■■ Ongoing experiments to learn so they can advance new
ideas in a measured way and mitigate risk;
■■ Co-creation with customers to get feedback on how to
make ideas most valuable;
■■ Systems design to create the most powerful solutions and
business strategy
4. They have the processes, structures and management systems
in place to support these practices and deliver new, ongoing
value to the market.
5. They make a commitment (invest time and money) in
innovation and reward for it.
6. They nurture a culture of innovation, learning and agility that
engages the organization in a shared purpose and pursuit.
This is the inspiration behind Business Design, a discipline
that focuses on deep human understanding, exploring new
market solutions and designing an action-directs strategy. It in-corporates
the factors that have been inherent in the success of
companies like Nike, Four Seasons, Netflix, Procter & Gamble,
Fidelity and many others. For newer entries, like digital com-panies
that are disrupting service, manufacturing and retail
businesses, this is baked into their “start-up” mentality. For those
that have enjoyed the benefits of scale and sustained market suc-cess,
it’s often difficult to work outside the engrained ways of
working and “legacy systems.” To thrive and survive, these com-panies
have to constantly adapt and evolve, while remaining
anchored in these key factors.
Business Design is a holistic approach to shaping enterprise strat-egy,
generating new ways to bring value to the market and designing
the enterprise to support and accelerate sustained value creation.
PRINCIPLES IN CREATING NEW AND
SUSTAINED VALUE
Here are 10 principles that can mobilize an enterprise to create
and capture new value:
PRINCIPLE 1: TAKE STOCK OF REALITY
This entails taking a broad view of trends, emerging players and
the organization’s “future-readiness.” In the quest to build capaci-ty
for sustained innovation, leaders should take stock of both the
emerging challenges they face in the market, as well as how ready
and able the organization is to respond to the changing context.
PRINCIPLE 2: ENGAGE EMPLOYEES
There’s no better way to motivate smart people inside an enter-prise
than to engage them in the process of creating a future they
can own. That means not outsourcing innovation and not desig-nating
innovation as the job of a chosen few. At some point in the
pursuit of innovation, someone always asks: “Who came up with
this idea? Who’s going to make it happen?” An engagement strat-egy
will determine the extent of internal ownership that can be
cultivated, the speed at which ideas work their way through in-ternal
systems and, ultimately, how ideas survive and make their
way to market.
PRINCIPLE 3: APPROACH VALUE CREATION
STRATEGICALLY, WITH A BUSINESS CASE
Companies like Apple and Nike have embraced innovation across
the enterprise over decades – as reflected in their strategy, business
systems and culture at large. Designing a strategy for integrating
new ideas entails mapping out how they fit within or inform the
overarching enterprise strategy. That calls for knowing what it will
take to scale big ideas – the capabilities that require investment,
the measured experiments needed to build confidence and the
support systems required to deliver ideas to the marketplace.
PRINCIPLE 4: ESTABLISH AN IDEOLOGY
ROOTED IN COMMON LANGUAGE
This might mean establishing a sense of shared purpose, break-ing
down silos and collaborating to harness internal insights and
ingenuity, understanding customers more deeply and holistically
and giving license to explore new possibilities. In defining beliefs,
workplace culture
AS EVERY ORGANIZATION NAVIGATES ITS
OWN INNOVATION JOURNEY, TRYING NEW
APPROACHES IS FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN
TRYING TO BE PERFECT OUT OF THE GATE.
38 ❚ DECEMBER 2017 ❚ HR PROFESSIONAL