The Importance of Innovation Skills and Best Practices

by Jeffrey Phillips

There's a difference between knowing "about" innovation and having experience doing innovation. Just as I don't compare myself to Lance Armstrong although we both ride bikes, there are skills and knowledge that are manifest in people who lead effective innovation programs that may not always be manifest in your organization. These skills can be learned through training and through careful exercise within your organization, but it is dangerous to presume that people who have an interest in innovation possess the skills and best practices to carry out innovation efforts. This was brought home to me in a meeting I attended recently.

I was at a meeting with a number of other people interested in innovation, and we were asked to brainstorm to help solve a particular problem. A person who is an "innovation" leader in his company was asked to facilitate the brainstorming session. An executive from the firm who was facing the problem gave a brief presentation on their challenge and needs, and then the facilitator asked for ideas.

The meeting quickly disintegrated because the challenge we were addressing was too large and poorly defined, and the timeframe too small. While the challenge had been presented by the firm's CEO, it was unclear whether we were supposed to provide incremental or disruptive ideas, or merely validate a course the CEO identified in his presentation. Additionally, no one had done a good job setting a scope - what to include in your thinking or what to leave out for the purposes of this session. At one point one participant suggested that we couldn't generate ideas until we'd evaluated all the health care systems in all the major economic powers in the world. Unfortunately we only had two hours.

So, we got off to a rocky start because the problem was poorly framed (not the facilitator's fault) and really had far too many interlocking and interchangeable parts (again, not his fault). Also, we did not have a good understanding or framing of the scope - perhaps his fault, perhaps that of the sponsor. Even when the participants tried to extend the scope, the facilitator did not try to reframe the question. Next, one participant, clearly a "Clarifier" from the Foursight model, kept asking clarifying questions rather than submitting ideas. Being able to recognize a clarifier, and understand their needs, would have been helpful, but the facilitator also had failed to establish the rules of engagement. Once we entered brainstorming, we should have been focused on generating ideas instead of asking questions. Without a commonly held set of beliefs and rules, each person was participating in the session with their personal beliefs and rules. Since we didn't set out a scope or an expected process or set of rules, there was no orderly process for generating ideas.

To give credit where it is due, the facilitator did "take off" his facilitator hat and contribute ideas, so he nimbly stepped into and out of the facilitator role, and did a good job capturing ideas. This, though, in my mind was another signal that best practices weren't being followed. It was clearly a struggle to write down ideas and to manage the group simultaneously. Ideally we would have had a facilitator and a "scribe" to document the ideas.

This session led me to believe that many people conducting "idea generation" sessions in corporate America are doing more damage than good. If this example is indicative of what happens everyday in most organizations, then idea generation and brainstorming deserves a negative rap - and many innovation leaders and teams need training on conducting and facilitating brainstorming and idea generation.

Here's what should have happened:

1. Set the ground rules. There are a consistent set of rules for brainstorming, including "encourage wild ideas", "Go for quantity not quality", "Don't judge while ideating", etc.


2. Clearly define the opportunity or challenge. Make the issue smaller or simpler if necessary.


3. Define the scope - what should be considered and what should be ignored. We should have placed "all health care systems in the world" out of bounds from the start.


4. Allow people to ask clarifying questions before we start brainstorming. Once we start generating ideas, limit the questions, which often change scope.


5. Pick a scribe to capture ideas so the facilitator doesn't have to write down ideas and manage the group


6. Encourage the reticent and moderate the talkers. Any group, and ours was no exception, has people who are happy to toss ideas out all day long, and those who won't speak at all. We need to hear from everyone, and perhaps a bit less from some people (me included).


7. Keep the team on task and on target. When the "evaluate all health care systems in the world" statement was made, we should have been reminded that that was out of bounds, and we needed to refocus on what we could solve.


8. Stretch the group when necessary. The facilitator can/should occasionally ask questions that shift the group's thinking or introduces a new perspective.

These ideation rules and best practices are documented in a set of slides OVO has posted here. There are a number of good books written on this subject as well, probably the best is "Think Better" by Tim Hurson.

These skills aren't innate and must be learned and reinforced. My concern is that people who work on innovation activities may be leading events but may not be fully trained or may not have all the skills and capabilities necessary to be very effective. And effectiveness in this context matters, since we were trying to solve big problems very quickly with a heterogeneous group. Only good methods and good facilitation was going to get it done well.

If your organization is trying to generate new ideas internally and desires to be guided by internal staff (which we think is a good thing), invest in some training to ensure the innovation leaders understand their roles and best practices.

Innovation is too important to leave to chance. If it is important to your organization, train your team to be effective idea facilitators!


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Jeffrey Phillips is a senior leader at OVO Innovation. OVO works with large distributed organizations to build innovation teams, processes and capabilities. Jeffrey is the author of "Make us more Innovative", and innovateonpurpose.blogspot.com.

Innovation Training & Coaching - Overlooked?

by Robert F. Brands

Smart companies often pride themselves on training programs that introduce or enhance employees' knowledge of corporate business practices. They promote mentoring initiatives that pair seasoned execs with rising talent. They create booklets or PDFs on corporate policy - and implore staff to read them.

But introduce a business innovation initiative, and those involved are expected to just know how things are done. They're supposed to possess some innate awareness of the concepts, the best practices, the goals, milestones and targeted end-game.

It doesn't work that way.

Innovation is a learned concept. Training and coaching is the forgotten imperative in the process of innovation. For best practices in the pursuit of innovation have to be shared to be learned - and mastered.

From the Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) to the innovation team to rank-and-file employees who will implement, follow through or carry forth on the fruits of innovation, people don't just know. They're taught.

Organizations whose teams are not trained and coached in its unique approach to the imperatives of innovation are destined to amass a litany of failed projects.

For example, a major multinational launched a new Innovation initiative with the hopes of turn-around renewed profitability and growth. After much initial excitement and visibility, expected results did not materialize - and in the turn-around world, false starts are more costly for an organization than starts or restarts.

What happened? The team involved basic project management training. After a course of such training and coaching, associates had gained a common language and understanding. Progress was realized, and the company today remains on a growth path.

Training and coaching is vital to transmitting the organization's unique approach to innovation - and ensuring people adhere to its practices. Proper hiring, training and coaching is the way to create, reinforce and enhance company culture and mindset. At its root, training and coaching introduces people to the organization's vision, mission, strategy and objectives, and points everyone's compass toward True North.

Training and coaching should cover the lot - from the unique way ideation is treated, to the unique way ideas are cataloged and approached; teams are inspired, formed and managed; risk is assessed; new product development is explored; ownership is encouraged; value is created; accountability is attached; metrics are observed and measured; net results are rewarded; and yes, how teams are trained and coached.

Training and coaching is developed and delivered on a continuum. No sooner are existing policies and best practices discussed, then new procedures are introduced to further the organization's pursuit of innovation.

Continuity is the key. Training helps your team constantly improve its skill set, through new techniques in ideation, process experience and intra-organizational communication of best practices. Ongoing reinforcement helps employees understand their place and aspire to greatness on the New Product Development team (whether that "product" is a product, a service or an internal practice).

This goes beyond the team. Trainers and coaches need continuous training and coaching, as well. Even the CIO at times requires training and coaching on evolving corporate innovation practices.

Alas, training and coaching often is lost or last as companies often believe they have little time and money to fund these efforts. Best of breed companies have earmarked a dedicated budget to training and coaching.

Why? Because they realize the downside of not training - and retraining - their people in the process of innovation is to be mired in mediocrity.

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Robert F. Brands is President and founder of Brands & Company, LLC. Innovation Coach Robert Brands has launched a new site - www.RobertsRulesOfInnovation.com - to complement his upcoming book.

Which Countries Are Losing Their Innovation Capabilities?

by Stefan Lindegaard

I recently discovered reasons to take my innovation perspective to a national rather than a corporate level. The questions that went through my mind were like this:

• What if the behaviours of the citizens in a country determine the corporate ability to innovate?


• What if such behaviours directly hurt the corporate ability to innovate?


• A capability that is so important for the future of companies as well as countries.


• Or what if the behaviours hinder the chances of taking innovation to the next level?

The country I have in mind is my own, Denmark. I have long argued that Denmark does very well on innovation. Danes believe in flat hierarchies and that authorities and common beliefs should be challenged.

This is a good outset for innovation and we have always been pretty good at taking existing technologies or ideas, give them a little twist and then come up with new ways of using this.

This has worked very well for many years, but things are changing so fast and innovation is becoming an open and global process. Being open to new input and being tolerant towards other cultures and perspectives are keys to future success.

Personally, I travel a lot and I try hard to stay open to other cultures and perspectives. However, I might not be as open-minded as I think I am and perhaps it is even worse with many of my countrymen. I was told this by a German friend who has lived in Denmark for many years. Danes are not open and tolerant. On the contrary, Danes are viewed as being quite self-sufficient.

My German friend made me think and I now begin to see some answers to questions that have puzzled me for a while.

• Why are Danish companies not on the forefront of open innovation?


• Why do Danish media not cover open innovation better than they do?

I have always believed that Denmark has all what it takes to benefit from the shift towards open and global innovation. Could I really be so wrong? I am sad to say, but I think this is the case.

Nevertheless, I want to thank my German friend for opening my eyes and getting a new perspective on open innovation. This also raises other important questions.

• Which other countries stand to lose just as Denmark might do?


• Which countries stand to win on this?

I view countries such as France, Italy and Japan to be quite inward-focused. Will they lose out on innovation? If my perspective on this holds true, the U.S. definitely will be a winner. China? Not sure. They have a little of everything in them, but I believe they will come out as a winner as well.


Enough for now. Your thoughts?

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Stefan Lindegaard is a speaker, network facilitator and strategic advisor who focus on the topics of open innovation, intrapreneurship and how to identify and develop the people who drive innovation.

Optimizing Innovation - Dr. Guido Petit of Alcatel-Lucent

by Braden Kelley

We are happy to bring you some of the key points and insights from Dr. Guido Petit's talk at the Optimizing Innovation Conference, which was held October 21-22, 2009 in New York City.

Dr. Guido Petit, Director of the Alcatel-Lucent Technical Academy spoke about Optimizing Innovation through Entrepreneurial Boot Camps. The program had its genesis back in 2002 after massive layoffs at the company. At that point in time, the CEO decided to focus on making innovation the job of everyone. They started in Belgium with an idea generation site that they built. They received maybe ten idea submissions per month in Belgium after launching it.

But, then they decided to put a car on the parking lot and offer it as a prize. Submisions tripled to thirty per month. So, they got 150 ideas in the 5 months of the car contest. Eleven people were selected to pitch their ideas to senior leadership out of the 150 ideas. But this car prize promotion was a mistake. In the end we made one person happy and 149 people unhappy. This is not sustainable.

As a funny side note, the person who won the car, was someone who rode his bike to work every day, and he sold the car after one week. And after contest the volume of idea submissions dropped back to 10 per month, and none of the eleven selected ideas made it into a product (including the winner).

But, the guy with the second place idea proposed starting a program to help people learn how to develop their ideas. This evolved into our entrepreneurial boot camp.


"Let people pursue their passion."


The Entrepreneurial Boot Camp takes place over three weekends (Friday + Saturday) - with the Friday being donated by the company and the Saturday being donated by the employee, and then a dry run, and finally a Super Friday for people to pitch their ideas (all together this takes place over about three months - spaced 2 weeks apart).

For the program, we set expectations that idea subissions must be for a new business that will be worth 50-100 Million Euros in 3-5 years:

• Otherwise we just get a lot of process improvement ideas or suggestions on improving the food in the cafeteria

We partner with the Flanders Business School on the program and typically have five teams of five people with a senior manager as part of the team as a coach (for a total of six people). We generally have five or six teams per boot camp.

Super Friday consists of 15 minutes per team, with 12 slides each to target all 12 points including vision, competition, solution, etc.

• 30 minutes for Q&A


• Participants don't want to lose because this is a great exposure opportunity


• CEO, CTO and CFO of Alcatel-Lucent Belgium and venture capitalists make up the panel


• Now VCs are knocking on our doors to participate


• Only 1 of the 5 ideas will go into the incubation phase where market validation, fast prototyping, and a lead customer must be sourced


• Sometimes ideas are transfered immediately to business units if they are close to core

One thing that we have found is that people don't always want to post their idea on an innovation web site, so we have these 'dating events'. Idea owners can pitch their ideas to anyone in the company at a dating event to attract supporters. This also serves as an opportunity to connect people. We encourage people to merge research, mktg, finance, engineering, and sales into diverse teams.


"Talented people are everywhere but... they are not connected."


We have found that in our organization the smokers are the connectors, and so we have made it more comfortable for people to smoke. This is not to say that we encourage smoking.

• There are no salary levels when people smoke together


• Our smokers tend to be very social


• hey call people to go smoke


• They also like coffee and beer

We do our best to promote success stories from the boot camps. The boot camps are 80% coaching and 20% theory. Boot camps are done on top of daily duties.

We encourage risk-taking and entrepreneurship with our boot camps:

• A way to change the innovation mindset


• They provide an opportunity to scout entrepreneurial talent (finding people that have skills that are not otherwise shown and to possibly redeploy talent)


• HR doesn't know where the entrepreneurs are


• 80% of the ideas coming through the boot camps address new markets - the other 20% are new technologies for existing markets


• We include VC's and business school professors because they often have insights into new markets - either new or existing technology

The results of our boot camps so far?

• 2 internal ventures


• 3 projects in incubation


• 5 proposals were transferred to existing business units

Setting expectations is important to get the good ideas. Managing expectations is important because all of the teams believe they will win even though only one can win. For those teams that lose, they will get feedback from VC's and our executive leadership in the room.

Successful teams don't always move onto the incubation or venture teams. Some have had nobody transfer into the venture team and others have seen 4 of 5 carry forward onto the venture team. GM's for venture teams can be hired from outside.

We started two ventures in 2008. It is still to early to tell if they will be successful. We can tell you though that the business plans of ventures were different at the end of incubation and the at the end of the venture period than they were going in.

We are on Boot Camp 8 and we have now put 200 out of our 1,800 people through our boot camps and the number of ideas and the quality of ideas are inevitably and expectedly trending down. So now we are opening our boot camps to Alcatel-Lucent employees outside of Belgium, and we are sharing the methodology with other companies like Exxon, Agfa, Philips, J&J, Picanol, etc. We are also going to experiment with joint teams from more than one company.

One nice outcome has been that the alumni still supply new ideas and are interested in being coaches the next time around. Surprisingly, only about 10 of the 200 people in the program have left the company.

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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Spice Up a Long-Term Relationship

by Mike Brown

We're all likely involved in relationships tied to coaching, mentoring, or just plain supporting one another. They're tremendously helpful in personal and business growth, yet at times, these relationships can become stale.

What can you do if you find yourself in such a relationship? Here are four options to spice things up:

1. Add a Person

• I've been working out for more than three years with the same trainer. The results have been great, yet at times, we tend to fall into the same routines. When my niece was visiting last month, she went along as a guest trainee. The spirit of competition improved my effort and also created some new enthusiasm from my trainer.

2. Reverse Roles

• I've got a great career coach who can amazingly have one meeting with me that creates about nine month's worth of activity and progress. Recently we got together for lunch and turned the tables: I was able to provide some coaching for her on new possibilities she's considering. It was of benefit to her, and it was really exciting for me to give something back to someone who has done so much to help me!

3. Schedule a Reunion

• Early in my career, a group of us working as analysts for a challenging boss formed a tremendous bond as we tried to survive and figure out what we'd do with our careers. We don't get together often anymore, but we met for a happy hour recently to renew our friendship and share perspectives on what each of us is doing now.

4. Take a break

• If you find a once thriving coaching relationship has stalled, consider seeing other people. The break could be temporary or permanent, but may be just the thing to open up time to find other relationships that work better for both of you right now.

Give one or more of these a try so you can keep moving forward with renewed enthusiasm!

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Mike Brown is an award-winning marketer and strategist with extensive experience in research, strategy, branding, and sponsorship marketing. He's a frequent keynote presenter on innovation and authors Brainzooming!

Are You Crushing Creativity?

by Paul Sloane

CEOs have much more power than they realize. They can patiently create a climate of creativity or they can crush it in a series of subtle comments and gestures. Their actions send powerful signals. Their responses to suggestions and ideas are deciphered by staff as encouragement or rejection.

If you want to crush creativity in your organization and eliminate all the unnecessary bother of innovation then here are ten steps that are guaranteed to succeed. On the other hand, if you want innovation to flourish in your organization, then you should avoid or eliminate these counter-productive processes completely:

1. Criticize

• When you hear a new idea criticize it. Show how smart you are by pointing out some of the weaknesses and flaws which will hold it back. The more experienced you are, the easier it is to find fault with other people's ideas. Decca Records turned down the Beatles, IBM rejected the photocopying idea which launched Xerox, DEC turned down the spreadsheet and various major publishers turned down the first Harry Potter novel. The same thing is happening in most organizations today. New ideas tend to be partly-formed so it is easy to reject them as "bad." They diverge from the narrow focus that we have for the business so we discard them. Furthermore, every time somebody comes to you with an idea which you criticize, it discourages the person from wasting your time with more suggestions. It sends a message that new ideas are not welcome and that anyone who volunteers them is risking criticism or ridicule. This is a sure-fire way to crush the creative spirit in your staff.

2. Ban brainstorms

• Treat brainstorming as old-fashioned and passe. All that brainstorms do is throw up lots of new ideas that then have to be rejected. If your organization is not holding frequent brainstorm sessions to find creative solutions then you are not wasting time on new ideas. Instead you are sending a message to staff that their input is not required. If people insist on brainstorm meetings then make them long, rambling and unfocused with lots of criticism of radical ideas.

3. Hoard problems

• The CEO and senior team should shoulder the responsibility for solving all the company's major problems. Strategic issues are too complicated and high-level for the ordinary staff. After all, if people at the grass-roots knew the strategic challenges the organization faces then they would feel insecure and threatened. Don't involve staff in serious issues, don't tell them the big picture and above all don't challenge them to come up with solutions.

4. Focus on efficiency not innovation

• Focus solely on making the current business model work better. If we concentrate on making the current system work better then we will not waste time on looking for different systems. The current business model is the one that you helped develop and it is obviously the best one for the business. After all, if the makers of horse-drawn carriages had improved quality, they could have stopped automobiles from taking their markets. The same principle applied with makers of slide rules, LP records, typewriters and gas lights.

5. Overwork

• Establish a culture of long hours and hard work. Encourage the belief that hard work alone will solve the problem. We do not need to find a different way of solving a problem -- rather we must just work harder at the old way of doing things. Make sure that the working day has no time for learning, fun, lateral thinking, wild ideas or testing of new initiatives.

6. Adhere to the plan

• Plan in great detail and then do not deviate from the plan regardless of circumstances. "We cannot try that idea because it is not in the plan and we have no budget for it." Keep to the vision that was in the plan and ignore fads like market changes and customer fashions -- they will pass.

7. Punish mistakes

• If someone tries an entrepreneurial idea that fails then blame and retribution must follow. Reward success and punish failure. That way we will reinforce the existing way of doing things and discourage dangerous experiments.

8. Don't look outside

• We understand our business better than outsiders. After all we have been working in it for years. Other industries are fundamentally different and just because something works there does not mean it will work here. Consultants generally are over-priced and tell you things you could have figured out anyway. We need to find the solutions inside the business by working harder.

9. Promote people like you from within

• Promoting from within is a good sign. It helps retain people and they can see a reward for loyalty and hard work. It means we don't get polluted with heretical ideas from outside. Also if the CEO promotes people like him then he can achieve consistency and succession. It is best to find managers who agree with the CEO and praise him for his acumen and foresight.

10. Don't waste money on training

• Talent cannot be taught. It is it a rare thing possessed by a handful of gifted individuals. So why waste money trying to turn ducks into swans? Hire good people and let them learn our system. Work them hard and they can emulate the success of the CEO as he leads the company forward into the future.

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Paul Sloane writes, speaks and leads workshops on creativity, innovation and leadership. He is the author of The Innovative Leader published by Kogan-Page.

An Innovation 'Quick Fix'

Recently we received a call from a potential client. The individuals I spoke with noted a number of significant issues preventing them from innovation effectively. As I recall there were several significant issues: an 'engineering' oriented culture, several large customers who demanded exceptionally high quality, few competitors and a complete lack of risk taking in the organization. The good news is that the management team has recognized that what worked in the past will not work in the future. The team has to become more market oriented, and the organization has to learn to identify and satisfy more customers. New competitors are entering the market, so the firm, once very comfortable and slow moving, has to learn to move more quickly, identify customer needs and innovate to create new products and services.

So far, so good. A firm that has recognized the importance of innovation, and how far the firm is from being a 'good' innovator. The bad news is that the firm is seeking the proverbial 'quick fix'.

Rather than change the factors that influence whether or not a firm can innovate successfully, like the expectations people carry around with them, or how people are evaluated and compensated, or identifying some key new market opportunities and seeking out the best ideas, the firm asked for training. The executive team wanted to train five or six people in innovation methods over a couple of days. This training, it seemed, was budgeted and available to be spent, so that training would inform all the work that would be done to make the firm more innovative until the next budgets kicked in in January 2010.

Now, leave aside for a second the challenges that any firm faces when innovating and place yourself in the shoes of the folks who will be trained. What, exactly, are they going to do for the next four months? How can they succeed when everything in the culture is diametrically opposed to what they might learn? How can they enact any changes with no budgets, no clear goals and little management commitment? Why exercise this training budget simply because it exists to be spent?

Don't get me wrong, I am fully on board with training to improve innovation skills. We offer a program of innovation training, and that's why we had been called in. However, I can see a difficult proposition when I see one, and we suggested that this approach didn't make sense.

Leaving aside the matter of training, innovation requires bold leadership. Is it wise to take a number of people steeped in a culture that the firm admits will struggle to innovate and train them for a couple of days in innovation techniques but then not exercise any of the training? Can we even find a person who could define and manage an innovation program within the ranks of the people inside the organization? If we could find a person to lead an innovation effort, would he or she get any management help or funding? Probably not this year.

Everyone wants innovation, and everyone wants it to be easy, and fast, and painless. Yet they freely admit that their organization will struggle to innovate and that there are many competing interests and goals. Good innovators understand that innovation is driven by the culture of the organization, the expectation of the people and the leaders and that it is interesting, but hard work to do it well. There are no quick fixes for innovation, and if there's a significant amount of "low hanging" fruit in your organization, then your managers aren't doing their jobs.


There's no better time than the present to understand this and decide to take on the change necessary to become better at innovation. Every firm is rethinking its strategy and its capabilities in this downturn. Any reasonable firm knows that changes are in store for almost every firm in every industry. If change is necessary, and innovation requires change, let's do it now, and bite the bullet when we have to change anyway. There are no quick fixes or cheap solutions, but there are examples throughout every industry of firms that are innovating and reaping the benefits.

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Jeffrey Phillips is a senior leader at OVO Innovation. OVO works with large distributed organizations to build innovation teams, processes and capabilities. Jeffrey is the author of "Make us more Innovative", and innovateonpurpose.blogspot.com.