Change Implementation Techniques for Forming Transitional Team, Creating Alignment, Maximizing Connectedness and Creativity

Technique 6.6 Some Questions on Readiness for Innovation

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Answering the following questions will determine your organisation's readiness for innovation

i) Is your organisation ready to pump up its aspirations to the point where creating less than radical innovation won't suffice? Yes No

ii) Is your organisation ready to throw out its well-defined market and to look for more broad opportunities? Yes No

iii) Is your organisation ready to begin searching for a cause that will be so great, so totally righteous, that it will turn a bunch of apprehensive cubicle dwellers into crusaders? Yes No

iv) Is top management in your organisation ready to shut up for awhile and start listening, really listening, to the young, the new hires, and those at the geographic periphery? Yes No

v) Is your organisation ready to throw open its strategy process to every great idea, no matter where it comes from? Yes No

vi) Is your organisation ready to start funding ideas out on the lunatic fringe even if 80% of them return precisely zilch? Yes No

vii) Is your organisation ready to emancipate some of your best people so they can get to work on building tomorrow's business models? Yes No

viii) Is your organisation ready to de-couple compensation from hierarchy and experience, and share the wealth with the radical thinkers and courageous doers? Yes No

The more "yes" answers, the more prepared the organisation is for innovation

Shaking the foundations (new brick vs. old brick)

1 old brick - top management is responsible for setting strategy

new brick - everyone can help build innovative strategies

2 old brick - getting better, faster is the way to win

new brick ‐ rule-busting innovation is the way to win

3 old brick - information technology creates competitive advantage

new brick - unconventional business concepts create competitive advantage

4 old brick - being revolutionary is high-risk

new brick - more of the same is high-risk

5 old brick - we can merge our way to competitiveness

new brick - there is no correlation between size and profitability

6 old brick - innovation equals new products and new technology

new brick - innovation equals entirely new business concepts

7 old brick - strategy is the easy part, implementation is the hard part

new brick - strategy is easy only if you are content to be an imitator

8 old brick - change starts at the top

new brick - change starts with activists

9 old brick - our real problem is execution

new brick - our real problem is incrementalism

10 old brick - alignment is always a virtue

new brick - diversity and variety are the keys to innovation

11 old brick - big companies cannot innovate

new brick- big companies can become perpetual innovators

12 old brick - incumbents will always lose to entrepreneurial start-ups

new brick - incumbents can be as innovative as entrepreneurial start-ups

13 old brick ‐ organisations cannot make innovation as a capability

new brick - yes, you can - but not without much effort

"...If you want to make an organisation innovative, no belief can be left un-examined..."

Gary Hamel, 2000

(sources: Gary Hamel, 2000; Peter Senge at al, 1999; Teresa Amalite, 1998; Pervaiz Ahmed, 1998; Robert Stringer, 2000)