Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire

Chapter 1. Blinded by the Light: VISION BLOCKAGES

The Key Dangers

• Nobody understands why innovation is important.

• Nobody is really sure what innovation really is.

• It is unclear what kind of innovation we are pursuing.

• People don't see why they should participate.

• People don't feel that innovation has anything to do with them.

Overview

A start-up begins life as a single-minded entity focused on innovating for one set of customers with a single product or service. Often as a company grows to create a range of products and/or services, the organization can start to lose track of what it is trying to achieve, which customers it is trying to serve, and the kind of solutions that are most relevant and desired by them.

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, once said, "Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion."

Vision is about focus and vision is about the "where" and the "why," not the "what" or the "how." A vision gives the business a sense of purpose and acts as a rudder when the way forward appears uncertain. An innovation vision is no less important, and it serves the same basic functions. An innovation vision can help to answer some of the following questions for employees:

• Is innovation important or not?

• Are we focusing on innovation or not?

• What kind of innovation are we pursuing as an organization?

• Is innovation a function of some part of the business?

• Or, is innovation something that we are trying ...