© NICK WHITELEY 2013

Steps to Successful Innovation and Execution

Innovation Boost, University of Hertfordshire, 7th of December 2013

Agenda

• Background• 4 Essentials 4 Innovation

• Cultural Balance & Barriers

• Tools• Q&A

Nick Whiteley

• Technologist• Managing Director • Author• Consultant• Entrepreneur

“Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without

passion.”

Georg Hegel

Passion

A Better Tomorrow

“Training often gives people solutions to problems already

solved. Collaboration addresses challenges no one has overcome

before.”

Marcia Conner

Collaboration

A Better TomorrowCulture

“Organizations, by their very nature are designed to promote

order and routine. They are inhospitable environments for

innovation.”

T. Levitt

A Better Tomorrow

"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.“

Jonathan Swift

Vision

A Better Tomorrow

PassionVision

CollaborationCulture

4 Essentials

Competing Values Leadership: Creating Value in Organizations by Kim S. Cameron, Robert E Quinn, Jeff DeGraff and Anjan V Thakor

1. Does it intersect between your competency and passion?

2. Will it still be relevant in 100 years’ time?

3. Does it have a value proposition that provides focus and differentiation?

Success is a Journey Not a destination

Companies that last go on successive missions rather than simply defending their ground. Success isn’t a destination but an opportunity to embrace

successive missions.

Self Disrupt Or Self Destruct?

Don’t be afraid to disrupt your business.

None of your competitors will have any such hesitation.

Innovation needs a champion

Innovation can create internal resistance and there needs to be ownership and authority to drive through execution and often this involves every area of

the organisation.

“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there will

be no hope for it.”

Understand the heart of your customer

Go further by understanding the needs of their customers too.You need to do more than hear what they say, but understand what they do

and how to make their tomorrow better than today.

Redefine the Problem

“If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse”.Henry Ford

Identify the Gaps and Connect the Dots

By filling the gaps you can create an unequal presence in the market by completing the areas no-one else has seen.

Remove everything that doesn’t add value. Simplify everything else.

It takes real focus and ingenuity to remove complexity and simplify. Simplicity and Speed add real value.

“Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.”

Charles Mingus

Find the Impossible. Then Redefine it.

Whatever was impossible yesterday may be possible today.

Look at different markets to see if they have solved a similar problem.

Failure is part of the process

“Wherever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.”

Peter Drucker

Fail Quick. Fail Cheap.

Avoiding Risk is your greatest Risk

Identify and quantify risks but don’t avoid taking them.Innovation is about taking risks, and the greatest risk to any company is to

become risk adverse.

Small changes on the Innovation Journey can lead to something far more disruptive.

Presentation based on “Business Innovation: A little book of big ideas” by Nick Whiteley

Purchase in paperback or kindle from Amazon. Direct link: www.nickwhiteley.co.uk

www.linkedin.com/in/nicholaswhiteley

@nickwhiteley

www.innogise-blog.co.uk

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