Build Innovation as a Culture

 “Culture eats strategy for breakfast!” said Peter Drucker

This implies that the culture of your team/company always determines success regardless of how effective your strategy may be.

The secrete sauce is about building an innovation culture which drives 10X accelerated success and create differentiated moat around the business/value proposition. If you look at industry history, there had been many attempts to make innovation as Strategy. But if underlining culture is of risk-averse, play safe, fail less then culture will eat up that innovation strategy. Many leaders still rely on strategy rather than culture until competition beats them to dust. Some lessons are hard learned.

But biggest question is about “Why innovation culture” before we deep dive on “How it can be inculcated”

Lets look at our human race. We are living in most convenient world with lots of life supporting/life comforting things which our 2000 years ago ancestors never had ( Cave men & women). They did not have mobiles/cars/air travels etc No internet, No sophisticated medical breakthroughs. Most importantly “no vaccine”. Life expectancy was dependent on near by Tiger/Lion which may eat you either for breakfast or lunch.

Humans have this inherent ability to challenge status-quo and bring new things to life. Otherwise we would still be hunters & gathers in some caves in deep amazon forest.

When we have such an inherent ability to innovate then why many companies/trailblazers do not use it. I was researching to find out this answers from many years and looking at Apple, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce etc. I strongly believe there are 3 core factors. First one: it is about fear of failure in mind (deep rooted to Judgmental based evaluation in work) and Second: not allowing Deep Work as key ingredient to job. Third: Openness to think big.

Lets understand Deep Work first:

Deep work can be stated as “Professional activities performed in a state of distraction free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill and are hard to replicate” – Cal Newport

Ask yourself and your team how much time are they spending in Deep Work with zero distractions. You get your answers which will amaze you. Team would be doing so much shallow work which of low value/urgent things. TimeBox those shallow work. Build this as individual practice. Lead by an example first. Let team know that you are focusing ( MS Team says Focusing… Do not disturb). We will take more about Deep Work in next series.

Let me share you an example how openness in harnessing innovation.

Google says that “10x thinking” is at the heart of their innovation and it is a guiding inspiration for all its engineers. To put it clearly, they say that true innovation happens when you try to make something better by 10 times rather than just 10%. This method of thinking is what makes Google tick which helps them in producing technological innovations that are unparalleled in most other companies. When you focus on such a goal, your imagination is stretched to the hilt and your mind can push beyond the usual limits to create something incredible.

I leave these 5 lessons of Google innovation culture with you. 

1. Sustained competitive advantage cannot be achieved with technology alone.

2. Measure, make decisions, and be transparent in that process.

3. Don’t be afraid of failure

4. Don’t forget that culture is always a work in progress.

5. Stay open.

Stay Connected, Stay Inspired!

Prasad Ballari

Credit: Survey Sparrow, HBR, Forbes