Getting the Ingredients Together
“Hi, Laura!”
“Hi David! How are you?” asked Laura.
“Doing well. Yourself?”
“Doing well, thanks!” said Laura.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, Laura.”
“Thanks! Hopefully all good?” said Laura with a smile.
“Yes. You come highly recommended.”
“I have read everything you shared with me. I am excited to help. However, let me warn you, it’s not going to be easy or fast. What we’re going to do needs sensitivity, empathy, and most of all, commitment.”
“Are you going to be firing people?”
“No! But I would be asking to hire some new people to replace the ones you’ve let go. People from diverse backgrounds.”
“What else?”
“Here.” She pulled out a presentation.
“What is this?”
“It’s the results of the InnoQ.”
“What does it say?”
“Well, it shows that your biggest problem is your ranks and files do not share what your senior management thinks. You’re living in two separate universes. An innovation culture is impossible with this kind of disconnect.”
“So, we should fire them then?”
“Absolutely not. You’ve already done a lot of that. But I think you must face up to it, David. I am not going to sugar coat it. Would you rather call more people into your office and fire them or would you rather be honest and tell them there’s a need for change? I personally think this is a good time. With your letting others go already, everyone has woken up and smelt the coffee. You need to use this opportunity to make your point—for radical change.”
“OK, then what’s that?”
“I have specific steps and courses of action for each of the 11 dimensions we’ve measured for the company. And you’ll get to see how you’re doing compared to your competition and within your industry. It sounds like you already got a taste of that through your conversation with your friend that you shared with me.”
“Yes, that’s true. But will this solve the problem?”
“It will start the process of change.”
* * *
We will take a break from this story here. If you can’t wait to find out what happened to David and his company, you can jump ahead to the Epilogue. However, at this point, we will take a turn to examine the Inno-Q™ and its genesis, so that readers can gain insight into how aspects of innovation can be tapped into and built out across an organization. You’ll see a road test for the InnoQ™ in action. We’ll then move to an overarching mindset and philosophy for practicing innovation culture, applied improvisation, and connections between the dimensions of innovation culture and larger developments with leadership, organizations, and societies. Finally, we’ll provide you with a sequence of exercises that you can run with your teams to start building innovative activities into your work, from the ground up. Readers will learn how to use and implement improvisational and creative activities focused on developing innovative products, services, and for other outcomes.