Innovation Index – Practical & Real?

Innovation Index – is it relevant to 99% of businesses?

Innovation, we all are being asked to deliver it, but can we agree on what it is? Does it even matter?

Politically, many countries and global firms are involved in some form of Global Innovation Index, but does this really tell us what is happening, or who the innovative organisations really are?

Produced as a joint venture by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), and The Manufacturing Institute (MI) the Global Innovation Index is a global measuring recording the level of innovation of a country. This Innovation Index takes the following data:

Innovation Inputs:

• included government and fiscal policy, education policy and the innovation environment.

Innovation Outputs:

• included patents, technology transfer, and other R&D results; business performance, such as labour productivity and total shareholder returns; and the impact of innovation on business migration and economic growth.

With the worlds top 10 countries being:

Rank Country Overall Innovation Inputs Innovation Performance

1 Singapore
2 South Korea
3 Switzerland
4 Iceland
5 Ireland
6 Hong Kong
7 Finland
8 United States
9 Japan
10 Sweden

This list is in itself interesting, as Iceland is all but bankrupt and Ireland not far behind it in significant financial troubles. Is this list meaningful in any way? China & India are the fastest growing economies, with both developing their own innovative solutions to social situations, but neither are listed highly?

Top Innovation Firms:

The Top 50 Innovative Companies in the World – Apple is number one for the fourth year in a row

Position – company – known for (innovation in)

1 APPLE -Products
2 GOOGLE – Customer Experience
3 TOYOTA MOTOR – Processes
4 GENERAL ELECTRIC – Processes
5 MICROSOFT – Products
6 TATA GROUP – Products
7 NINTENDO – Products
8 PROCTER & GAMBLE – Processes
9 SONY – Products
10 NOKIA – Products
11 AMAZON.COM – Customer Experience
12 IBM – Processes
13 RESEARCH IN MOTION – Products
14 BMW – Customer Experience
15 HEWLETT-PACKARD – Processes, Business Models, and Customer Experience
16 HONDA MOTOR – Products
17 WALT DISNEY – Customer Experience
18 GENERAL MOTORS – Products
19 RELIANCE INDUSTRIES – Business Models
20 BOEING – Products

What is interesting about this list and the whole of the top 50as listed by Business Week/Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is that these are all large international firms. But is this really where the innovation is? In the top 50 include RIM, EBay, Facebook, Amazon, but would these firms have been listed in their first couple of years of operation? No – because the nature of these measure requires them to have a significant impact on the market. But if you look at the innovation of these firms, the big innovations were the ones that got them to market in the first place. So looking at any measure like this can only be done historically, after years of innovation and success. What about the myriad of small firms bought by 3i, Google & Microsoft etc to add to their offers? Would they have been identified an innovative by any of the “conventional” measures?

Are these national & international innovation indexes meaningful to most people in business?

What ordinary organisations need is an Innovation Index that means something at a day to day operational level, something that shows progress and change towards the needs and business aspirations of that organisation.

The Creatrix from the Richard Byrd Company in MN is a great tool which recognised the changing skills and culture required to improve innovation in a given organisation. For example the type of culture and innovative approaches need to be different for a start-up as to a process improvement project or phase.

For example:

High Innovation Index

Lower Innovation Index

Having a high or low innovation index can be equally bad – the real answer lies in what phase of development/ growth your organisation is at and what your strategic and business plan requires you to deliver? It is vital to align the need with the innovative capacity of an organisations people, as needed at the time.

Any firm looking to be innovative needs to look at its culture, management style and systems. Relying on innovation teams for product or service development is no longer enough. Innovation can originate anywhere in an organisation, and if as an organisation we want to remain competitive we need to ensure that we have innovation at all levels of our organisation, and that all of our people are involved in innovation throughout our operations.

Organisations that have used the Creatrix Innovation Inventory include:

3M, Advantec, Agriliance, AMA, AMEX, AMIDEAST, Andcor, Appleton, ARC Automotive, Atos Worldline, BancInsure, Capella, Capstone, Cargill, Carlson, CHW, Cincinnati TEC, College of St. Catherine, Corporate Psychologists, CPSI, Creativity Central, , Data Card, Dow Jones, Dupont, Fraser Group, General Mills, Goodyear, John Deere, Johnson & Johnson, KDV, Laing O’Rourke, Lebanon-Ministry of Finance, Medtronic, Merck, Money Gram, Morgan, Nestle, NHS, Roche, Schroeder, Siemens, Siemens DE Power, Stella, Yum Group

Contact us to find out how to measure the Innovation Index of your organisation, and what to do when you have that index!

Creativity and Innovation Models – applying in practice

Creativity and Innovation Models

There are many approached to creativity and innovation, however many users look at the technique and not the process or barriers.

In our brief article on the 4-As (Aim Assess Activate & Apply) we looked at how this process could be easily used to help develop the innovative capacity of an organization. Here we look at the model in more depth, and with a practical approach showing how each step can be applied within an organization.

 

The Creatrix Certification Programme and innovation methodology follows a four-step methodology of Aim, Assess, Activate, and Apply. 

This easy-to-understand and use model is the foundation for unleashing innovative capacity for change within individuals, teams, and organisations.

Aim:  If I say to you, “I want you/your team/your company to be more innovative,” what does that mean?  The word innovation by itself has little value unless we can define the purpose and the context for the need to innovate. 

The Aim in the Creatrix Process is to set that agenda, purpose, reason etc.. 

Aim for the Individual

Individuals, like teams and companies, need to have an objective as to why increasing their capacity to be more innovative is desirable. 

It may be as broad as:

• Personal growth and development, or

As narrow as:

• Wanting to be able to offer more creative ideas in a specific area like innovative customer service or alternative ways of delivering a service or program.

 

Aim for the Team

Teams also need to have strongly stated Aims.  In fact, teams may need to have clearer reasons than individuals.  They need to know what’s the benefit across the group of using the Creatrix Process for greater innovative success—what do we want as a team?

You may have a team that is slowing down, not creating the innovative ideas that it once did, and so they need a boost, a recharge or, as with the individual, it may be that they need to develop innovative ideas fast to meet the competition head on.  Whatever it is, creating an AIM is essential for laying the groundwork for increasing innovative capacity within a team. 

Aim for the Organisation/ Company

A company’s vision or mission (AIM)is often tied to the need for greater innovation.  Vision’s like “Pursuit of Excellence” or “Beating Coca-Cola”, etc. are statements requiring innovation.  Neither one of them can be made a reality without innovation.

Specifics for implementing—that is, creating greater innovative capacity can only be realized by first articulating the direction the organisation needs to go.

Assess:  Individual, team, and organisational assessment begins with the Creatrix Inventory.  Richard E. Byrd, Ph.D., developed the Creatrix Inventory over thirty years ago.  Since then it has been used over 60,000 times throughout the world.  It was recently re-normed in 1996, and again in 2000 by Jacqueline Byrd, Ph.D.  This reliable and valid instrument measures an individual’s level of creativity and risk-taking, and ultimately innovative capacity.

Conceptual Framework

About Creativity

Innovative companies know how to capitalise on their creative and risk-taking employees to create innovative environments.  The Creatrix Inventory is designed to help people identify their levels of creativity (the degree to which they can produce unconventional ideas) as well as their orientations toward risk taking (high, moderate, or low).  An entire organisation can be profiled in terms of its capacity to be creative, take risks, and innovate.

Creativity may be defined as the ability to produce new ideas.  Those ideas may be as mundane as turning eggshells into little faces or as sublime as Athelstan Spilhaus’ floating cities in the Atlantic Ocean.  They may be as practical as the saltshaker or as absurd as an alphabet with an astronomical number of letters.

When asked “Are you creative?” many people answer, “no”.  Some of these negative answers are correct, but most of them are wrong, or at least misplaced.  Unfortunately, people are most often in situations that demand repetition rather than creativity, conformity rather than diversity.  If their actions are unconventional, other people may be suspicious of them or view them as unpredictable.

Restrictions on experimenting with new ideas are imposed on most people from early childhood.  Children are instructed to keep within the lines of the colouring book, and doodling is discouraged.  Creating fanciful stories is interpreted as lying, and pretending is tolerated only until a child is a certain age—then it becomes embarrassing.  Being out of line—the line to the dining hall/ cafeteria, the toilets, the water fountain, or the playground—is considered bad behavior.

Adults on the job are also caught in a variety of binds.  Management may want coordination, implementation, and follow-through performed in the same old way, or the amount of creativity desired may be unclear.

Creativity is measured by originality.  In fact, about the only criterion for creativity that researchers agree exists is originality.  A small percentage of people live in a phantasmagoric world of wildly imaginative ideas; others are at the opposite extremes—out of touch with daydreams.  Most people, however, lie between the two extremes. However what is “old hat” in one environment is creative or leading edge in another – its all about context. Sometimes being creative is about taking something from one environment and making it work in another (practical innovation)

“Genius” seems to be the only word available to describe the truly creative thinker.  The word used to distinguish an Einstein from a bright quiz-show participant.  Unfortunately—because the word is also used to refer to a person with a high I.Q.—people often assume that creativity and intelligence are related.  There is little evidence to support that assumption.  Many people with only average intelligence have original ideas, and some of the brightest people seldom have original thoughts.  Although I.Q. may be an accurate predictor of success in school and on certain types of jobs, it provides no guarantee about a person’s ability to make a unique contribution to any field of work.  However, just as I.Q. is distributed on a normal curve, so is unconventional thinking.  Some people are extremely unconventional, some are extremely conventional, and most lie somewhere in between.

About Risk Taking:

Creativity in an organisation involves risk taking.  Management often claims it wants employees to be creative, but usually it does not welcome the associated risks.  In order to present new ideas, the creative person must sometimes be the risk taker.  Risk taking may mean that a person tenaciously pushes his or her ideas onto someone else—an employer, a colleague, a department—at some risk to the creator’s security, career, reputation, or self-esteem.

Although risk taking is not a trait (i.e., it results from a person’s fear of failure, fear of rejection, the cost-benefit factors of a situation, etc.), everyone develops an unmistakable risk orientation over the years.  That orientation (high, moderate, or low) may change during different periods in the person’s life.  The organisation’s response (e.g., supportive, punitive, conservative, or aggressive) will also affect the member’s risk-taking orientation.

When people determine their own orientations, they can predict their own responses to different situations.  Being aware of their employers’ responses will also help employees to predict how the employers will react to specific proposals.  This knowledge permits better management of risk for all concerned.

Risk takers also appear on a normal curve.  Those who take all their cues from the organisation or others, make up roughly 16 percent.  Those who take their cues only from themselves, make up another 16 percent.  The other 68 percent fall between the extremes.  Most people take cues, to varying degrees, from the environment and their own convictions, needs, and interests.

What Is Your Creativity And Risk-Taking Orientation?

Measuring the creative sense and risk-taking orientation of individuals in organisations helps to explain why one organisation stagnates and dies, another takes excessive risks and lands in bankruptcy, and yet others are moderately to extremely successful.

As the Creatrix Inventory suggests, your creativity and risk-taking orientation can be plotted on a matrix.  The vertical scale designates the degree to which you are generally a low, moderate, or high risk taker.  The horizontal scale designates the degree of your creative abilities.  The Creatrix Inventory is further divided into eight zones, each representing a creativity/risk-taking orientation.  Although there are shades between the orientations—matters of degree—only the eight “pure” orientations will be described here to provide contrast, illustrations, and clarity.

The four orientations in the corners represent people who rank either extremely high or extremely low on creativity or risk taking.  When the extreme types become more socialised, Sustainers (low creativity, low risk taking) may become Modifiers; Challengers (low creativity, high risk taking), Practicalizers; Innovators (high creativity, high risk taking), Synthesizers; and Dreamers (high creativity, low risk taking), Planners.

Assessing where you are

The Creatrix inventory and profile can help to assess you, your team’s and your organisations strengths.  The assessing stage is an important part in any organisational development process.

Activate:  Just knowing that innovative capacity is a function of creativity and risk taking is not enough.  Through our research and experience we’ve identified and isolated the Seven Drivers of Creativity and Risk Taking that influence innovative abilities.  Activating these Drivers are what the application process is all about. Its about doing something with the information you now have.

Overview of the Drivers

Knowing that innovation is a function of creativity and risk taking does little in terms of adding value.  That is, what value is there if I tell you that you need to become more creative or take more risks?  Through rigorous qualitative and quantitative research methods, The Creatrix Team has isolated the Seven Drivers that influence innovative abilities. 

 

These are:

Creativity Drivers	Risk Taking Drivers
Ambiguity	Authenticity
Independence	Resiliency
Inner-Directed	Self-Acceptance
Uniqueness

Understanding these Drivers and how they influence individual, team, and organisational behavior is a critical component to understanding how to accelerate innovative capacity.  To fully grasp the power of the Drivers, we have incorporated a series of challenges designed first to develop an intellectual understanding of the Driver, second, to develop a deeper personal understanding of the Driver, and finally a challenge to internalize the Driver thereby providing the participant an opportunity to act on their own unique understanding of the Driver.

Once these Drivers are understood, learning how to apply them to real world work situations becomes the challenge, that when overcome, result in tremendous impact on an individual, team, and organisation.  To apply the Drivers, one must develop an appreciation for how they influence behavior.  For example, resiliency is a hallmark of people who take risks.  Being able to rebound from rejection is a learned behavior that enables us to take more risks and recover quickly from our mistakes.  Learning how to become more resilient helps us to persevere in a challenging business climate that often requires more than one attempt at problem resolution.  Clearly, resiliency is something we like to see in those we work with and even in ourselves.

Creativity Drivers

Ambiguity:	Able to operate with uncertainty and vagueness—don’t require high structure, goals, or objectives to accomplish or create things, ideas, services, or products.
Independence:	Not subject to the control or influence or determination of another or others—are not willing to subordinate themselves—don’t like to be managed.
Inner-Directed:	Determine their own expectations and norms—sing to their own tune.
Uniqueness:	Appreciate and value differences—value uniqueness in both self and others.

 

Risk-Taking Drivers

Authenticity:	Being what you purport to be:  genuine—“walk your talk”—“tell it like it is”, “true to yourself”
Resiliency:	The capacity to spring back, rebound and to successfully adapt and learn even in the face of adversity and stress
Self-Acceptance:	Approving and/or satisfied with your behaviours or actions—“like yourself”

 

 So what are you going to do now?

Apply is the fourth stage of the model.

Apply:  Our applications programme brings the concepts of creativity, risk taking, and innovative capacity to life.  Our unique ability to apply the Drivers in real-life situations that actually get results is the key component to accelerating innovative capacity for change in your organisation.

If I say to you, “I want you/your team/your company to be more innovative,” what does that mean? 

The word innovation by itself has little value unless we can define the purpose and the context for innovating.  The AIM in the Creatrix Process aims to do that. 

 

Apply for the Individual

Individuals, like teams and companies, need to take action to help them achieve their stated objective.  In the context of the  Creatrix, this will be applying changes which have the goal of increasing or decreasing one of the drivers.

Apply for the Team

As a way of starting to develop the culture of the organisation, applying effort to changing how the team uses one or more of the drivers can be a critical first step to change.  With all members of the team working on one or two drivers those actions and behaviours will be encouraged.  Working on developing one driver also helps to create a common goal for the team to form around and to support each other.

Apply for the Organisation

In the same way that a focus on an individual driver for teams can start the culture change process – the same is true for the organisation as a whole.  To change the culture for an organisation however must be led from the top and driven by senior managers in a consistent way.

 

So how can you apply the Creatrix?

Well you have a choice -

• Call in a Creatrix Coach to work with your organisation OR
• Get certificated to use the Creatrix with your teams or clients

Creating an organisational wide innovation culture

Ever heard people say…

“What we need in this organisation is innovation”, “Creativity will give us the edge”.

Leaders often utter these words with little realisation of the difficulties of bringing about a fundamental shift in the behaviour necessary to create an innovation culture across the enterprise. “We can empower people to bring new ideas, we’ll run some workshops on creativity” if only it were that simple. But alas this Procrustean approach is unlikely to reap rich rewards.

You remember Procrustes of course, the famous innkeeper of greek mythology? According to legend he was single-minded in his approach to hospitality, he kept an inn on the road to Athens and what distinguished this inn from any other was that it had only one room containing only one bed. Procrustes believed that all travellers who stayed in his hostel should fit in the bed, and this is where he was single-minded, those who were too tall swiftly had their feet cut off whilst those too short were stretched to fit. An unfortunate side effect of this unwarranted attention to detail meant that by the time he had executed the necessary adjustments many of his guests were, well, dead!

A one size fits all approach denies the reality that people are different and in developing an approach towards encouraging innovation these differences need to be surfaced and reconciled.

One organisation has devised a more enlightened strategy. Recognising early on that building a culture of innovation requires some foresight and hard graft in building a critical mass of people who understand their own, and others innovation style they targeted successive intakes of graduates to build new ways of thinking and acting to realise their innovation potential.

Around 40 graduates a year participate in the graduate development programme, after successfully completing an assessment centre. Critical reasoning tests are part of the selection process but interestingly, so too is a creative thinking test that explores, fluency – the number of ideas generated, originality – how original are the ideas and lateral flexibility – how diverse these ideas are. Candidates are chosen according to their strengths either in critical reasoning or creativity – some even have strengths in both domains! Importantly, whatever their strengths each have a vital role in the innovation process.

At the very first module of their development programme they are introduced to two important topics – learning and innovation. Each individual learns about their own preferences for learning which involves a combination of thinking and action (after Kolb) and understand the strengths and limitations of each preference. Prior to the module they are asked to complete a Creatrix™ inventory and when attending are introduced to the underlying concepts that describe innovation capacity – creativity and risk taking. The blend of these constructs gives unique profiles that describe typical approaches and attitudes towards the behaviours associated with innovation. Through an understanding of their own approach and strengths towards innovation the groups develop awareness of the need to balance innovation teams, too many innovators and a surfeit of ideas but no action, too many sustainers and no ideas will see the light of day. Appreciating their own and others styles helps in several ways; they recognise their own unique contribution to the innovation process; they identify potential barriers and possible levers that can help navigate from ideas to action; they develop a language for describing and understanding innovation; they identify ways of making things happen by circumventing the organisational “permafrost” that kill possibilities prematurely; they develop individual action plans for switching on their own capacity for innovation; and build a network across the organisation to act on those thorny cross functional problems.

This fresh approach of seeding the organisation with new entrants untainted by the inevitable cynicism seasoned campaigners in the organisation is beginning to bear fruit. Hungry to make a mark many of the graduates are pushing new ideas and making a succession of small wins from streamlining processes to developing new products – and what’s more getting the support of the person at the top. As this population grows with each successive stream a critical mass of young innovators is being formed who want to push the boundaries even further.

For this group in the organisation, change and innovation is not a threat, they feel empowered to drive it and, for them, it is the opportunity for more learning.

With innovation, as in other aspects of life, diversity brings real advantages, a concept that was lost on poor Procrustes.

By Mike Morrison & Vince Whittle

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For more information on creating an innovative culture see: www.rapidbi.com/creatrix & www.rapidbi.com/bir

For more management articles see www.rapidbi.com/articles

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and links maintained

© RapidBI.com 2008

http://www.rapidbi.com

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33 Ways to develop an Innovative Culture in your org.

Ways to develop a Culture of Innovation

Many organisations strive for a competitive edge, an advantage over their competitors to help ensure their sustainability. Innovation is one such way, but for too long many organisations have concentrated on developing product and ignored the possibilities of innovation as a culture. Having an innovative friendly culture can harness the innovative and creative capacities of the entire workforce (and your customers and suppliers) to your advantage. But it is a difficult and for some a scary step.

Below are some of the activities that you may need to undertake on your journey to increasing the innovative capacity of your organisation

 

1. Great sources of new ideas are new starters to the company. Use them wisely and creatively
2. Always question longstanding beliefs
3. Ask questions about everything. After asking questions, ask different questions. After asking different questions, ask them in a different way
4. Avoid analysis paralysis
5. Change – change teams, project members and responsibilities
6. Communicate – open communication about anything and everything – make it easy to do
7. Communicate, communicate, communicate and communicate again. Ensure that every important message is repeated more than five times
8. Concentrate on the process of being effective at taking an idea from initial thought to application or market.
9. Embrace and celebrate failure. Success comes from volume not just quality
10. Encourage interaction between parts of the organisation that traditionally don’t communicate or usually collaborate together
11. Encourage people to meet informally, one-on-one, and in small groups, not just in functional teams
12. Ensure that everyone knows that reducing costs as a core strategy solves nothing. High costs are usually a sign of deeper or systematic problems
13. Have fun. If you’re not having fun (or at least enjoying the process) something is off
14. Imagine what you can make happen rather than dwelling on what might
15. Involve your customers as partners in the innovation process, while understanding that they are usually limited to wanting incremental innovations
16. Learn to see things differently
17. Learn to tolerate and enjoy ambiguity in data, and methods
18. Make decisions quickly at the lowest level possible
19. Make innovation the responsibility of all employees with appropriate objectives for each and every functional area
20. Make many new mistakes
21. Making innovation process rigid and core will stop spontaneous innovation efforts
22. No fixed rules or formula’s, only guiding principles
23. Notice change and innovation attempts and reward them
24. Provide time for your people to explore ideas and concepts through trust
25. Remove all organisational barriers which are stopping people communicating BHAG – Bold, Hairy Audacious Goals to senior management/ decision makers
26. Remove fear from the culture and management style
27. Reward collective, as well as individual successes, maintaining individual accountabilities, keeping innovation “heroes” visible
28. Seek a wide range of viewpoints. A diversity of views sparks more than conflict, it sparks innovation
29. Seek ways to learn from experience and find new and effective methods of sharing learning with your people
30. Use stories to support the transfer of learning
31. Spark interest – add images, photos and colour to your environment
32. Take a “go-slow now to go-fast later” approach, get many people involved at the beginning
33. Think of “self-organising” innovation, rather than “command and control” innovation
34. Think in the long term. Short term-ism has been proven not to work!

Using powerful organisational tools like the Creatrix can help to identify where the strengths of innovation lie in your organisation and provide a benchmarking took for measuring progress as you move towards being increasingly innovative – for innovation is a journey not a destination.

Byrd & Brown in their book provide a useful tool “the innovation Equation” where:

Innovation=creativity * risk-taking

In providing this equation the authors provide us – the change agents with a powerful methodology

**Article based upon an origional piece  by Mitch Ditkoff and Val Vadeboncoeurby

Becoming an Innovative leader – the eight faces of innovation

Becoming an Innovative Leader

When we take innovation away from the technologists and start to look at innovation as a set of behaviours that can drive change and culture, we start to look at innovation as a leadership model.

 

Using the Creatrix from the Richard Byrd Co in MN USA, we can identify the eight faces of innovation. All have there place and strength in today’s organisation, however the balance and focus will need to adapt for each need the organisation faces.

 

 

What type of innovative leaders are you? What ‘persona’ do you wear?

Creatrix Leadership Orientation	As a leader….	What others think/see
Innovator	You have a new idea every minute and may drive people within the organization crazy trying to keep up with you.  While you are trying to keep ahead of the curve, they’re trying to keep up with you, and you can wear them out.	You provide much value in keeping an organization cutting edge.  However, your multitude of ideas without complete follow through may appear too chaotic for some.
Dreamer	You come up with lots of great ideas but often don’t share them or know how to drive them forward.  People may look for direction from you as to how to “make it happen” but you may not be able to take it to that level.	People like your ideas, but you have difficulty implementing them.  Your low propensity for risk taking inhibits your innovative capacity.
Sustainer	You like stability and prefer to maintain the status quo.  You provide a lot of stability for an organization.  However, when people come to you with new ideas, you appear resistant.	Your stability brings strength to an organization that wants to frequently change focus.  However, you may appear resistant to any change and any new ideas.
Challenger	You have the attitude of let’s keep moving.  You are ready to take action.  You can drive ideas forward, but they usually are not your own ideas.  However, because you don’t let much get by you, you may appear critical to others.	You’re always on the ball ready to respond.  However, you may appear abrasive and insensitive.  As a result, people may become resistant to sharing their creative ideas with you.
Planner	You operate with a need for order and plans. Creative ideas fit within the plan.  You are going to need more information and data before taking a risk   You may appear to others as too data driven—not using your “instincts” as a leader.	People will check with you for clarity.  You also may be checking in too often to determine whether you’re in sync with the plan.  Some of the most valuable contributions may occur outside the plan.
Modifier	You’re going to believe in incremental changes and tweaking existing ideas.  You are not going to take risks unless you can see the real benefits.	If a new product/service without a lot of new fangled stuff is needed, you’ll be the first asked.  However, you may appear to others as not seeing the bigger picture.
Practicalizer	You’re willing to try something as long as it is practical.  You don’t want a lot of “hair brained” ideas coming at you all at once.  You keep the targeted aim in front of you at all times.	Moving creative ideas through the organization will be seen as your specialty.  However, you may be so focused on the practical application of an idea that you miss an important breakthrough opportunity.
Synthesizer	You see possibilities in everything and put unlikely combinations of things together to create something new.  You are willing to take risks, but not at all costs.  You are a cautious risk taker.	You will develop some of the most unique ideas and will amaze people with what you put together.  However, people may have a hard time initially tracking with you; so you may lose them unless they can see how you moved from point A to B.

 To find out more about the Creatrix and how this innovative culture change tool can work with your people and organisation visit:

 - UK – Creatrix Team

 - US – Creatrix Team

  - DE – Creatrix Team

Entrepreneurial Innovation – Fad or key to success?

The world economy is changing… are we reacting fast enough?

For many entrepreneurs innovation is just not happening fast enough according to recent articles and research from Boston Consulting Group’s annual study on innovation.
Many organisations know that in order to survive and then to grow they need to innovate. In recent years the focus of innovation has been on creativity and the innovative process, but the lack of results show that this is only half the picture.

Background to entrepreneurial innovation
In the 1960s and 70s Dr Richard Byrd developed some research which led to the publication of a model he originally called the C&RT or creativity and risk taking (1986). This model was adopted by the Pfeiffer publications company as a key part of a methodology they called Applied Strategic Planning. They realised that for successful strategy, risk and innovation as behaviour (rather than a process) was fundamental. In the 1990s Byrd’s daughter, Dr Jacqueline Byrd further refined and developed the C&RT and used the technology available on the web to make the Creatrix model more robust and provide the ability to delve deeper to ensure any development activity resulted in effective behaviour change.

Innovation everywhere but little progress
Many organisations have innovation departments, functions or teams and yet little progress is actually being made in terms of productivity, cost saving or market share. Certainly organisations are developing new and innovative products, but as technologies collide and merge and economies tighten, the consumer buys less. For example the markets or phones, music players, cameras and GPS systems are merging fast – where there used to be four markets increasingly there is one.
Innovation needs to be at all levels and in all elements within an organisation to be effective. In the 1990s benchmarking processes to identify the most effective way of working was everywhere, not organisations need to innovate internally to deliver best value in all that they do, not just product development. This is where entrepreneurial innovation leads the way.

Innovation assessment
The Creatrix starts as a personal profile, with each individual involved in the change process undertaking a simple online inventory. The results of this single profile show the individual on the Creatrix grid, a combination of the individuals risk taking assessment and creativity assessment. In addition the individual gets an output showing the seven drivers and their respective strengths.
Collectively all the individuals involved in the team or organisation are plotted on one matrix or grid providing an overall innovation assessment.

This enables the entrepreneurial team to review the current position of innovative behaviours and plan where is appropriate (there is no right or wrong profile – just more or less effective at that point in time). Then using the language of the Creatrix it is straightforward to develop a change based programme using the (now) common language to inspire and motivate appropriate change “Apply the same process you do at work by asking the following questions:

1. What does this individual or the members of this group want to achieve?
2. What is keeping them from achieving their objectives?
3. What can I provide or remove that would increase their chances of success?
4. How can I combine my answers to question three in a way that will add the most value to them?
5. Stop writing and move into action!

Mother Theresa was a classic example of this behaviour. She identified opportunities to add value and moved into action. We can do the same over and over again.“

The fish rots from the head
Is the old saying, but innovation grows from the head. When introduces from the top as part of an organisations culture innovation can really make a difference. The key is the culture of the organisation, effective culture change starts from the CEO or COO.
Using tools like the Creatrix, executive or entrepreneurial innovation can be easily developed and nurtured, then when entrepreneurs see the results they will soon want the whole organisation to behave this way too.

Dan Coughlin said
Identifying opportunities and taking action are the two critical elements, simple, and yet many organisations still have barriers in place. Some of these barriers are obvious, many are invisible and should not exist… but they do.

For innovation to be commonplace in our organisations we must stop looking at innovation as a process and start to look at it as a culture or set of behaviours.
Product innovation is one thing – entrepreneurial innovation is quite another.

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© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained.

Innovative Business Culture – a fresh perspective

Building an innovative business culture – a fresh perspective

Introduction

What is innovation? Ask people to define innovation and you’re likely to get a diverse range of responses, new ideas, creativity, pushing the envelope, breaking new ground, developing new markets, the fruits of research and many more. The theme for many is newness, something fresh and of course that is part of the equation but it misses an essential component – risk-taking. Even a casual study of great innovators quickly begins to illustrate some of the personal characteristics that drive innovation that is, turning ideas into reality. Take Edison and his light bulb for instance it took several thousand experiments before he developed his incandescent light bulb in 1879 or John Harrison the English horologist who rose to the challenge issued by the British government in 1713 to determine longitude accurately. It was 1761 before his compensating marine chronometer on trials to Jamaica determined longitude to within 18 geographical miles, and still he had to wait until 1773 before being awarded the first prize. More recent examples are James Dyson and his dual cyclone vacuum cleaner who describes his struggle to bring life to his inventions in the book Against the Odds (1998).

These personal characteristics are essential and are described in the book The Innovation Equation (2003) by Dr Jacqueline Byrd and Paul Lockwood Brown. The Oxford English dictionary defines innovation as:

 “the action of introducing new methods, ideas or products”

it involves action (the act of introducing – risk taking) and something new (new methods, ideas, products – creativity). Their thesis is that the innovation equation is a function of both and can be expressed as:

Innovation = creativity x risk taking

The research has shown that underpinning each dimension are behavioural drivers for creativity these are: ambiguity, independence, inner directedness and uniqueness and for risk-taking are: authentic, resilient and self accepting. Understanding these drivers and leveraging the behaviours can increase the capacity to innovate at the personal, team/ group and organisational level. For example learning to manage a little more ambiguity rather than crave for predictability can open up a myriad of possibilities that have previously been submerged and not accessible increasing the capacity for new or creative connections.

The combinations of these Drivers lead to profiles that can characterise their innovative capacity and will describe typical approaches to innovation and problem solving. Each profile has strengths and limitations you may have someone with high risk taking and high creativity for example indicating a high capacity for innovation but this does not mean that they will necessarily deliver best value to the organisation neither does it mean that those will lower scores have less to offer. One of the unique contributions someone with high scores on both scales (Innovator) can contribute is a virtually limitless number of ideas but one of their limitations is that they do not necessarily realise what is needed to follow through on each of their ideas. At the opposite ends of the scale with lower scores in each dimension (Sustainer) is someone who is great at doing voluminous amounts of routine work – team them up and you could have a powerful combination.

Orientations of Innovation

The eight orientations are:

• Sustainer
• Challenger
• Modifier
• Planner
• Practicaliser
• Synthesiser
• Dreamer and
• Innovator

The value of course is in the combinations of each of these orientations within teams and the organisation.

The Creatrix Inventory is an on-line questionnaire that enables individuals to identify their own orientation and underlying drivers. When shared with others this becomes a powerful tool that helps understanding and appreciation of the strengths each brings to the community they are in.

Uses of the Creatrix methodology and approach:

Individual

• Gaining self insight
• Personal Development Planning
• Coaching
• Conflict resolution
• Identifying personal drivers

Team

• Innovation Team development
• Role negotiation/clarification
• Recognising the resources each bring to the team
• Agreeing innovation and improvement tactics
• Understanding capacity for innovation
• Cross functional team building

Organisation

• Understanding the organisational capacity for innovation
• Identifying elements of culture that support or hinder innovation
• Developing a strategic approach to innovation
• Identifying collaborative approaches with customers and suppliers
• Unleashing latent potential

 

For more information

On the Creatrix inventory and change process and to see how it can add value to your organisation & practice go to our products or www.creatrix.com

(c) This article is copyright RapidBI 2006 it may be copied providing the authors are credited. Written by V Whittle adapted by M Morrison 2006

 

The Capacity to innovate

Jacqueline Byrd looks at our capacity to innovate.

Dr. Jacqueline Byrd–the brains behind the CREATRIX Assessment explores Creativity, Risk Taking and Innovation–

• What do they all have in common?
• How do you assess them?
• How does understanding your own creativity and risk taking help you in your every day life?
• What gets in the way of businesses being creative and taking risks?
• Why is a simple exercise like introducing yourself in a new way so difficult–what does that have to do with creativity, risk taking and innovation in business?

Creativity, Risk Taking and Innovation— Innovation doesn’t happen without people!!

 

Innovation starts with your people. Every individual has the capacity to innovate. Every single one of us that the capacity to be more innovative that we are at the moment. We can all increase our innovative capacity.

Jacqueline Byrd looks at our capacity to innovate.

Dr. Jacqueline Byrd–the brains behind the CREATRIX Assessment explores Creativity, Risk Taking and Innovation–

• What do they all have in common?
• How do you assess them?
• How does understanding your own creativity and risk taking help you in your every day life?
• What gets in the way of businesses being creative and taking risks?
• Why is a simple exercise like introducing yourself in a new way so difficult–what does that have to do with creativity, risk taking and innovation in business?

Why is introducing yourself in a new way so similar to innovation?

Jacqueline Byrd looks at our capacity to innovate and how a simple introduction demonstrates the basis of innovation and the fear it often facilitates.

Byrd describes the rules of innovation

Dr. Jacqueline Byrd–the brains behind the CREATRIX Assessment explores Creativity, Risk Taking and Innovation–

• What do they all have in common?
• How do you assess them?
• How does understanding your own creativity and risk taking help you in your every day life?
• What gets in the way of businesses being creative and taking risks?
• Why is a simple exercise like introducing yourself in a new way so difficult–what does that have to do with creativity, risk taking and innovation in business?

Innovation Index – measuring the unmeasurable or re-inventing the wheel?

Innovation Index - culture measure

Innovation means so many things to so many people, so first we need to have a common understanding of what innovation is.

Dr Richard Byrd from the University of Minnesota in the 1960s and 70s undertook some interesting work (see A Personal Guide to Risk Taking Richard E Byrd, AMACOM 1974), which has been further developed by Dr Jacqueline Byrd from a tool that looks at the innovation capacity of individuals to that of teams and organisations (see The Innovation Equation – Byrd & Brown, Pfefiffer 2003).

Called the ‘Creatrix™’ (www.creatrix.com) this instrument not only identifies the innovative capacity and index of an organisation, but provides the agenda for change. used by firms like 3M, Cargill, Country Inns & Suites, DuPont, John Deere, Yumm foods (Pizza Hut KFC etc), as well as many in the public sector. Leading UK firms like Laing O’Rourke have been using this method with their people for some years now and the NHS are starting to explore how this approach can benefit them.

The Creatrix looks at the culture in an organisation and the behaviours of individuals and teams. Based on sound psychometric principles and many 10s of thousands of applications the product is a proven approach to identifying and measuring the innovation index of an organisation as well as being the first step to identifying the actions required for development.

What does the Creatrix measure?
The Creatrix is based on what is called the Innovation Equation, where:

Innovation = Creativity X Risk Taking

Definition - “Innovation is the act of introducing something new”
Where creativity identified the ability to generate ‘new’ things or ideas and Risk Taking, the propensity to take action and overcome obstacles.

Where is innovation?
Traditionally in the UK we have looked at innovation as being something that is used for new products or services, we have failed to look at the wider picture and looked at innovation at all levels and everything we do as an organisation. The Innovation Equation takes a unique approach and enables robust measurement and practical application at all levels in an organisation.

Rear view or forward looking
One of the challenges in developing an indes from scratich is identifying what is ‘good practice’. Many of the organisations we would have considered ‘good’ 24 months ago are now in great difficulty. We need to look at individual excellence and application. The difference between looking in the rear view mirror and looking forward when driving.

Who are the best at innovation?
Some of the very best organisations at innovation just treat innovation as ‘the way we do business’ – it is in their culture and they rarely shout about ity – why – because innovations are largely very small steps in themselves and not worth shouting about. The focus is on improving the business – not gaining PR!
Firms like Virgin and the BBC are very good at this, they innovate on a daily basis – what we see are results not the process.

When UKplc gets away from innovation only being technical and is an attitude – then we will start to develop faster than ever before. Why? because as a country we have innovation running through our veins – we just need to run our organisations so that we engage that innovation.

 

RapidBI is proud to be one of the first firms in the UK to use the Creatrix innovation with its clients to give them the advantage.

Entrepreneurial Innovation – Fad or key to success?

The world economy is changing… are we reacting fast enough?

For many entrepreneurs innovation is just not happening fast enough according to recent articles and research from Boston Consulting Group’s annual study on innovation.

Many organisations know that first in order to survive and then to grow they need to innovate. In recent years the focus of innovation has been on creativity and the innovative process, but the lack of results show that this is only half the picture.

Background to entreprenural innovation
In the 1960s and 70s Dr Richard Byrd developed some research which led to the publication of a model he originally called the C&RT or creativity and risk taking (1986). This model was adopted by the Pfeiffer publications company as a key part of a methodology they called Applied Strategic Planning. They realised that for successful strategy, risk and innovation as behaviour (rather than a process) was fundamental. In the 1990s Byrd’s daughter, Dr Jacqueline Byrd further refined and developed the C&RT and used the technology available on the web to make the Creatrix model more robust and provide the ability to delve deeper to ensure any development activity resulted in effective behaviour change.

Innovation everywhere but little progress
Many organisations have innovation departments, functions or teams and yet little progress is actually being made in terms of productivity, cost saving or market share. Certainly organisations are developing new and innovative products, but as technologies collide and merge and economies tighten, the consumer buys less. For example the markets or phones, music players, cameras and GPS systems are merging fast – where there used to be four markets increasingly there is one.
Innovation needs to be at all levels and in all elements within an organisation to be effective. In the 1990s benchmarking processes to identify the most effective way of working was everywhere, not organisations need to innovate internally to deliver best value in all that they do, not just product development. This is where entrepreneurial innovation leads the way.

The fish rots from the head
Is the old saying, but innovation grows from the head. When introduces from the top as part of an organisations culture innovation can really make a difference. The key is the culture of the organisation, effective culture change starts from the CEO or COO.
Using tools like the Creatrix, executive or entrepreneurial innovation can be easily developed and nurtured, then when entrepreneurs see the results they will soon want the whole organisation to behave this way too.

Innovation assessment
The Creatrix starts as a personal profile, with each individual involved in the change process undertaking a simple online inventory. The results of this single profile show the individual on the Creatrix grid, a combination of the individuals risk taking assessment and creativity assessment. In addition the individual gets an output showing the seven drivers and their respective strengths.
Collectively all the individuals involved in the team or organisation are plotted on one matrix or grid providing an overall innovation assessment.
This enables the entrepreneurial team to review the current position of innovative behaviours and plan where is appropriate (there is no right or wrong profile – just more or less effective at that point in time). Then using the language of the Creatrix it is straightforward to develop a change based programme using the (now) common language to inspire and motivate appropriate change.

Dan Coughlin said
“Apply the same process you do at work by asking the following questions:
1. What does this individual or the members of this group want to achieve?
2. What is keeping them from achieving their objectives?
3. What can I provide or remove that would increase their chances of success?
4. How can I combine my answers to question three in a way that will add the most value to them?
5. Stop writing and move into action!
Mother Theresa was a classic example of this behaviour. She identified opportunities to add value and moved into action. We can do the same over and over again.“

Identifying opportunities and taking action are the two critical elements, simple, and yet many organisations still have barriers in place. Some of these barriers are obvious, many are invisible and should not exist… but they do

For innovation to be commonplace in our organisations we must stop looking at innovation as a process and start to look at it as a culture or set of behaviours.

Product innovation is one thing – entrepreneurial innovation is quite another.

Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Cut or increase innovation in a recession?

Innovation, is it a burden or opportunity when things are difficult?

This morning I was reading an article in Business Week about the need for organizations to cut back on innovation (article). The article starts with the opening line

“When times get tough, one of the first things we do is think about what we can do without, like cutting latte consumption from five a week to two”

with which I totally agree.  However an assumption in the article drives the reader to believe that INNOVATION = NEW PRODUCT – it does not and cannot.

Byrd & Brown in their book “The Innovation Equation” define the innovation equation to mean INNOVATION=CREATIVITY x RISK TAKING, where creativity and risk taking are behaviours rather than processes. With this approach in mind innovation should be a part of the way organizations equip themselves to cope in difficult times.

True innovation is not limited to product and market development, but to any change the organization faces.

Innovation at Honda

Honda in the UK have had a difficult few months, but rather than lay people off, they have taken the innovative stance of shutting the factory for four months with employees on full pay for two months and then 60% for the remainder, with the commitment to keep all employed when they open the factory again – it would have been so easy just to lay people off as other firms are doing.

Innovation is culture

Innovation in its true sense is a culture, a leadership style not an R&D process. In our organizations we need to develop and review what we do on a regular basis, using the drivers of innovation – Ambiguity, Independance, Uniqueness, Authentic Resilient we can ensure our organizations are in the best position to both survive and be prepared for the resulting growth in the fiture.

believe we need to innovate like we have never done before – not stagnate.

For information on the Creatrix (Byrds approach to innovation) see The Creatrix

Eight orientations of leadership in innovation

Eight orientations of leadership in innovation
1. Sustainer
2. Dreamer
3. Challenger
4. Innovator
5. Planner
6. Modifier
7. Synthesiser
8. Practicalizer
Byrd & Brown

Eight Orientations of #Innovation

What Is Your Creativity And Risk-Taking Orientation?

Measuring the creative sense and risk-taking orientation of individuals in organisations helps to explain why one organisation (or team) stagnates and dies, another takes excessive risks and lands in bankruptcy, and yet others are moderately to extremely successful.

As the Creatrix model suggests, your creativity and risk-taking orientation can be plotted on a matrix. The vertical scale designates the degree to which you are generally a low, moderate, or high risk taker. The horizontal scale designates the degree of your creative abilities. The Creatrix Inventory is further divided into eight zones, each representing a creativity/ risk-taking orientation. Although there are shades between the orientations—matters of degree—only the eight “pure” orientations will be described here to provide contrast, illustrations, and clarity.

The four orientations in the corners represent people who rank either extremely high or extremely low on creativity or risk taking. When the extreme types become more socialised, Sustainers (low creativity, low risk taking) may become Modifiers; Challengers (low creativity, high risk taking), Practicalizers; Innovators (high creativity, high risk taking), Synthesizers; and Dreamers (high creativity, low risk taking), Planners.

While the model and interpretations are based on only two variables of personality and behaviour. Nevertheless, they provide a window through which to examine yourself while keeping in mind the many other factors that help to make you (and your organisation) what you are.

 

The Eight Orientations of the Creatrix innovation model described:

Creatrix Innovation model

The Outside (or extremes) Orientations
Challengers	Have the attitude of “do it”-if we do nothing we will lose out Get excited about new ideas-most often to drive home the ideas of others May take on too many ideas and can find it difficult to complete all of them
Sustainers	Usually prefer stability to change Take chances only when necessary Appreciate what has worked in the past. Often feel change is done for its own sake Hold an organisation accountable and true to its mission
Dreamers	Are creative-constantly coming up with new ways to do things Strong on ideas, not strong on how to get them accomplished Can be the creative juice for the organisation, but need to partner with people who can execute the ideas
Innovators	Have a new idea every minute Always think they can figure out how they can make things happen Keep an organisation off balance—not always a good thing Can hit the “Grand Slam”

Inside (or social) Orientations
Practicalizers	Like changes-but not too many all at once Are willing to try something new, but look for the practical Will come up with creative ideas but do not consider this their strength
Modifiers	Add value by making incremental improvements Like to “test the waters” as a first step Don’t take risks unless the benefits outweigh the current state of affairs
Planners	Believe that an idea has merit if it fits within the plan Want information and data before making a decision or taking a risk Will come up with creative ideas within known parameters
Synthesizers	See possibilities in everything Create by putting things together-often unusual combinations that work in new ways Will drive an idea home but not at all costs-are more cautious than the Innovator

 

Related article: Innovation-aim-assess-activate-apply-model

Find out more at www.creatrix.com or www.innovativecapacity.co.uk