Quel est votre secret pour fixer et atteindre des objectifs ambitieux en matière d’innovation ?

Defining your goals and understanding your why will give you the fuel and direction needed to accomplish your big goals. Making your goals SMART will also make it more attainable, and a great way to celebrate all of your wins along the way.

I build many new ventures within corporate environments. Blending startup dynamism with large corporate assets and capabilities is tough. You need to have a well thought out mission between corporate strategy and problems to be solved. When I say problems, I mean industry issues or customer problems which are seen as 'need to be solved'. In this day, customer 'needs' are an easy entry into building a new venture. Customer 'wants' don't give us the ideal demand that makes me want to pursue an idea. If all my customers are saying 'I need this!', I will then dig deeper, understand what exactly that customer is imagining.. can I break that down into various solutions that I can start to build success metrics and new business models around?

When I have a new venture I want to pursue, an 'innovation' if we want to call it. You can break it down into small chunks.. What is the quick win we can achieve in the short term to build a story around? Once we have a small piece of the larger solution, we can start to showcase this to move onto the next stage. When we build something small, we are referring to solving our customers problem, their need in a way that they would be happy to 'recommend it to another', or become a 'repeat customer and keep coming back for more'. Throughout this process of building a little part, and adding more, we should be gathering data that allows us to build the larger 'story', and give us confidence to continue building on the solution or new venture.

You don't build confidence by waiting to feel ready. You build confidence by taking action, and learning how to pivot after making a mistake. And most importantly, learn how to celebrate all of your wins along the way to keep up your momentum!

In any innovator, you need to have resilience. You need to be so comfortable with failure you almost seek it.. it sounds crazy I know! I find that when I am building new ventures, you have to have multiple horses racing at the same time. Place your bets, you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket they say.. same applies here. Resilience can be easier if all but ONE of your ideas fail, that one success allows you to keep continuing strong, provided you have the right mindset going in - its not going to be a smooth perfect journey!

I always think creativity should stem from customer problems. Solving problems is the key to creativity, and looking around us in the world.. there are so many problems to be solved. Starting with a mission to solve a particular problem is key. Once I've got my north star, I can start looking into what the customer currently does to try solve that problem. I build a 'day in the life' where I understand all the different ways a customer may currently solve a situation. I then turn these obsevations into mini briefs, where I look into breaking all the rules. How could this problem be solved if there were no rules, barriers, we had unlimited resources, money and time - how would we solve it? After I blend everything to make a solution.

Uncertainty can feel intimidating, but it's part of the process when you're venturing into something that you haven't done before. You can learn to embrace being uncomfortable by doing other activities that are uncomfortable... whether it's learning how to breathe and stay calm while taking a cold shower or ice bath.