Chief Learning Officer - December 2007 - (Page 28) environment Strategies to Enhance Innovation Mary Kay Vona and Michael DeMarco Many of today’s business leaders believe that innovation, which is more open, collaborative, multidisciplinary and global than ever before, holds the key to business success for the foreseeable future. Some 65 percent of global leaders believe they will need to make fundamental changes to their business within two years and increasingly view sustained innovation as the path to organic growth and increased brand value. A 2006 IBM survey of nearly 800 CEOs in 20 countries probed leadership attitudes toward and strategies to enhance innovation. Among the top barriers to innovation CEOs cited was an unsupportive culture and climate. One might argue that CEOs are ultimately responsible for creating and sustaining that culture. However, even when leaders believe in the power of new ideas and risk-taking, they may find themselves unable to motivate and support people to take those risks and promulgate those ideas. In the first part of this article, we will look at ways that senior leadership, across line and staff functions, can create and sustain a culture of innovation within their organizations. These include: • Offering incentives and rewards. • Shaping the right perceptions about risk-taking. • Infusing diversity into the organization. • Capitalizing on internal networks. • Improving external collaboration. In the second part of this article, we address the increasingly important relationship between innovation, culture and learning. Given its focus on the exchange of knowledge, ideas and experience, the learning function needs to be at the forefront of developing and executing strategies to enhance innovation. CLOs must think outside their traditional area of focus and, in so doing, define a more strategic role in the future of their organizations. December 2007 I www.clomedia.com I Chief Learning Officer 28 Creating a Culture of Innovation Organizations should consider a structured, two-stage framework to start eliminating the barriers to innovation and creating a more innovative environment: Stage One: Setting the Stage “Setting the stage” means more than just endorsing innovation http://www.clomedia.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.