Reflecting on where different companies land on the innovation spectrum made me consider an important question. Regardless of where you identify your company to be within this spectrum, how do you embed in your teams the mindset and philosophies required to truly shift the dial for your business?
This is multifaceted question, with equally multifaceted answers, so this article is not intended to provide you with an exhaustive list of possible tactical steps, but rather a three-layered strategic approach to its execution, so you can explore what these may look like for your organisation or team.
It all begins and ends with leadership
I am convinced that great leadership is a powerful catalyst for change. It is the role of the leader or leadership team to set the vision and aspiration of where the company ought to go and defining what innovation means for the business. One problem we have today is that innovation has become a buzzword that means many things to many people.
One way of aligning your company’s resources toward realising the aspiration is to clearly define the context and what a good job looks like for your business. Innovation in a pharmaceutical company can be defined and interpreted quite differently than in a car manufacturer.
I would go as far as to say two pharmaceutical companies could still have different definitions and approaches – one defining it in the context of new technologies and one in terms of new processes. Which one is better? The one that better aligns to achieving the stated desired outcomes for that particular company.
Connect the aspiration’s desired outcomes to business metrics
This one may make sense and seem simple on the surface but implementing it can be a challenge even for the best of leaders. This is because linking the aspiration’s desired outcomes to business metrics requires two things to happen: desired outcomes need to be clearly defined, and the appropriate business metrics need to be selected that support and enable these outcomes. In some instances, this may require you to move away from existing metrics, changing the focus to different ones, or introducing new ones.
Once you and your leadership team are clear on the business metrics being selected, it is crucial to then embed those in the way you assess and reward your team members. These need to be directly linked to individual KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) or any other assessment/reward/recognition system in place in your company. The fact that saying ‘what gets measured gets done’ is a cliché, does not make it less true.
When planning how to implement this, consider that moving away from how everyone has been assessed so far and starting to measure progress toward success in a new can challenge how people have traditionally approached their work (i.e. ‘the way we do things here’). Further to this, making these changes can also identify the processes and systems that you need to stop, start or continue to implement, which is a considerable piece of change management in itself.
Remember that it is all about the people
Everything you set out to achieve as a company will always be achieved by people, so it is important to keep our teams involved, informed, and engaged. It may sound obvious, but this is something that people consistently highlight as an issue. Everyone has a story about how that substantial change that was just rolled out from above ‘without asking us what we thought about it’ is not going to work because ‘they don’t have a clue about what they are doing’. Sometimes this is poor change management, sometimes it was actually a bad change to make in the first place, but no one stopped to ask.
One solution is to take people on the journey and help them identify what a good job looks like for them moving forward, what it means for their role and responsibilities, and what changes they can expect in the future. And then ask for and truly listen to feedback to improve the operationalization of those changes.
Your challenge as a leader will be wanting to change everybody yourself. It is more scalable to focus on identifying key action-takers in your team and helping them drive the outcomes by equipping them with the tools and support they need. They will take care of their teams and peers, and the change will gain momentum.
Putting it all together
Leaders play a critical role in defining the vision for their company. By clearly setting the vision and defining what success means for the business, leaders can help their teams understand what a good job looks like and how they can contribute to meeting the company’s goals.
By linking desired outcomes to business metrics, leaders can ensure that everyone understands how their individual efforts contribute to meeting the organization’s objectives. And finally, remember that it is all about the people; take them on the journey with you and help them identify how they can be successful in this new environment. What changes have you made as a leader to help your team achieve success?
What is one action you can implement this week as a result of reading this article? Give it a go and let me know how you go!
