Are your innovation challenges and opportunities an innovation battleground or a picnic ground?
I will tell you it's definitely a battleground. Many organizations, however, treat innovation as a picnic ground.
An example: Two large financial services company clients of mine both have fairly mature innovation programs, but are managing their approaches differently. They both have innovation officers, partnerships, and are doing their innovation thing.
They've both been working it for about 5 years, have dedicated teams, have invested some fiscal resources and even "labs". However, one of them is treating innovation as a picnic ground and one is treating innovation as a battleground.
The picnic ground company is fully engaged, but they havent actually launched any noteworthy ideas or solutions. What they have managed to do is stay busy and have fun. They have a coffee shop and snacks in their lab, They attend conferences, research and socialize ideas, and spread the innovation gospel. But they dont have a real drive for launching innovations ahead of their competitors. They are enamored with all the great innovation treats at the picnic, and love to experience them (but in other organizations). They appear to be innovating but are merely enjoying the innovation picnic ground. In their five years of existence, they dont have a single significant innovation that they've launched.
Contrariwise, the battlegrounds company recognizes the threat from both traditional and nontraditional competitiors, and has some driving goals to launch innovations. They look like they're having as much fun as the picnic ground company, but are also launching some of the innovation picning "goodies" through their organization. They recognize the rapiditiy of change and the various opportunities, and are systematically trying to launch new ideas to capitalize on them. In their five years of operation, they have produced some significant growth and customer experience innovations that you'd recognize.
The hyper innovation environment is definitely a battleground where those who are able to develop their ideas into action are the ones who will win. The picnic ground of innovation is fantastic, but there has to be more ti an innovation program than sampling the goodies.
Organizations are going to succeed or fail based on their innovation programs, so the most successful programs will understand that there is a sense of urgency to innovation. The world of innovation mayappear to be a picnic ground, but its most definitely a battleground.
