‘That is great, Natalie,’ the man said as he closed down his laptop. ‘Let me get back to you with some ideas on how we can move this forward, it’s certainly what we need right now, I just have to figure out how we can make it work.’ I walked out of the room, a big smile on my face. Wow, what a conversation! We had discussed and explored a range of subjects and I was sure that a decision had just been made to move ahead with our proposal.

Somehow, I had thought that because I had identified a need for organisational innovation – or the building of capabilities, skills and structures to help a company innovate – that there would be a clear market for it, as in people would buy the service. Back in 2006, this was just not the case. I had not really investigated the idea. I had identified a need and ignited some ideas, but I had not thought through how it could really work. While individuals inside an organisation might have seen the need, and managed to find funding, most organisations were just not structured or designed in a way that allowed them to take action, even if they wanted to.

In 2006, I had not really appreciated the relatively young professional status that the discipline of innovation has within organisational life. Unlike marketing, finance, operations or the sales department, which are all common business functions, whom do you call when you want to talk about innovation? Who owns innovation? Not just research and development or the development of new products or services, but ownership around making innovation part of everyone’s day job. It is a question that usually receives a blank response. Yet, pick up any business magazine and, invariably, you will find multiple articles on the strategic importance of innovation for a company’s growth. A PricewaterhouseCoopers report highlighted 72 per cent of CEOs stating innovation as one of their top three priorities. So, certainly there was an identified need, but it did require a bit more investigation to explore how the ideas could work.

Thankfully, it is getting easier now as more and more directors inside organisations see the need for rapid ways to deploy innovative products, services and business models and this means building up skills and internal capabilities to execute this. One of our clients is Singapore Airlines and, I must say, it is one of the few companies that I have met where different parts of the organisation have come together to think systematically about how they innovate – the head of HR, the head of new product development and the head of research, as well as a number of other departmental heads, but this is rare.

This story illustrates a couple of very important lessons – good ideas, even if they are focused on real needs and are even useful, will work only if the market – customers – are ready and able to buy. We need to stand back and look at the broader context of how an idea can go to market and test it thoroughly. It means thinking things through, carefully and systematically, and not just jumping feet first into implementation. The need for a critical mindset so we can investigate new ideas and improve their likelihood of success is the subject of this chapter.

Throughout, I will give examples, stories, activities and tools to help you improve your ability and confidence to investigate new ideas.

The investigate phase is central to innovation, as it can save a lot of time, resources and money by not jumping in too quickly to make an idea happen. This includes systematically researching, analysing and assessing ideas and ensuring that ideas are useful, not just novel. This also incorporates design thinking or customer-centred approaches to creating new solutions. This is really important, as open innovation – the use of external as well as internal ideas and paths to market – will help to ensure that what is being offered is going to create value for those that will use the service, product or process.

Having a culture where exploration and questioning is encouraged and getting other people to think things through carefully and systematically are important leadership and culture-building skills, as they help to create an environment where people have permission to explore, test and prototype – a sample, model or release of a product built to test a concept or process. They also help to encourage people to research whether ideas will work before further commitment is invested.

This phase of innovation requires a critical mindset that can help you to stand back from your ideas so that you can think them through.