Your First 100 Days On The Innovation Job (and Beyond)

With Strategyzer we often get called in when a new leader starts their innovation job. We generally get mandated by the CEO or senior leadership or the person starting their job gets in touch with us directly. In this post I'll outline the dos and don'ts of the first 100 days on the innovation job (and beyond).

?? If you are a new (but maybe also experienced) innovation leader, do you know what really matters? Do you have a benchmark to compare your goals and actions with? Do you really know what good looks like? Here are a couple of thoughts to get you going...

?? The #1 mistake we see is that new innovation leaders often focus on the "how?", rather than the "what?" and "who?". The "how?" in terms of processes, frameworks, and metrics is very similar from one company to another. Don't waste your time on re-inventing the wheel. Companies like Strategyzer do this for hundreds of companies. Just through sheer experience they know what works and what doesn't. In particular for new (but also experienced) innovation leaders it's best to focus on what is extremely context specific, such as the "what?" and "who?". The "what?" is all about what type of growth and innovation you are looking for in your particular context. It's also about which mix of innovation programs will get you there. The "who?" is all about who you need to bring on board in your organization to make things happen.

? We advise new innovation leaders to get three things done when they start. Firstly, understand the company's growth and innovation objectives as well as its innovation maturity. Secondly, immediately start building alliances to eliminate innovation blockers and establish enablers. Thirdly, outline your innovation objectives and how you will achieve them.

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1) UNDERSTAND THE COMPANY'S GROWTH OBJECTIVES AND INNOVATION MATURITY

As a new innovation leader you first need to understand the company's growth and innovation ambitions and its ability to get there (ie its innovation maturity). The ambitions should be derived from the strategy in terms of growth objectives and types of innovation. You need to ask how much growth will come from organic sources, from acquisitions, from investments, or from innovation (more in this post ). Then you need to ask what type of innovation is expected. Does the company just want new products, services, or value propositions? Or is the company ready to go full business model innovation? That brings us to the question of innovation maturity. How ready is the company to create real innovation results?

With my colleague Tendayi Viki we outlined how a company can assess its innovation maturity. To go deeper, watch the video with Tendayi , download our playbook , or watch our webinar on the topic.

There are three things you need to assess to understand a company's innovation maturity:

• You start by analyzing how much growth has been generated by innovation so far. In other words, is there an innovation portfolio and has it delivered?
• Then you dissect the culture. Ask what blocks innovation today and what enables it?
• Finally, you study all the company's current and past innovation programs and look at the results.

This will give you a strong understanding of the company's growth and innovation ambition and capability gaps. Contact our [email protected] team if you're interested in learning more about our Innovation Maturity Sprint.

If you are a new innovation leader willing to challenge the status quo in your organisation, get in touch with our team [email protected] . We're here to?help!

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2) BUILD ALLIANCES TO ELIMINATE INNOVATION BLOCKERS AND ESTABLISH ENABLERS

One of the most important and most underestimated roles of the innovation leader is that of the ambassador. Companies develop incredibly strong antibodies against anything that looks differently than the core business. Therefore, the job of the innovation leader is to create alliances from day one.

Your Innovation Maturity Assessment will provide you with the key blockers and key enablers in the company. Use that to build alliances. Address stakeholders who may be blockers with a charm offensive and the backing of your CEO or leadership. Use stakeholders who are enablers to launch first projects and create quick wins.

There are two areas that are crucial in terms of alliance building. Who will you bring onto the growth board that resides over innovation portfolio investment decisions? How will you convince key business functions to play ball and support innovation projects. Teams that are exploring new ideas will need support from marketing, legal, and other areas depending on industry and project.

???? Read more about How Intrapreneurs Can Work With Key Functions To Drive Innovation by Tendayi Viki.

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3) CRAFT YOUR THREE YEAR INNOVATION OUTCOMES & PROGRAMS

Based on everything you've learned in your assessment, you can start outlining your innovation objectives and how you will get there.

You need to make three main areas explicit:

• ?? Growth Objectives for your Innovation Portfolio: What growth or impact will you deliver after a year, two years, three years, and beyond. You need to highlight quick wins from efficiency innovation, while building a portfolio of projects focusing on new value propositions and business models. The days of innovation theatre are over and it's time to deliver a Return on Investment (ROI) from innovation . In most cases the innovation return is monetary. However, return could also very well focus on social or environmental impact or employee engagement.
• ?? Innovation Culture & Governance Objectives: How do you aim to transform the company's innovation culture and adapt its governance? What kind of system do you intend to put in place to make innovation systematic, repeatable, and scalable. This includes topics like creating a growth board or investment committee and setting up evidence-based investment criteria .
• ? Innovation Programs: Outline which innovation programs you intend to invest in to achieve the portfolio and culture results outlined above. This may include leadership training, intrapreneurship programs, innovation metrics implementation, or any other innovation vehicle imaginable. Most important is to highlight how they will function as an integrated mix to achieve innovation strategy, deliver results and shift corporate culture. ???? Read more on innovation programs .

?? DON'TS

Last, but not least, here are the things I personally believe you should NOT waste time on:

• ?? Don't focus on designing innovation processes, because service providers like Strategyzer have optimized the innovation process over hundreds of projects. Just by experience there is no chance you could be better at it. Focus on what's specific to your context and what you're better at: your industry, your culture, your people.
• ?? Don't focus on creativity and ideation, because that's not the hard part in innovation. Ideas are not the problem . The hard part in innovation is testing and iterating ideas UNTIL a value proposition that customers care about and a business model emerge.
• ?? Don't focus on trying to pick the right ideas (from a selection of idea brainstorms). Early on in the innovation process good ideas and bad ideas look similar. The best innovators invest small amounts of money in many ideas, and double down on projects that show evidence and traction. They build a portfolio and are highly capable of killing ideas to allocate resources into projects that matter.
• ?? Don't focus on large-scale training programs to try to turn everybody into an innovator. Build a system that allows innovators to innovate. Tear down the blockers that hold innovators back. Any company beyond maybe 100 people doesn't lack ideas and capable people. They lack the system for innovators to thrive.
• ?? Don't waste time on analyzing the environment or trends or even worse mandate a consultancy to deliver an expensive research report. Invest in teams to explore ideas based on a light innovation/portfolio guidance that provides the guardrails.

Don't hesitate to reach out to our team. We LOVE ?? helping new (and established) innovation leaders succeed and avoid the most common mistakes we've seen over the years. Get in touch with [email protected] . We're here to?help!