The Cultural Revolution: Mindset Changes For Innovative Organizations

  Innovation   PM Network  

The concept of innovation has near-universal appeal across the executive suite. After all, what company couldn’t use a new winning product? Whose balance sheet or stock price couldn’t stand to approach those of famed innovators Google, Apple or Facebook?

Two-thirds of innovation executives responding to an April study by IT consultancy Capgemini and the IESE Business School at the University of Navarra (Spain) said they have been tasked with creating a culture of innovation. In fact, 39 percent of executive recruiters responding to a July survey by ExecuNet ranked the culture or environment in which one operates as the most important factor to fostering innovation.

But there’s a catch. While the concept of innovation may have universal appeal, actually fostering new ideas and turning them into real deliverables is considerably more difficult and controversial. By definition, innovation requires thinking that represents a threat to the existing order; the stronger the existing order, the harder it can be for would-be innovators to do their work.

Accordingly, successful organizations with well-defined corporate cultures can struggle mightily with the charge to innovate. The same Capgemini/IESE study found that just 42 percent of respondents have a formal innovation strategy at their organizations, and only 30 percent have an effective …

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