Spyreism no.7 - In order to become innovative organizations must innovate

There are things that have to be experienced to be truly understood and internalized. Innovation and entrepreneurship are precisely that, especially, in the warm and comfortable environment of established organizations. It is not enough to be inspired by innovation, read case studies and practice tools. There’s something about the magic that happens when dedicated people seek to focus on the most painful problems, keep iterating with a flexible mindset, get out of the office and collect evidence until they have a compelling pitch to get management to invest in them. There’s something about the surprise and delight that are experienced when a team realizes it discovered a way to propel the organization forward that no one was aware of before. That it can actually be done and not only is it feasible it also isn’t going to take so long.

In other words there’s no way to instill a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship into an organization without having people practicing, well, innovation and entrepreneurship. So to continue the conversation I described in my post, Laura, this innovation manager, was apprehensive about how to take the first step. I used the following analogy:

“When you decide that you’re going to run a marathon in six months and you’re 20kg overweight and out of shape then you can hang posters in your apartment, get inspired every day listening to quotes of famous athletes and watch “Chariots of fire” in a loop. Conversely, you could simply take your old pair of sneakers, get out of the house, walk till the end of the block and come back. The next day, you do the same but walk for two blocks, the following week you start to lightly jog instead of walking and so on”.

This analogy was very successful since it allowed Laura to begin with an activity we call “Innovation sprint”, which generates tangible outcomes within a short period of time, doesn’t require a lot of budget and resources and allows a group of employees to go through this entrepreneurial experience and attest to its benefits with their managers which can then generate demand for additional activities.

This “Just do it” approach has proven itself to be very effective in many of our clients in Israel and around the world. It is based on the following principles:

1. Action speaks louder than words - As an innovation manager, if you wish to get management support then you have to provide a demonstration of what success looks like. If you can provide such a demonstration at reasonable cost, people’s time and modest resources then you will get support to go ahead.
2. Results speak the loudest - Whatever demonstration you organize, it has to be concluded with impressive, tangible results. It isn’t enough to show “cool ideas”, “exciting startups” or “inspiring prototypes”. Managements have seen it all, done it all and have the T-shirts to show for it. If you want management teams to be impressed, show them how innovative ventures get adopted by their peers into the work plans. That’s a tall order but it’s doable as we at spyre have demonstrated many times as we have with Laura in this case.
3. Success properly leveraged, breeds success - Once this initial success is achieved through demonstration, take advantage of the momentum and continue spreading the activities to ever broadening areas of the organization. The more value you generate the bigger the appetite of the organization will become as managers realize the tremendous value that your activities generate.

If you wish to learn more about how this is done, click below to schedule a complimentary meeting https://www.spyre.group/advisorymeeting .