Be Less Zombie

2The Do-Or-Die Issue of Innovation Performance

How alignment with strategy creates powerful and sustainable innovation momentum.

According to research,¹ 54% of companies struggle to align their business and innovation strategies. That's a lot of ideas potentially ‘flying blind’, and my experience is that when they do, most crash and burn.

When an idea can't point to a meaningful strategic landing strip, turbulence is inevitable.

Alignment with strategic goals makes innovation sustainable. It simultaneously connects innovation with hard commercial outcomes and provides the motivation for a crucial chain reaction to take place behind it. If innovation becomes the means by which we will meet our numbers, suddenly the resources, processes, culture required rise up the list of leadership priorities.

Alignment with strategy pulls the whole innovation system forward. And this is especially important when allocating and defending the resources required for strategic creativity which often get cut during leaner times.

Stuck at First Base?

But first, a reality check. Many executives that I meet coyly admit that their company doesn't actually have a strategy. Instead they have a revenue objective and a 12-month plan that serves as the strategy. This makes alignment with impactful, sustainable innovation strategy tricky.

But no strategy doesn't mean you can't make progress with innovation. In fact, often, a corporate strategy is inadvertently born during the process of developing an ...