Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Exactly How Do YOU Innovate?: Key Learnings From 4/23 InnoSession

As many of you know, Jatin DeSai came to Atlanta last week to conduct a multi-client Executive Briefing on Strategy-Driven Innovation.

Of course every time Jatin speaks, I learn something new about helping organizations drive their business strategies more effectively. And formally representing The DeSai Group has provided me with the added benefit of crystallizing my beliefs around the critical role Innovation should be playing in your organization and mine everyday.

After sharing a nice meal early in the week, joining him for an inspiring site visit to the Manheim DRIVE Innovation Center, and participating in Jatin’s ½ day InnoSession last Thursday . . .

I’m more convinced than ever:

- The ability to plan & execute Fast, Innovative Change is the most consistent and durable source of competitive advantage.

- Most organizations and those who lead them could do a much better job of it by adopting just a few core principles and exercising just a handful of key disciplines.

- Among the most direct and powerful of these is understanding and applying what we explored in that session about Innovation Styles.

If you lead -- or even participate on -- any team charged with the responsibility of solving problems and meeting needs in your organization, you owe it to yourself to discover more about exactly how and why understanding and applying Innovation Styles is so important to your success.

I’ll be delighted to set aside some time to describe what I’m learning on this front, explore how this work might have merit for your situation . . . and coordinate a brief phone visit with Jatin or one of our Sr. Consultants should you have questions “out of my depth.”

In the meantime . . .

You Can See A Quick 2-page Summary Of My Personal Innovation Style Right Here

* There’s a more in-depth 12 page version I’m happy to share as well, if you’re interested.

Enjoy . . .
XXX
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1 comments:

Jeff said...

Stone -

I'm not personally familiar with the work of the Desai Group, but it sounds like they have an interesting and useful framework.

Several other shops have similar frameworks, even though the actual dimension descriptors may vary, they seem to all use the same 4 colors!!

From my experience, one practice for building Innovation teams that is useful is to ensure that once you have characterizations of all potential team members, that you ensure that the team make-up is balanced. Innovation, like any other process, works with teams that are diverse and balanced and where the team member's strengths complement other's weaknesses. I would imagine that a if you (an Explorer) were on a team with 4 Visioners, you guys would come up with great ideas and an inspiring vision, but would never get there without at least an Experimenter or Modifier or two.

The framework provides a good perspective though on how people work and how they might best work together.

Best,

@JeffreyJDavis
President & COO, AGY