Every business needs to innovate. But how businesses should approach innovation isn’t so black and white. The typical one-size-fits-all approach to innovation assumes all businesses think and act the same. It assumes that every business is looking for a lot of wild ideas when what they may really need are just a few smart ones. Taking the wrong approach to innovation can cripple a company under the weight of trying to sustain a breadth of new activities – often diverting attention away from the things most critical to the business’ success.
What’s your organization’s innovation style? Complete this quiz and you’ll get a free report profiling the unique orientation your company has toward innovation and how you can best leverage it for growth.
We practice essentialism. When it comes to business innovation, essentialism is about rejecting the notion that effective change is about simply generating more ideas, more products, more initiatives. Rather it’s about discovering each organization’s unique approach to innovation and helping it go deeper – not wider – in the areas that matter most.
essential:
a.) absolutely necessary, indispensable;
b.) pertaining to or constituting the essence of a thing;
c.) being such by its very nature or in the highest sense
What this means is rejecting the notion that innovation is found chasing trends out in the world and reverse engineering a business model that feeds those trends. We help businesses first identify what’s exceptional within their business and extending those experiences in ways that actually create the trends that shape the world around their business.
To understand the heart of your business, your purpose, your priorities, we sift through what's essential to the core of the business and what's not. After we align with mission, we set objectives.
With a firm understanding of the business' DNA and its new objectives in hand, we help you imagine what's possible. This is where we collaborate, think experimentally, expansively, strategically.
Next, the systems and resources get organized and aligned with the most essential priorities and we'll arrive at a plan for execution.
The final phase is where the release and review take place. We'll look at the execution of the plan and assess its effectiveness - what's working and what needs additional work. We'll provide ongoing guidance on how to measure, refine and optimize the plan so that you can carry this important work into your company's next season of change.
Learn how to align your company's innovation practice to one of eight different innovation styles.