The Oath of a CInO

A chief innovation officer (CInO) for an organization is a key position to have. The same way marketing, supply, logistics, sales or finance have a seat at the executive table, innovation is one to be promoted. Without the chief innovation officer's guidance and leadership, there will be a lack of drive and determination in an organization to innovate. The CInO is also critical in setting up an innovation strategy for the company that goes along with its overall mission, vision, and values.

Organizational Structure

The CInO typically reports directly into the chief executive officer (CEO) of a business or company so they can work closely together on providing the strategy to come up with new ideas so they can stay ahead of competitors within the industry. This structure empowers innovation inside the organization, and these new ideas can turn into products, services, benefiting the overall business.

Innovation Strategy

An organization can't simply have a CInO without developing an overarching strategy on where they want their organization to go in terms of innovating. He is responsible for setting the company's innovation thesis.?The CInO should lead this process by figuring out what kinds of innovative products or services are wanted within the industry, how those products will compete against current companies, and how much money it will take for development. He should also consider how well any current products in the company's pipeline are innovating.

After figuring out what kind of innovative direction an organization wants to go, it is time for the CInO to drive that strategy into action, by developing a plan on how they will get there and communicate it throughout the whole organization. This means making key strategic decisions about what teams need to be involved and how each team can contribute to achieving these goals.

Organizational Innovation Culture

One of the chief innovation officer's most critical roles is instilling an atmosphere of organizational innovation culture through empowering employees to think outside-the-box and take ownership in pushing new ideas or strategies forward. He and his team will lead initiatives, innovation processes, and innovation workshops. By empowering employees to be the best they can be in terms of innovating, and having a clear pathway (processes) for them to take any idea to scale, it will create a better work environment for everyone and increase productivity.

One thing that is obvious to happen, is that an atmosphere need to be set up where failure is celebrated as long as it is part of creating innovative ideas or products.?If employees feel like their failures are not accepted in an organization, they will want to keep them internal rather than share their problems with others who might have a solution that could help them out.

Everyone in an organization should feel empowered by the CInO so that they feel comfortable sharing new ideas or strategies with other members of their team - even if those ideas aren't perfect yet. The ultimate goal is to drive organizational innovation culture, which means that employees should be encouraged to produce a high number of ideas. And it’s the CInO’s managers’ job to make sure these ideas become projects with measurable progress, aligned with the innovation thesis, so decisions can be made at a Board level, taking into account the entire innovation portfolio.??

In a quick summary, the CInO's main responsibilities include the following:

- setting up an organization's overarching strategy for how they want to innovate and what innovative products or services they want to develop;

- driving this strategy into action throughout the whole company by empowering employees and holding key strategic decision making roles;

- driving an organizational innovation culture so that all employees feel comfortable sharing new strategies or ideas with other members of their team.

- ?having front-line managers that ensure ideas turn into projects, with actionable data for better decision-making at a portfolio level, and ensuring decisions at the executive level also become more data driven and integrated with corporate innovation efforts.