Lean Impact

Chapter ThirteenMaking It Stick

If you’re reading this book, you are clearly motivated to maximize your impact and scale. But what happens a day, a week, a month, or a year from now? Before the norms, habits, and culture of your organization reassert themselves, how do you move from theory into practice?

Adopting an entrepreneurial mindset is an important first step. Consistently applying it requires both a clear purpose and aligned incentives. Imagine you want to have a healthier diet. Knowledge of the basic tenets of nutrition is certainly necessary. Yet for most people, knowing what to do is not enough. Life interferes. However, maybe you have your annual physical and the doctor reports that your cholesterol is high or you’re prediabetic. You better make changes, or you’ll have serious problems. Now you have a compelling purpose and incentive – to lower your cholesterol or blood sugar and avoid a serious chronic health condition. Still, the day‐to‐day choices can be hard. Maybe your family and friends offer to cook healthy meals together and stop bringing cookies. Continual reinforcement can help you to build new habits and keep from slipping back into your unhealthy ways.

When organizations embark on a quest to become more innovative, they typically start by bringing in new skills, talent, and tools. This might include running an innovation workshop, hiring a new innovation team, or engaging experts on disruptive technologies. The basic tools and techniques can be taught ...