Leadership: Four Essential Steps to “Profitable” Innovation
In the “shift-age” innovation is essential to the success of every organization. Experience (as a director of sales and marketing for a telecommunications company, founder of a successful international consultancy, advisor to the CEOs and senior teams of Fortune list companies, and as a coach to small and midsize business owners) leads me to emphatically believe that innovation without process-discipline is a march of folly and doomed to eventual failure. The following process has proven its worth in large and small organizations.
Preparation:
- Develop and maintain an Idea catalogue
- Form a *quick-response team to assess ideas and manage the catalogue
- Advise employees of the innovation process
Stage #1 Encourage employees to contribute ideas on a pre printed (one-sheet) input form
- Retain all input (be sure to thank the contributor)
- Review and rate all ideas as (low medium or high) in terms of their current and potential value
Step #2 Considering your situation, select a number of ideas to be developed into discussion drafts
- Do not allow urgent matters to overtake this quarterly activity—innovation may become a survival factor for you
- Do not engage in extensive research at this stage , rather have the assessing team declare assumptions
- Advise and congratulate the idea contributor of its movement to stage #2
Stage #3 As part of the strategic plan, select stage 2 ideas to develop into a business case
- Adopt and follow a standardized “business case” model
- Assess the competition
- Consider the potential for cannibalizing current products or services
- Validate availability of human and financial resources
- Involve the CFO or your accountant in the process
- Avoid wishful thinking
- Beta-test where possible
Stage # 4 Considering the current situation, implement the best business case(s)
- Reassess the market to ensure that conditions have not changed
- Reassess financial assumptions
- Assign specific responsibility and monitor rigorously
- Once implemented, lower original projections (expectations) with caution
- Adjust as necessary—including “deep-sixing”