Be Less Zombie

How Great Companies Create Dynamic Innovation, Fearless Leadership and Passionate People

Elvin Turner, Richard Johnston

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780857088208
• eBook ISBN: 9780857088239
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Prise de décision

***BUSINESS BOOK AWARDS - FINALIST 2021***

Be Less Zombie distils 10 years of field research amongst some of the world's leading innovators into a pragmatic, actionable toolkit. Designed for managers who need more remarkable innovation with repeatable, scalable approaches, it shows readers how to:

• De-risk bolder, more profitable innovation
• Make innovation a predictable and measurable capability
• Equip managers with essential tools and skills for leading innovation and transformation
• Help teams find new capacity and energy to deliver today's business whilst discovering tomorrow's

Turner's research also delves beyond the business world. He brings insights from a wide range of unexpected, expert sources including a guerrilla negotiator, a cage-fighter trainer, an X-Factor coach, a senior emergency room doctor, and a fashion designer.

His 'Turn It On' innovation framework gives leaders and managers tools, processes and pathways to make bolder and more profitable innovation an inevitability, not an anomaly.

This book is for:

• CEOs who need a better, more continuous pipeline of profitable innovation
• Senior leaders who need more ideas, collaboration and energy across their divisions
• Finance executives who want to resource innovation and yet measure it effectively
• Strategy, change and transformation managers charged with delivering greater organisational agility and differentiation
• HR executives who are trying to resource and equip leaders and employees with innovation capabilities
• Organisational development managers tasked with shaping more agile and innovative ways of working
• Team leaders who need to help their people find new capacity and energy to deliver bolder ideas
• Individual employees who want their managers to stop blocking their best ideas

??Elvin Turner is an award-winning innovation advisor to global corporations, government bodies, not-for-profit organisations, and start-ups around the world. He is also an associate professor at several business schools. For more information visit www.elvinturner.com.

"A must-read for anyone - in any business sector, at any career level - who is passionate about the serious business of innovation. A practical guide to curating a culture of innovation and navigating against the headwinds of organizational status quo."
Simon Collins, Senior Vice President, Mastercard

"Most leaders struggle to get the innovation performance they need. This is the practical playbook they've been waiting for."
Andy Billings, Vice President Profitable Creativity, Electronic Arts

Part One
Innovation Strategy For Pragmatists

Innovation is an argument inside most companies – frail, new ideas versus the overwhelming power of the status quo. An innovation strategy helps create an environment where new ideas can emerge and thrive. It is the single-most important way to build and sustain innovation performance. And it doesn't have to be difficult.

1
The Power of Strategic Intentionality

Why innovation doesn't happen without a deliberate leadership choice.

Innovation is an argument that most companies lose.

Why? Because usually they are far too casual about it.

Innovation demands change in the status quo. And typically, the greater the change, the bigger the argument.

So, when companies aren't deliberate enough about innovation, efforts evaporate quickly: business-as-usual is too busy and too powerful to make room for upstart, inconvenient, unproven, resource-hungry ideas. It's a fight that is always rigged.

The transition from a casual ‘dating’ mentality with innovation to a strategic always-on commitment is what sets apart the innovation powerhouses that we read about: Amazon, Google, Pixar, Netflix, Corning, Tesla and the like.

In these companies, innovation is a deliberate, never-ending pursuit. It is strategically aligned, deeply embedded, appropriately resourced, and meaningfully rewarded across the organisation. And anyone can do it.

© Richard Johnston.

Innovation has to be as intentional as any other function in the business. A company will usually have a sales strategy, finance strategy, marketing strategy, IT strategy and HR strategy…but rarely a meaningful innovation strategy. Of course, each function is supposed to layer on some innovation as part of its own strategy; but the truth is that it's rarely enough. At best, it delivers incremental levels of innovation across the organisation.

The bottom line is inescapable. If you need more innovation (especially more disruptive innovation) you must have a dedicated innovation strategy. But it doesn't need to be complex.

Starting an Innovation Strategy

How do you create an innovation strategy that galvanises a sustainable higher performance state?

Whilst every innovation strategy will be subtly different, all will benefit from a focus on two foundational elements:

1. Strategic Drivers

This the ‘why’ of innovation and covers the strategic ‘needles’ that innovation needs to move. It also includes understanding our preparedness for the changes that are approaching from the future:

• Alignment with corporate strategy – What is the overall direction that innovation needs to support?
• Financial renewal – What levels of growth and renewal do we need to deliver now and in the future?
• Customer insight – What matters most to our customers, today and in the future?
• Portfolio – Do we have the right balance and flow of new products and services coming down the pipeline?
• Future trends – How could our fortunes be impacted by emerging trends?

2. Innovation Framework

This is the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of innovation: With the strategic drivers in mind, how should we organise and mobilise innovation to turn the right ideas into new value? This falls into five broad categories:

• Process (how we develop new ideas and turn them into value)
• Capabilities (the skills, experience and partnerships required)
• Resources (the level, flow and management of resources)
• Culture (the beliefs and behaviours that support innovation)
• Leadership (who makes decisions, and how)

Aligning these areas allows a company to answer the question that an innovation strategy is designed to answer: ‘To what extent are we creating the conditions where bold ideas can emerge and develop?’

Turn It On framework © Elvin Turner

Throughout the book, we'll be looking at how to practically ‘turn on’ each of these areas. We'll also be looking at approaches to governance that keep innovation moving on an even keel.

Whilst every innovation strategy will benefit from a focus on these areas, bear in mind that every company's approach will be subtly different. The ‘perfect’ innovation strategy is the one that most powerfully supports your unique culture, direction and context.

So let's get started with a brief look at what is often the sink-or-swim issue for sustainable innovation: alignment to corporate strategy.

2
The Do-Or-Die Issue of Innovation Performance

How alignment with strategy creates powerful and sustainable innovation momentum.

According to research,¹ 54% of companies struggle to align their business and innovation strategies. That's a lot of ideas potentially ‘flying blind’, and my experience is that when they do, most crash and burn.

When an idea can't point to a meaningful strategic landing strip, turbulence is inevitable.

Alignment with strategic goals makes innovation sustainable. It simultaneously connects innovation with hard commercial outcomes and provides the motivation for a crucial chain reaction to take place behind it. If innovation becomes the means by which we will meet our numbers, suddenly the resources, processes, culture required rise up the list of leadership priorities.

Alignment with strategy pulls the whole innovation system forward. And this is especially important when allocating and defending the resources required for strategic creativity which often get cut during leaner times.

Stuck at First Base?

But first, a reality check. Many executives that I meet coyly admit that their company doesn't actually have a strategy. Instead they have a revenue objective and a 12-month plan that serves as the strategy. This makes alignment with impactful, sustainable innovation strategy tricky.

But no strategy doesn't mean you can't make progress with innovation. In fact, often, a corporate strategy is inadvertently born during the process of developing an innovation strategy. The conversations force a point of view about the most important factors that define a company's future.

So, if you're light on strategy, jump to Chapter 13, ‘Quick-Start Innovation Strategy Workshop’, for a pragmatic starting point.

Connecting Strategy and Innovation

If your company does have a strategy, hopefully i...

Table of contents

• COVER
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INTRODUCTION: UNICORNS VS ZOMBIES
• Part One: Innovation Strategy For Pragmatists
• Part Two: Turning on a Fast-Track Innovation Process
• Part Three: Building Your People's Innovation Capabilities
• Part Four: Time, Money and Talent: How to Resource Innovation
• Part Five: Innovation Culture for Realists
• Part Six: Leading an Innovation Reformation
• Part Seven: Turn It On, Turn It Up
• INDEX
• END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT