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)