I worked at a huge worldwide consultancy firm in The Netherlands. One of our clients was a leading health insurance company, a huge organisation. The leadership team wanted to make the organisation more innovative. They reasoned that they first had to create a more innovative mindset first before they could start innovating. So they hired the consultancy firm I worked for to train their staff to get a more innovative mindset. They rented a huge venue with twenty breakout rooms to train five hundred people all at the same time in a one-day-training. I still remember so well being in a bus with nineteen other colleagues driving to this venue on the Dutch coast. After a short plenary introduction of the CEO on the necessity of being innovative me and my colleagues trained each twenty-five people by lecturing them and doing exercises.

Later I heard that my consultancy company had performed a test among the 500 participants one week before the training and two weeks after the training. When they compared the scores it appeared that 90 percent got a more innovative mindset ... I was appalled when I heard my managing partner say that the training was a huge success. It was only a short term effect .... ON PAPER .... This training, which costed more than 150.000 Dutch guilders, was in the end a complete and utter farce, with no effect at all.

To let 'old elephants dance again' I resigned from the old-school consultancy world and founded a start-up to create a methodology to start innovation in a more effective way. As most of you know, it resulted in the FORTH innovation methodology, which is now one of the leading innovation methods in the world, available in thirteen languages. It combines design thinking and business thinking and is depicted below as a structured expedition of twelve to fifteen weeks.

Eight years ago I was asked by the CEO of ESKA, the leading solid cardboard manufacturer, Kees van Zijderveld to facilitate a FORTH innovation project to start innovation in his organisation. As you can see below the innovation project delivered as promised four new business cases for innovation to his great satisfaction.

At the end of the project Kees, the CEO, while reflecting on their FORTH innovation journey quoted a fishing analogy. He said: "Gijs, you know, the main catch is the by-catch and the by-catch is the main catch". And he explained: "The original goal was to create new solutions for existing - and new markets to make our company more innovative and future-fit. And yes we did. But for me this result is the by-catch, because what our FORTH journey of four months accomplished was, while innovating, creating an innovative mindset among all twelve team members, including me. This is the real value of applying your methodology, which has a much more lasting effect".

Of course this really resonated with me, and it changed my views on creating innovative mindsets among people working at big organisations which have been years only focussed on operational excellence. The only real way to create an innovative mindset is to start innovating.

The only way to create an innovative mindset is to start innovating ...

Innovating is Like Swimming

Learning to innovate is like learning to swim. You can go to the library and read a book about swimming. You can go to the swimming pool and walk around it. You can put your hand in the water to feel the temperature of the water. And you can even interview people who are in the water.

But in the end, the only way to learn to swim is by jumping into the water yourself.

Learning to innovate is like learning to swim. You can only learn it by jumping into the water yourself [Gijs van Wulfen].

So let's jump in!

Wishing you lots of success creating innovative mindsets in your organisation.

Innovative regards,

Gijs

Ps. When you are looking for an inspiring keynote to help you spark innovation, consider hiring me as a speaker. Have a look at www.gijsvanwulfen.com or reach out to me, sending me a personal message or comment on this post.