Dima Sikorski/Stocksy
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Innovation doesn’t just come from serendipity. Leaders who nurture great ideas rely on concrete mechanisms to ensure that they see the right ideas, give them breathing room to development, and connect dots throughout their organizations. In any company, the challenge with innovation is seldom the volume of ideas. The challenge lies with having ideas that are related to emerging trends, involve more than the company can do on its own, require nurturing, and are cross-functional in nature. Through interviews with 50 leaders across industries, the author observed patterns of successful innovation repeat across highly distinct settings. Those patterns are what he calls the four pillars of innovation. If you’re struggling to nurture the right ideas, creating these four pillars for innovation can improve the odds that you’ll have high-quality ideas in your pipeline.
A company’s big challenge with innovation is seldom the volume of ideas. Indeed, in a survey conducted this year by my company, only 6% of corporate innovators said that their biggest problem was having too few ideas. But not all ideas are equal, and poor or highly derivative ideas might consume far too much attention. Frequently those ideas are related to emerging trends, involve more than the company can do on its own, require nurturing, and are cross-functional in nature. The real need is to ensure that the right ideas get ahead and get considered.
