Innovation is "in" these days.

The word is on the lips of every CFO, CFO, CIO, and anyone else with a three-letter acronym after their name. As a result, many organizations are launching all kinds of "innovation initiatives" -- hoping to stir the creative soup and differentiate themselves from the competition. This is commendable. But it is also, too often, disappointing. Why? Because too much attention is being paid to process and too little attention is being paid to people and the art of fostering the kind of organizational culture that is the wellspring of innovation. Participants in this groundbreaking workshop will have an engaging, hands on opportunity to think deeply about change, creativity, commitment, and what they can do, within the next 90 days, to jump start a sustainable culture of innovation within their respective spheres of influence. Innovation, the endless effort to find a better way, cannot be achieved by robotically lining up best practices and imitating them. The real catalyzing agent for innovation is the ground from which these best practices spring -- the confluence of purpose, people, and processes better known as culture.

From where will the next wave of groundbreaking innovation come?

Not from organizations mechanically mimicking each other's best practices, but from organizations with the commitment to take their stand on ground that has been cultivated for breakthrough.

If you check the contents of the most popular books on innovation, the same topics show up again and again: strategy, systems, process, leadership, customer focus, risk, speed to market, prototyping, metrics, mass collaboration, market intelligence, technology, and creative thinking.

Yes, all of these topics are important. But none of them can take root in an organization without one fundamental element being in place -- a consciously created culture of innovation.

Is such a culture simple to create? Yes. Is it easy? No. And the reason why it is not easy is because the ground of most organizations is hard, untilled, and in major need of clearing.

The metaphor that most clearly conveys the effort required is creating a garden.

To experienced gardeners, the steps needed to create a garden are simple. To the inexperienced gardener, it is a tangle of complexity.

Yes, gardening demands sustained and methodical effort. And yes, sweating comes with the territory. But getting a yield -- something to harvest -- is a fundamentally straightforward task.

If your company is clear about the effort required, creating a culture of innovation (lets just call it a garden of innovation) is simply a matter of taking the time to execute each step thoroughly -- in the time honored way gardeners have always practiced their craft.

1. WHET THE APPETITE If you are serious about being a gardener of innovation, the first thing you will need is hunger -- a real appetite for results.

Growing a garden takes sustained effort. It is hard work -- most of it unglamorous and unappreciated. Hunger for a yield is the serious gardener's real motivator. Yes, the serious gardener likes being outdoors and, yes, the serious gardener likes getting exercise, but the ultimate product of his/her labors -- the harvest -- is what it is all about.

Without this level of commitment, the gardening effort remains only a hobby and does not have the roll up your sleeves and get dirty quality so essential to reaping a result.

If your workforce has no appetite for innovation, you will need to find a way to whet it. If you choose not to, people will sit idly by, waiting for R&D, senior leadership, or the tooth fairy to lead the charge. And while they may talk about growth, shovels, and the need for bulk purchase of mulch, talk will not put food on the table.

Fortunately, somewhere, deep inside everyone in your organization is the impulse to create. This impulse is innate. Your task is to awaken this impulse and help people own the effort to innovate. If they do not own the effort, the only thing you will be eating at harvest time will be your own words. (P.S.: Winter is on the way.)

2. STAKE and PREPARE THE GROUND Amateur gardeners, fueled by visions of ripe tomatoes, have a tendency to plant before they are really ready. Unclear about how large a garden they can sustain, unsure about what is needed to prepare the ground, unable to resist the impulse for a quick yield, they rush in willy nilly.

The result? Lots of wasted effort and the kind of sweating that signifies almost nothing. The same holds true for organizations who claim they want a culture of innovation.

The antidote is a simple, two step process (though the description of the process is much simpler than the execution).

First, an organization needs to get clear about the scope of the effort they want to make. It needs to stake its territory or, more precisely, define the fields in which it wants to innovate. (If it tries to innovate everywhere, all the time, it will only deplete its resources and exhaust its workforce.)

Secondly, it needs to prepare the ground for planting.

This task includes removing obstacles that will interfere with growth, as well as enriching the fertility of the soil. Weekend gardeners cringe at this kind of preparatory effort. It does not feel like fun and there is nothing immediately to show for it. But without this effort there will be no foundation -- no ground -- for future success.

3. FIND THE SEEDS You can have ample space to plant a garden. You can know exactly where that ample space is. And you can have lots of fertile soil in this ample space. But unless you have healthy seeds to plant, space is all you will ever have.

If you want a garden of innovation, you need seeds. Not just one kind of seed, but many. Indeed, the more varied seeds you have, the greater your chances for an interesting yield.

In the realm of innovation, ideas are the seeds. All innovation from the inside out with an idea. Ideas are the fuzzy front end of the innovation process -- the alpha and omega of new growth. No ideas, no innovation. Its that simple.

The big question, then, is this: Where will your company get its new ideas? Is there an existing process? And if so, is this process working? Can you count on your workforce to deliver high quality, game changing ideas? Or is there something else you need to be doing in order to tap their brilliance?

4. PLANT THE SEEDS While it is true that some seeds, spontaneously carried by the wind and landing on fertile soil, find a way to plant themselves, most gardens require that seeds be planted in a more dependable way.

If your company is sincere about its intention to create a culture of innovation, it will need to refine its seed planting process. More specifically, it will need to establish a more effective way for the carriers of seeds to increase the odds of those seeds taking root.

Yes, aspiring innovators will need to become more adept at pitching/planting their ideas. But at the same time, the people to whom new ideas are being pitched will need to become more receptive to the possibility that something new is worthy of taking root.

Having a silo of healthy seeds is a good start, but ultimately those seeds need to be planted -- and they need to be planted in a way that will radically increase the odds of them growing into seedlings.

5. FENCE THE GARDEN If you have ever planted a garden, you have experienced the phenomenon of uninvited predators showing up at all hours to devour your tender, young seedlings. Deer, raccoons, moles, rabbits, and a host of other unidentifiable varmints seem to have no other mission in life but to downsize your dreams of winning the state fair or, at the very least, eliminate all possibility of you having fresh lettuce for dinner. It comes with the territory. And it will continue to come with the territory unless you fence your garden.

Organizations of all shapes and sizes experience the same phenomenon.

Promising new business growth ideas -- the tasty indicators of breakthrough innovation -- are routinely devoured by ravenous corporate naysayers. That is, unless the organization finds a way to protect their aspiring innovators.

Your role, as a gardener of innovation, is to fence your garden and protect your people from the overly acidic scrutiny, doubt, and premature evaluation of predominantly left brained, metric driven,

analytical inhibitors of innovation. It can be done. It must be done. And you are the one to champion the process.

6. TEND NEW GROWTH Conceiving a garden is relatively easy. It requires no special skills, discipline, or education. Anyone can do it. Indeed, anyone does do it every single Spring and Summer. Getting a harvest, however, is an entirely different matter. It is not so easy -- and unlike conception, requires skill, discipline, resources, and the ability to learn on the job.

In the same way, conceiving new ideas is relatively easy. It happens every day of the year to millions of people. Bringing them to fruition is not so easy. Along the way, they get neglected, mishandled, and trampled on. What starts out as a brilliant new possibility, often shrivels on the vine. Most organizations have no conscious process for nurturing the growth of new ideas.

As a result, many powerful, new ideas never mature.

They may break new ground, but they do not necessarily flower and bear fruit. The good news? It does not have to be this way. With the right kind of sustained effort, gardeners of innovation can dramatically increase the odds of exciting new ideas becoming part of the harvest and making it to market.

7. THIN and TRANSPLANT Inexperienced gardeners, intoxicated by their need for a big harvest and overcompensating for their fear of having nothing to show for their efforts, tend to plant too many seeds too close together. Their fear usually dissipates in a few weeks when the first sprouts emerge, but then another challenge surfaces -- what to do with the apparent bounty of new growth?

While the profusion of greenery certainly looks good to the untrained eye, the reality is different. New seedlings start competing with each other for water and nutrients. Roots entangle. Left unaddressed, the results are disappointing -- row after row of stunted, scraggly plants.

Savvy gardeners respond quickly, thinning out new growth to make room for a select number of the healthiest plants to flourish.

Really savvy gardeners go one step further -- transplanting the healthiest of the thinned out plants to new, roomier locations.

Organizations trying to raise the bar for innovation face the same challenge. Intoxicated by their need for impressive growth (and wanting to involve as many employees as possible in the process), they get overwhelmed by a profusion of ideas and initiate too many projects -- ideas and projects that end up competing for the same, finite resources.

The result? Scraggly, stunted, and undeveloped ventures.

The antidote? A clear strategy for how their organization will evaluate, select, and fund new initiatives -- along with a process for identifying promising new growth to be transplanted for future development.

8. CELEBRATE THE HARVEST All cultures around the world have a holiday, ritual, or ceremony dedicated to expressing gratitude for the bounty of the harvest. In their bones, they understand the purpose, power, and privilege of giving thanks. Their recent harvest may have fed the body, but the collective acknowledgment of the harvest feeds the soul, strengthening everyones resolve to begin the growing process again the next season.

Corporate cultures could learn a lesson or two from this age old practice.

Historically, organizations have been severely lacking when the time comes to acknowledge the harvest and the people whose efforts were essential to manifesting that harvest. The endless demand for output drives most business leaders to conclude that acknowledging successes is a waste of time -- a luxury no bottom line watching organization could afford. Somehow, deep within the collective psyche of senior leaders, lurks the fear that celebrating successes will invariably lead to a fat and lazy workforce.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

People flourish when their efforts are acknowledged -- not only individually, but as an entire workforce. If you are serious about establishing a sustainable culture of innovation, remember to

take the time to acknowledge your gardeners. For their effort. For their resilience. For their collaboration. And for whatever harvest they are able to manifest.

Im constantly blown away by the brilliant, innovative ideas around us. Its a shame that so very few of those ideas see the light of day. Brilliant people with innovative ideas are everywhere, but most of their ideas get caught in one of three traps: Fear/Risk: Innovative ideas are inherently risky. They buck trends, go against the status quo. The risk of failure is quite high. Its why most people keep their day jobs and merely dream about their ideas vs. taking action on them. Oftentimes this is born out of income risk. I cant quit my day job to give this a shot if it fails, my income and family suffers. Or it could be the risk of ruining your reputation. Try something innovative at work, and if it fails that may damage your success record. Or your promotion. Or raise. This is why so many great ideas, innovations and start-ups are born in a recession. Individuals with great ideas lose their secure jobs, so the risk of starting or trying something totally different goes down significantly. Rejection: Because innovative ideas arent what people expect, they get rejected easily. If you raise an innovative idea in a big company, its likely to get squashed. If you run a new idea by someone whos embedded in the status quo, they wont understand what youre saying. Worse, theyll tell you it will never work. Innovators get rejected a lot but for many would-be innovators, that rejection is too much to overcome. Either they cant move forward in their existing organization, or become convinced that the nay-sayers are right. Thats a travesty. Bandwidth: Who has time for new ideas anyway? You woke up this morning with too much to do as it is current projects, current deadlines, current initiatives. We then go home to family, kids, chores and a thousand things pulling at our time. Innovations usually start in someones spare time, but finding that time can itself be a significant challenge. If you get laid off, and suddenly have a plethora of time, the bandwidth limiter is eliminated. But for the rest of us, finding time to triage and pursue our new ideas can often be an insurmountable challenge. For every entrepeneur, no matter how confident or determined, these hurdles exist. For the majority of individuals with great ideas, these hurdles can in fact be crippling. But there are equal but opposite attributes that successful innovators have that anyone can learn and/or adopt. These include courage, tenacity, passion, organization and thick skin. But perhaps most important is conviction. Conviction that youre onto something, that youre right, conviction that it doesnt matter if others cant see it, if its risky, or if it takes a few extra hours in the evening and weekends to tinker with it. There are innovators within all of us. Everyone has these amazing ideas be they recurring or fleeting that can create massive change, efficiency and betterment in the world around us at a micro and macro level, and everywhere in between. Perhaps part of the solution isnt to convert innovators into entrepreneurs, but to creat e a better channel of innovative ideas into the hands of those with the time, courage and tenacity to make them happen. Make the idea exchange easy, but with all the right attribution and financial rewards available to the originator. Your neighbor has an idea that could change the world, but isnt doing anything about it. How do we change that? - See more at: http://www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/2010/01/19/the-innovator-within/#sthash.vf3EkJJf.dpuf

So ... if you are one of the self-chosen few willing to stop blaming your organization and start taking personal responsibility for innovating, here's a list of qualities that describe innovators:
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Challenges status quo -- dissatisfied with current reality, questions authority and routine and confronts assumptions. Curious -- actively explores the environment, investigates new possibilities, and honors the sense of awe and wonder. Self-motivated -- responds to deep inner needs, proactively initiates new projects, intrinsically rewarded for efforts. Visionary -- highly imaginative, maintains a future orientation, thinks in mental pictures. Entertains the fantastic -- conjures outrageous scenarios, sees possibilities within the seemingly impossible, honors dreams and daydreams. Takes risks -- goes beyond the comfort zone, experimental and non- conform- ing, courageously willing to "fail." Peripatetic -- changes work environments as needed; wanders, walks or travels to inspire fresh thinking; given to movement and interaction. Playful/humorous -- appreciates incongruities and surprise, able to appear foolish and child-like, laughs easily and often. Self-accepting -- withholds compulsive criticism of their own ideas, understands "perfection is the enemy of the good," unattached to "looking good" in the eyes of others. Flexible/adaptive -- open to serendipity and change, able to adjust "game plan" as needed, entertains multiple ideas and solutions. Makes new connections -- sees relationships between seemingly disconnected elements, synthesizes odd combinations, distills unusual ideas down to their underlying principles. Reflective -- incubates on problems and challenges; seeks out states of immersion; ponders, muses and contemplats. Recognizes (and re-cognizes) patterns -- perceptive and discriminating, notices organizing principles and trends, sees (and challenges) the "Big Picture." Tolerates ambiguity -- comfortable with chaos, able to entertain paradox, doesn't settle for the first "right idea." Committed to learning -- continually seeks knowledge, synthesizes new input quickly, balances

information

gathering

and

action.

Balances intuition and analysis -- alternates between divergent and convergent thinking; entertains hunches before analyzing them; trusts their gut, uses their head. Situationally collaborative -- balances rugged individualism with political savvy, open to coaching and support, rallies organizational support as needed. Formally articulate -- communicates ideas effectively, translates abstract concepts into meaningful language, creates prototypes with ease. Resilient -- bounces back from disappointment, learns quickly from feedback, willing to "try, try again." Persevering -- hardworking and persistent, champions new ideas with tenacity, committed to followthrough and bottom-line results.
Innovators need a distinct mindset, including an ability to sense trends and developments and assess which ones will be important to their industry, and rapid and effective decision making processes when it comes to responding to and adopting new innovations. Innovators display a willingness to continue to develop a concept or technology from a raw germinal form into a viable mature commercial offering, service, or business process. Innovators understand that they are managing a portfolio of innovations, some of which will pay off strongly and others which may ultimately not result in a strong business outcome or indeed may on occasions constitute a temporary setback. Innovators are comfortable exploring and evaluating risk and uncertainty, and making sensible investments in light of the best information available in order to gain the potential benefits.-----------------------------