How to better innovate by asking this simple question
Companies today find themselves in a business environment of rapid and constant change. In a few short years, we have gone from optimizing our websites for the small percentage of people going online with their Blackberry to building artificial intelligence chatbots that can troubleshoot with customers using voice recognition.
These changes are expanding quickly throughout our working lives, from the products we make to the services we offer and the way we communicate about them. It demands constant adaptation that prevents us from getting comfortable in the status quo – the place where companies fade away.
To remain relevant and play a meaningful role in the future, businesses must therefore embrace a mindset and culture of innovation.
Much more than the buzzword it is in danger of becoming, innovation is what differentiates companies, and it is the way they can not only make a profit but also find lasting solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.
The companies that are truly harnessing the power of innovation are focusing on one simple question: why?
Innovate… but not just for the sake of it
At leading organizations, the debate is advancing on what makes an innovation relevant and meaningful. In general terms, innovation is about systematically developing, delivering and scaling new products, services, processes and business models for customers and the wider society.
But to call something an innovation, it cannot just be new, it must also be useful. It needs to solve a problem or fulfil a need in order to be relevant and meaningful – and this is where purpose comes in.
Purpose is more than a goal: it is why organizations exist and what they do in the service of something larger than themselves. It stretches far outside the organization as a high-level value proposition to the world.
When an organization can articulate and activate a higher purpose, it has a better opportunity to shape the future of itself and its marketplace. Research shows that organizations that demonstrate a higher purpose are in a better position to innovate and take control of their future.
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From the why to the how – integrating purpose with innovation
Through working with hundreds of companies and their innovation teams over the last decade, I gained first-hand insights into their innovation processes. Each company has its own way of embracing change and innovating, but those that succeed put purpose at the center of their process. By doing so, they are able to propel five key dimensions for innovation.
Strategy. In future-fit businesses, purpose forms the basis of the organizational strategy, defining what the business will and will not do. The best strategies show the path for purpose in action. For example, a technology company I worked with expanded its platform to enable solutions to climate action that respond to needs within and across generations. Linking innovation to a purpose-based strategy like this helps your innovation teams counter short-term thinking and bring a longer-term perspective to the outcome.
Ambition. Stretch goals are the foundation of soaring innovation. They encourage innovation teams to dream big and aim higher than most would consider reasonable. One textile start-up stretched its ambitions from developing materials from specific fruits and plants to using any type of agricultural waste, expanding the company’s impact. Bold ambitions are easier to pursue when they are linked to purpose in this way, as this increases willingness of your teams to take risks to tackle big challenges and their energy to overcome barriers to innovation.
Culture. Essential ingredients for innovation, such as enthusiasm, creativity, optimism and appetite for change, grow in a company’s culture. A company’s culture is shaped by its purpose, which makes it a crucial factor for innovation. One consumer goods company whose purpose was empowerment took a proactive approach to internal empowerment by ‘un-bossing’ innovation teams and thus unleashing their accountability to purpose. In this way, culture connects individual purpose with organizational purpose and bonds your innovation teams to pursue their shared goal.
Collaboration. Innovation works best as a collaborative process involving people with different expertise, experience and perspectives. A compelling purpose is what makes innovation teams willing to collaborate, commit to a collective vision and take risks. This is not only the case within your company but also when partnering externally – alliances working towards a shared purpose can generate more original responses to novel challenges. For example, a packaging start-up collaborated with its wider ecosystem to put in place the infrastructure for buy-return-reuse alternatives to single-use packaging.
Creativity. Fundamentally, innovation is applied creativity. The spontaneous development of new ideas and out-of-the-box thinking that so often lead to innovation are rooted in creativity. A construction company creatively used nature as a model for innovation when designing building ventilation, for example. Purpose sparks creativity by giving meaning and opening up your innovation teams to new ways of thinking and of seeing the world.
When you put purpose at the core of innovation at your company, you not only keep up with the monumental changes happening in business and society, but you harness them by putting your why into meaningful action. This helps you reduce your risk of failure and increase your potential to make a true impact.
Leading a specialist management consulting organisation that fosters a greener business economy
1yExcellent write up Christina Raab Thanks for posting and sharing your experience and insights!