Innovation Leadership, a Matter of Behavior

A recent innovation leadership study (http://www.capgemini-consulting.com/ebook/Innovation-Leadership-Study/index.html ) carried out jointly by IESE Business School and Capgemini Consulting suggests there are five key areas that affect a company’s innovation success: the innovation function, innovation strategy and innovation governance (formal mechanisms), innovation leadership and innovation culture (informal mechanisms).

The study notes specific differences in behavior of innovation leaders versus laggards across these key area. The behavior of leaders has an impact in the ability to drive innovation.

Additionally critical to innovation success is the development of a well-articulated innovation strategy. The lack of such a strategy is by far the most important constraint for companies to reach their innovation targets, followed by a lack of understanding of the external environment. There is a need for innovation strategy development in a more bottom-up manner, focused on people as the key source of competitive advantage. One needs to capture all those individual insights from managers and employees to better incorporate an understanding of the external environment in the strategy development process.

Have you developed an innovation strategy and are you achieving success with it?