August 18, 2022
Columnist Mohan Nair lays out the top misconceptions in corporate innovation, and supplies strategies for overcoming them. Misconception #1: “All innovation should be done through operational teams, otherwise it will be a failure.”
All Politics & Business Unit Engagement
ArticleThe 5 Misconceptions in Corporate Innovation (and How to Overcome Them)- Article7 Tips for Introducing Ideas to LeadershipJune 14, 2022“Remember that one person’s idea is another’s cost,” writes veteran entrepreneur and executive Mohan Nair. Here are his tips on how to bring new concepts and ideas forward to leadership — even in non-traditional ways.
- ArticleHow to Make Ethnographic Interviewing Your Superpower: 5 TipsMay 9, 2022Learning how to do ethnographic interviews takes a lot of practice — and time. But if you are eager to learn more about what customers say vesus what they actually do, here are five tips to help you get started, from contributing columnist Matt Mueller.
- ArticleHow to Change an Innovation Skeptic’s MindMarch 30, 2022While it’s tempting to ignore skeptics, they can improve your idea if they feel included from the beginning. Innovation strategist Matt Mueller shares a techique to help shift perspectives and propel innovation foward.
- ArticleWhat I Wish I Knew Before I Joined the Innovation TeamFebruary 24, 2022Innovation is about going fast… or so Matt Mueller thought as an innovation novice drafted onto the team at a major food brand. In this piece, Mueller shares the challenges he wished he knew about beforehand.
- ArticleGoodyear and Pitney Bowes Veteran on Applying Lean Startup in Large CompaniesFebruary 8, 2022 | By Alexander MacDougallVeteran corporate innovator Jim Euchner talks game theory, corporate antibodies, and lean startup, in advance of the publication of his new book.
- ArticleHow Dell’s CTO Assesses New Technologies to Drive Future GrowthJanuary 12, 2022 | By Scott KirsnerOnce a company is approaching $100 billion in revenue, creating substantial growth gets a lot harder. “You need to find some new areas to play in,” says Global CTO John Roese. Here’s how he does that…W
- ArticleFidelity Labs SVP: ‘The Only Success Metrics That Really Matter are Financial Metrics’January 4, 2022 | By Scott KirsnerHow do you avoid winding up in the “danger zone” as an innovator inside a big company? Mona Vernon, the head of Fidelity Labs at Boston-based Fidelity Investments, says it’s all about making sure your metrics are aligned with your CEO and CFO.
- ArticleBook Excerpt: 3 Types of People You Need to Win OverOctober 22, 2021The new book from Shameem Prashantham, Gorillas Can Dance, presents examples of effective startup engagement strategies from companies like Microsoft, Unilever, BMW, and Cisco. This excerpt discusses the three types of internal corporate players who need to be on board in order to make startup collaborations successful.
- VideoNew Book: Five Ways to Innovate Inside BureaucraciesSeptember 16, 2021 | By Collin Robisheaux, Kaitlin MillikenTrying to make something new happen inside a big, established organization is never easy. Eric Haseltine and Chris Gilbert’s new book, “Riding the Monster: Five Ways to Innovate Inside Bureaucracies,” provides a guide to avoiding the gnashing teeth of the corporate machine, rather than getting chewed up and spit out.
- ArticleHas Your Organization Racked Up an Innovation Deficit?May 17, 2021 | By Scott KirsnerHas your organization racked up an innovation deficit over the past year? Check the answers that describe dynamics your organization, and get an instant assessment of where you stand.
- ArticleHow Companies Think About Innovation Budgets in 2021March 22, 2021 | By Kaitlin Milliken, Scott KirsnerIn a recent virtual gathering for members of the Innovation Leader network, executives shared their approaches to budgeting and funding in 2021.
- PodcastHow CSAA’s Chief Innovation Officer Approaches DisruptionMarch 16, 2021 | By Kaitlin MillikenHow do Chief Innovation Officers build a strategic pipeline of innovation activities? And, what do they do to influence culture? CInOs from CSAA and PA Consulting explain.
- ArticleJohn Hancock Exec on Getting More Digital, Fast, in a Socially-Distant EraAugust 24, 2020 | By Kaitlin MillikenAs the pandemic surged, John Hancock saw more Google searches related to life insurance. But its traditional approach to policies involved in-person medical exams. Here’s how they adapted.
- Thought LeadershipLiving in the New Reality: The Reinvention UltimatumJuly 29, 2020Fiona Grandi of KPMG LLP shares a simple framework to reinvent your business strategy across five primary pillars: employees, customers, financial model, supply chain and ecosystem, and unknown-unknowns.
- On Demand WebcastLeading Innovation Through Times of ChangeJune 5, 2020How can you get operations leaders to think further into the future when constructing a strategy? How do you manage the transition to business unit ownership, so innovations don’t die on the vine? Ned Calder and Rob Bell of Innosight answer those questions and more during the most recent Solution Set webcast.
- ArticleVeteran Disney Exec: 5 Things That Impact InnovationApril 29, 2020“Any step a company takes to foster innovation is praise-worthy,” says Marty Yudkovitz, formerly of The Walt Disney Company. “But…a lot of what is going on…is window dressing.”
- ArticleAt NASA, Introducing a New Openness to InnovationApril 10, 2020 | By Scott KirsnerIn a safety-obsessed culture, how do you suggest new ways to innovate? Omar Hatamleh, the first Chief Innovation Officer for the engineering group at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, shares.
- ArticleWhat We Stopped: 16 Activities That May Not Improve CultureMarch 31, 2020 | By Alex SlawsbyAs part of our recent research, we asked 259 leaders of innovation if there were activities they’d stopped doing that were initially intended to influence organizational culture…
- ArticleOvercoming Politics and Internal Resistance: Advice from Your PeersMarch 3, 2020 | By Scott KirsnerAt our Silicon Valley Deep Dive event in February, we asked a group of 30 innovation, emerging technology, and R&D leaders from industries like apparel, financial services, telecom, and manufacturing to discuss the things that can help overcome organizational resistance to innovation — as well as some of the things...
