Fellow innovators, I was extremely delighted to read Christine Comaford’s 7/26 Forbes article about the necessity of innovation. Right on! While Christine and I have not met nor have we discussed these elements, we are significantly aligned! As an active disruptor and provocateur, I work with large enterprises to revitalize innovation and grow the vibrant culture of Disruption which is the culture of innovation. I call this the CofD phenomenon. This innovation culture within companies is essential to think actively and deliberately about disruption and innovation. This is the fundamental first step.

I also agree with the other 3 pillars that Christine lays out which discuss the process of assuring that innovation succeeds in a company. However, what I think is perhaps lacking in this article is the fact that we need all levels of a company to be part of the culture of disruption and innovation. While this article discusses the necessity of the rank and file to be encouraged, stimulated to innovate, it is key that the management and all executive layers also have the same plan, drive and motivation. Why do we expect innovation to come from the engineers and not CEO’s and VP’s? I think we need to approach innovation from a ‘total’ company perspective and have the culture be corporate-wide at all levels. The true culture of innovation has everyone involved and engaged in innovation actively.

Secondly, we need a reward system which recognizes and rewards ‘innovation’ as it does ‘delivery’. Not just by a weekly innovation recognition award, but also by creating a culture which blends in innovation performance as it does delivery performance. When my clients ask me what the major obstacles to innovation are and how to create a stronger culture of innovation, I remind them that not only do they yet not have reward systems in place, in some instances, employees feel that they will be reprimanded for innovation as that may be viewed as a loss of focus!

To truly and genuinely create a culture of innovation, we need to involved all levels and recognize and reward the spirit of innovation. We also should remember that innovation is by default ‘experimentation’ which can fail! That failure leads to new ideas and innovation. More on this as we continue the discussion of the culture of disruption and innovation. Let’s keep these dialogues alive and strong!

Related articles

• Why Disruption is Not Just About Innovation? (lindabernardi.com)
• Ten Ways to Inhibit Innovation (blogs.hbr.org)
• Innovate Or Become Irrelevant: 4 Ways to Use Social Enterprising to Drive Innovation (forbes.com)