12 principles of an innovative organization

Like most companies, your innovative organization is probably on the hunt for growth, preferably more than expected. However outgrowing the market isn’t just that easy. Some companies can certainly still achieve substantial growth through regional expansion or acquisitions. What if you have to rely merely on innovation?

It gets even more complicated to grow your sales organically with products and/or services that are new to the company and to the world. Igor Ansoff pointed out that risks (and in that way chances for failure) grow exponentially with the degree of ‘newness’ in your growth strategy.

To transform your current business towards a new reality you’ll first need a clear vision. Of course you can run lean experiments, pivot and learn, but let’s be honest. Running fast is only useful when you’re going in the right direction. This ‘vision’ will surely never become reality. At the very least it will give you a clear direction. So it should pinpoint what knowledge and/or competences your organization needs to build in order to improve its (future) business.

Even market leaders can find themselves getting caught in chasing yesterday’s problems, so they forget to work on tomorrow’s opportunities for growth. Obviously you need to guard your eggs and drive your current business. So it needs to be a balanced effort between working on the new versus improving the old. For many years the McKinsey’s Three Horizons of Growth Framework has been the go-to management tool to help balance your focus between the needs of today (horizon 1), the future state of your business (horizon 3) and the steps you need to take to get there (horizon 2). 

However, in today’s fast paced (digital) economy, the time based interpretation of the horizons is no longer true. It has become a dangerous assumption that disruptive innovations will take longer to come to market. On top of that, it has become very difficult to pinpoint exactly which ‘horizon 3’ you should be working towards! Let us illustrate.

Take the electrification of our transportation for instance. Or the IoT enabled decentralized generation of electricity, water and even heat. What should be the role of traditional suppliers in tomorrow’s economy? Which capabilities do they need to build today, to still be successful tomorrow? The question is not only which technology will break through. Also which business proposition will become the ‘dominant design’. So approaching the future with an eco-system approach might be your safest bet. But which one?

At Verhaert Masters in Innovation, we pride ourselves in working with ambitious clients. We help them to overcome challenges in growing their current and future business, bringing both top line and bottom line growth. From research we outlined 12 principles that set an innovative organization apart from others. Living by them and making them an integral part of your operations is still a challenge for most organizations.

That’s why in the coming weeks, we’ll be investigating the hurdles for realizing breakthrough innovation at different types of organizations. What’s the difference between market sectors? What aspects of the innovation pipeline management are more than good enough? Where should be more focus on?

Do you like to participate and share your insights? Leave your contact details below and we’ll get in touch! As a takeaway, here are the 12 guidelines for creating an innovative organization. How do you score?