DEVELOPING A CULTURE OF

INNOVATION
THE QUESTION…

Do you want to work in an organization

where innovative behaviors are the norm?
THE QUESTION…

What do you see in innovative culture?

(How do you foresee innovation culture in an
organization?)
QUICK ACT:
How Do You Foresee Innovation Culture In An Organization?

Quick Act
1. Ask each student to write what they see in
innovation culture on a sticky note
2. Ask them to paste on the board (wall, book)
QUICK ACT: (EXAMPLE)
How Do You Foresee Innovation Culture In An Organization?

r i e nt e d
G o al o
F un 
am e ]
[your n
QUICK ACT:
How Do You Foresee Innovation Culture In An Organization?

Quick Act
1. Ask each student to write what they see
in innovation culture on a stick on note
2. Ask them to paste on the board
3. Rearrange the note according to what
you think you look forward to, to the
least.
IS THERE A PARTICULAR SIMILARITY?

Corporate Culture Innovation Culture

 • Determines the relationships and actions of its
employees within the company and shapes its
external appearance.

• It is not openly visible, but shows itself indirectly

CORPORATE through values, norms, attitudes and paradigms that

CULTURE employees share collectively.

 • Describes a specific form of corporate culture that is
primarily intended to promote the development of
innovations within the company.

INNOVATION • Since innovation processes are generally cross-divisional

processes, the innovation culture functions as a kind of
CULTURE cross-cutting culture, whose standards and values are
shaped and supported by all process participants.

• A positive innovation culture creates incentives for

employees and leads to an increase in the innovative
strength of the company.
INNOVATION CULTURE…
Common examples:
1. Team building and culture promotion (proud and commitment)
2. Common sense approach to work and freedom (but productivity matters)
3. Super friendly workplace including gym and free meals (caring)
4. Open presentation from high level executives (collective passion and
drive)
5. Open workplace and feedback at all levels (what people think matters)
THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF INNOVATION CULTURE

Ability May

Willingness
 THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF INNOVATION CULTURE

Supported by:
1. Empathetic
Ability May 2. Purpose driven
3. Focus on humility (being humble)
4. Growth mindset
Willingness 5. Assessment and evaluation (can be brutal,
but the aim is to push toward excellence
and to root out mediocrity (refer to Pixar)
 Requires innovation-promoting management and

INNOVATIO increasing the innovative ability of employees through the

development of specialist knowledge:
N CULTURE
 Make innovation culture a top priority and establish

Creatin
top-down processes throughout the company

 Training of employees in modern methods and tools

g Ability for brainstorming, idea evaluation and idea realization

(innovation crash course, creativity techniques,
innovation management)

 Trend and future workshops

 Continue…

INNOVATIO Requires innovation-promoting management and increasing the

N CULTURE innovative ability of employees through the development of
specialist knowledge:

Creatin 1. Development of the technical, technological and economic

knowledge of employees

g Ability 2. Cross-departmental and cross-divisional innovation

workshops with moderation by an external innovation
consultant

3. Internal knowledge transfer through transfer of newly

acquired or already existing knowledge in internal training
courses
 Continue…

INNOVATIO
N CULTURE 4. Use of external know-how (cooperation with
universities, research institutions, other companies,
external innovation consultants; Internet research

Creatin and specialist literature; expert interviews, patent

research), or partnership and collaborations with
universities.

g Ability 5. Use of new techniques and technologies

 IMPORTANT NOTE:

INNOVATIO
N CULTURE Creativity is not a privilege for individuals, but an
ability that all people possess.

Creatin • Prejudices in this regard and a lack of knowledge of

innovation methods very often inhibit the innovative

g Ability ability of employees.

• Time pressure and stress that make it difficult to think

beyond the daily business are also inhibiting for
"ability".
 IMPORTANT NOTE:

INNOVATIO • Innovative action cannot be ordered. It must be

N CULTURE intrinsically motivated in order to establish a lasting
culture of innovation in the company.

Willingnes • This means that committed and imaginative

s to employees are needed in the company, who are also

willing to leave the usual paths of thinking and acting
in order to develop an innovation from an idea.
Innovate
 How to inculcate Willingness to Innovate?

INNOVATIO 1. Raising awareness of the importance of innovation

N CULTURE in companies (communication and awareness-raising
training, annual Innovation Day)

Willingnes 2. Openness to employees' ideas (e.g. gathering

s to employees' ideas in a "ideas box" and joint idea

evaluation)

Innovate 3. Encouraging change and risk taking by

establishing a climate of innovation in which
employees can make mistakes and learn from them
 How to inculcate Willingness to Innovate?
Continue…
INNOVATIO
N CULTURE 4. Creation of motivation through incentives and
appreciation of innovation contributions (bonuses,

Willingnes career perspectives, gifts in kind, pitching contests,

innovation contests, praise and recognition)

s to 5. Review and change of the role understanding of

Innovate superiors within the framework of the creative

process (boss becomes moderator and coach)
 How do you think
THE “willingness”
will enhance the
QUESTION… ability to innovate?
 THE QUESTION…
1. more self-confident,

How do you think “willingness” 2. more willing to take risks,

will enhance
the ability 3. more motivated to approach
to innovate? an innovation.
 May – Opportunity for Innovation
INNOVATIO
N CULTURE Permission is the necessary prerequisite for actually
moving from "ability" and "will" to action.

“May” Within a company, therefore, framework conditions must

be created that offer employees the opportunity to think
and act innovatively and creatively.
 May – Opportunity for Innovation. How To:
INNOVATIO  Creation of time resources by making part of the

N CULTURE working time available to employees for the

implementation of promising ideas.

“May”
 Creation of financial resources by providing an
innovation budget

 Definition of clear goals, responsibilities and

competencies and processes with regard to the
development and implementation of ideas
 Continue….
May – Opportunity for Innovation. How To:
INNOVATIO
N CULTURE  Ensuring fast and efficient communication across all
hierarchical levels and the creation of free space for
“May” informal communication (e.g. break rooms)

 Fast and effective decision-making structures

 Formation of cross-divisional creative teams for the

joint development of ideas
 NOTE:

INNOVATIO If the "may" is combined with numerous hedging loops in

N CULTURE the hierarchy, then this very quickly slows down creative
thinking and employees lose motivation.
“May”
The same applies if the power of disposal over the
provision of resources is used by managers as an
instrument of power and the necessary resources are not
allocated.

This dimension of "need" in particular shows how serious

a company really is about innovation within the company
THE TRUTH..

Innovative cultures are hard to create and sustain

 INNOVATION CULTURES ARE MISUNDERSTOOD

Easy-going and easy to like Tough and less fun behaviours

behaviors
vs
WHAT’S THE FOCUS?
 BUILDING This is what innovative organizations do:
SUCCESSFUL [Google, Twitter, Pixar, Netflix, Tesla, Apple, Lego..]
INNOVATION
CULTURE  Set exceptionally high performance standards for
their people.

Tolerance for Failure  Recruit the best talent they can.

but NO
TOLERANCE FOR
 Encourage exploring risky ideas that ultimately
INCOMPETENCE fail is fine,

 NO TOLERANCE for mediocre technical skills, sloppy

thinking, bad work habits, and poor management
 BUILDING This is what innovative organizations do:
Do you have the drive to
SUCCESSFUL [Google, Twitter, Pixar, Netflix, Tesla, Apple, Lego..]
INNOVATION
take the challenge?  Set exceptionally high performance standards for
CULTURE
their people.

Failure tofortake
Tolerance Failurerisks and
 Recruit the best talent they can.
opportunities
but NO – will not
TOLERANCE FOR
guarantee
INCOMPETENCE one’s success
 Encourage exploring risky ideas that ultimately
fail is fine,

 NO TOLERANCE for mediocre technical skills, sloppy

thinking, bad work habits, and poor management
 BUILDING Some examples of highly competitive innovation
organizations:
SUCCESSFUL
 Apple: fire employees who deemed not up to the task.
INNOVATION
CULTURE
 Amazon: employees are ranked on a forced curve, and the
bottom part of the distribution is culled.

Tolerance for Failure

 Google: is known to have a very employee friendly culture, but
but NO
has a rigorous performance management system that moves
TOLERANCE FOR people into new roles if they are not excelling in their existing
INCOMPETENCE ones.

 Pixar: movie directors who cannot get projects on track are

replaced.
 POINT TO PONDER

1. In Malaysia, what is the common innovation culture?

2. Can we fire employees who are not competent?

3. Are there specific innovation culture policies, rules

and regulations?
4. How do you think having a firmed performance
management evaluation will encourage the
innovation culture?

Easy-to like behavior vs

tough behavior
THE TRUTH…. ABOUT TOLERANCE FOR FAILURE
The truth is that a tolerance for failure requires having extremely competent people.
Attempts to create novel technological or business models are fraught with uncertainty.

You often don’t know what you don’t know, and you have to learn as you go.
“Failures” under these circumstances provide valuable lessons about paths forward.

But failure can also result from poorly thought-out designs, flawed analyses,
lack of transparency, and bad management.

Google can encourage risk taking and failure because it can be confident that most
Google employees are very competent.
How do we start a culture that accept failure?

And…

build a culture of competence?

The Innovator DNA
 The Innovator DNA
1. How do I find innovative people
• for my organization?
• For my team?

2. And how can I become more innovative myself?

This is the “secret sauce” of innovation success

 THE INNOVATOR DNA

• *Associating, or the ability to successfully connect

seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas from
different fields

Associating • As these individuals connected, new ideas blossomed at the

intersections of their respective fields, thereby spawning the
Renaissance, one of the most inventive eras in history.

*the “Medici effect,” referring to the creative explosion in Florence when the Medici family
brought together people from a wide range of disciplines—sculptors, scientists, poets,
philosophers, painters, and architects.
 THE INNOVATOR DNA

• The important and difficult job is never to find the right

answers, it is to find the right question

Questioning • ASK: ‘If we did this, what would happen?”

• ASK: “Why?” and “Why not?” and “What if?”

 THE INNOVATOR DNA

• Discovery-driven executives produce uncommon business

ideas by scrutinizing common phenomena, particularly the
behavior of potential customers.

• In observing others, they act like anthropologists and social

Observing scientists.

• “Often the surprises that lead to new business ideas

come from watching other people work and live their normal
lives,”
 THE INNOVATOR DNA

• Like scientists, innovative entrepreneurs actively try out new

ideas by creating prototypes and launching pilots.

• Unlike observers, who intensely watch the world,

Experimenting experimenters construct interactive experiences and try to

provoke unorthodox responses to see what insights emerge.

• Should allow a culture that opens us to allowing lots of failures

while harvesting the learning,”. “It’s what separates an
innovation culture from a normal corporate culture.”
 THE INNOVATOR DNA

• Devoting time and energy to finding and testing ideas through a

network of diverse individuals gives innovators a radically different
perspective.

• Unlike most executives—who network to access resources, to sell

Networking themselves or their companies, or to boost their careers—innovative
entrepreneurs go out of their way to meet people with different kinds
of ideas and perspectives to extend their own knowledge domains.

• To this end, they make a conscious effort to visit other

countries and meet people from other walks of life.
 BRAINFEEDER

Reflecting on the Innovator’s DNA and your

creativity competency what conclusion can
you make about your innovation capability?

[associating, questioning, observing, experimenting, networking]