There are numerous lists of what it means to be innovative or be an innovator. Here we take a slightly different approach to create our own lists describing what it means to become innovative, both as an individual and as an organization.

How do we get these lists?

Lists such as these typically come from an ‘analysis’ of firms that exhibit certain behaviors and experience certain outcomes. There are numerous studies in the literature containing literally hundreds of ‘things to do’ or ‘ways to behave’ based on common patterns across companies. The problem with these analyses is that they look only at ‘the survivors’, and don’t say whether the behavior led to innovation or was merely a symptom of some other, deeper practice.

For our lists, we have looked at many of the best studies and asked ‘what’s behind’ the suggested behaviors and outcomes. In addition, we have used our own research into innovation to distill the essential innovation environment and innovation behaviors listed below.

An Innovation Model and Personas

Two parts of Inovo’s research into innovation are key to understanding what it takes to become innovative. This includes a dynamic model of the innovation process (revealing key aspects that affect how innovation develops over time), and descriptions of innovation personas (showing how different types of people think, act and choose) when innovating. For the lists that follow, however, the model and the personas clearly define two critical dimensions of what it takes to become innovative. These are the environment within which innovation can bloom, and the specific actions and behaviors of the innovators. The following diagram shows the dimensions of innovation environment and behavior.


These quadrants represent the following[1]:

I – Structured Consolidator – incremental innovations from a known base
II – Knowledge Consolidator – market-research-focused product and line enhancements
III – Structured Colonizer – cautious exploration into known adjacencys. Acquisition tendencies.
IV – Knowledge Colonizer – creation of new markets, radical innovations and disruptive businesses

A corporation must have some attributes of each quadrant, but only those that include Quadrant IV will have a transformative and profound effect.

Innovation Environment/Culture

There comes a time in the life of many individuals and organizations when they ask themselves ‘How can we be more innovative?’. They may ask themselves this question only occasionally, or every week. At these times, one must examine the current environment and ask whether or not it has the necessary attributes to undertake the effort to become innovative…and, if not, then how do we get there? The following are what we have found to be necessary preconditions for a Quadrant IV organizational environment:

1. Leadership & Vision

• Alignment of corporate strategy and innovation strategy
• Walking the Talk – allocation of resources and actions to match rhetoric
• Openness – free flow of information and knowledge

2. A resilient organizational persona

• Adaptive, self-correcting, learning
• Speed, transparency, accountability

3. The right incentives

• Rewarding exploration, knowledge discovery and collaboration
• Experimentation bias – tolerance of risk and mistakes

4. The right organizational resources

• The right talents and attitudes
• Efficient corporate structure – non hierarchical, non bureaucratic
• Portfolio efficiency – quantity, quality, throughput and yield
• An effective support infrastructure – knowledge sharing channels and collaboration support

5. The right type of financial discipline

• Able to see beyond ROI and NPV analysis
• Focused funding at the right level

Innovative Behaviors