Powerful Innovation Leadership
- 6 min read
Leadership is the most important factor in innovation. It’s more important than the idea, it’s more influential than the potential profit that can be generated. The right leadership in the right structure will be able to overcome typical product market fit, financial and people challenges that come with innovation projects.
Putting it another way, if you’ve been asked to lead an innovation project and you don’t have ownership of innovation team, are unable to influence the way the innovation is structured in the organisation, or don't have responsibility for the area impacted by the innovation (for internal innovation) or of the customer experience (for external innovation) then you are probably going to fail.
Frequently, we see more effort put into discovering innovation ideas, building innovation pipelines and quantifying innovation potential than into identifying the right structure and leadership for innovation. We think that the ‘who’ is as important as the ‘how’, than the ‘what’.
How not to innovate – a small, simple example
Early in my career, I was tasked with improving the efficiency of an administration team. It was clear to management that the team wasn’t stretched, and yet they were barely meeting service levels. The team didn’t report into me and were understandably skeptical of my involvement.
From the initial analysis, it was clear that the team had very loose processes and worked with shared responsibility with everyone doing a bit of everything. There were no metrics on activity or outcomes. The first step was agreed with the MD and the line manager to implement some basic activity metrics – so we could get an understanding of the scale of the opportunity.
To do this, we created a very simple ‘logging’ app which was temporarily installed on everyone’s PC – and any time they started a new activity, they had to click on one of 4 buttons to acknowledge what they were doing.
This failed completely. The team did their best to ignore the app, and despite line manager pressure, continued to operate as before. I saw this as my failure: I hadn’t created buy-in to the project. There was no perceived upside for the team. The line-manager was busy with day-to-day activity and in reality gave token-gesture support. The logging app created friction. I didn’t share the results of the exercise with the team early enough.
The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.
Creating the context for innovation success
Most innovation projects are far more complicated than the above example: the problem to be solved will not be fully understood at the start, the solution will need to be explored, the innovation team will need to be formed, stakeholders will need to be kept on board, expectations will need to be set, and budgets will need to be managed.
In this environment, Innovation leaders have 3 responsibilities:
From working on innovation projects, we have developed the following questionnaire to highlight key areas to think about and help sense-check that you’ve got the bases covered. Feel free to score yourself or your project and get an idea of where you are on the innovation leadership spectrum. (There is a final score at the end of the article).
Innovation Leadership Responsibility 1:
Create a high performing team
Creating a high performing team requires creating the right team dynamic and creating the opportunity for the team to succeed. We find that the latter can be particularly challenging in innovation projects. The project will create something new, and with that novelty comes change, and with change comes friction. Understanding the causes of the friction and being able to structure the team and the business to handle the change is crucial.
The lab or the factory. You work at one or the other. At the lab, the pressure is to keep searching for a breakthrough...The factory, on the other hand, prizes reliability.. and wants no surprises
Some things to think about:
Should be focused on ‘why’ and not be driven by financials. Is it compelling? See Simon Sinek’s ‘Golden circle’
These should set direction and enable you to measure progress, covering both outcome and activity-based goals.
With sufficient skills, a variety of backgrounds and work styles. Is the team the right size? What is the minimum viable team for the project?
Without being too prescriptive? Recognising different team roles as well as functional responsibilities. See Team role psychometrics (e.g. higher.work)
As much data should be shared transparently in the team as possible. How is data shared? Consider Bridgewater’s Radical Transparency as a benchmark.
How is the workload? Are there team members working consistently harder than others?. Is remuneration fair and balanced? How much opportunity is there for internal 'politics'?
Someone who will complement (not compliment) your style. Someone able to have honest, transparent conversations with you.
Innovation Leadership Responsibility 2:
Leading change
Once the project underway, the focus is on maintaining the momentum or rhythm of the team, sustaining positive engagement with stakeholders, communicating progress and coordinating the whole 'change management' process. In larger businesses, we've seen that as the project progresses, resentment can build up from other areas, which needs to be managed.
Some things to think about:
Do you know who is most impacted by the innovation? Are there potential 'unintended consequences'?
What's in it for them? Are people's role's going to be changed as a consequence of the innovation?
How involved are you personally? Is communication 2-way? Is the demonstrable action being taken on the back of any feedback received?
Innovation Leadership Responsibility 3:
Setting the example
The complexity of innovation projects means that have more than their fair share of challenges. Given that teams tend to reflect the behaviours of their leaders, it is important to constantly be setting an example
Not ‘face-time’ but genuinely investing in the project.
How are you dealing with challenges? Unfulfilled expectations?
Do the team get the chance to pitch and act on their ideas?
At any point in time, different members of the team will be feeling the pressure. How can you help?
Outcome
Your score is which puts you in the Innovation Leader category!
Getting the right balance – corporate challenges
One of the most complicated elements of innovation leadership is getting the right balance between the above areas of responsibility. In particular, the innovation leader needs to be sufficiently enthusiastic and forceful to effect change, but sufficiently humble and engaging to bring along the team and the business stakeholders. The latter point is crucial - in the corporate setting, we have witnessed many projects that followed a form of pareto – 20% more effort on managing stakeholders would have delivered 80% more long term value to the business.
Conclusion
Strong leadership underpins most successful innovations. Getting the right innovation leader, in the right context to enable the innovation team to succeed is a hurdle in the innovation journey that shouldn’t be ignored.
Digital Divisor
We are a specialist innovation business with a unique way of delivering projects. If you have any questions, please get in touch. We'd love to hear from you.
How does the project fit in the organisation structure? Which stakeholders be most effected? Who owns the budget? Who takes the benefit of the innovation? How does the innovation project sit alongside business-as-usual review processes?