So you think you’re ready to innovate, to shape the future and create game changing solutions which will meet real needs. But are you really ready? Have you really transformed your culture, beliefs, behaviours and expectations to meet the innovation imperative?

You see, building a culture of innovation isn’t simply a question of waving a magic wand and expecting people to suddenly act in different ways. Nor is it a question of simply bolting the idea of innovation on to an existing business structure and hoping that transformative results will follow. Becoming a truly innovative organisation in fact requires everyone from the leadership down to cast off old habits and replace them with an entirely new set.

Let’s look at a couple of examples and we’ll start with the way in which experimentation, success and failure are handled. Being blunt, if you are going to see failure as a cause for censure or as a pure cost on the bottom line then you can forget about claiming to be an innovative organisation. Admittedly innovative activities should be carried out within preset boundaries but within those boundaries failure should be seen as a learning point and often the reason for failure can point the way towards future development. So innovative organisations have to learn to fail and have to learn to take risks if they are to develop transformative innovations.

Interaction, communication and personal accountability

And then there’s interaction, communication and personal accountability. Working within a controlling, hierarchical model can easily lead to the suppression or elimination of any behaviours which could be allied to initiative or empowerment. But when you’re building a culture of innovation, you are looking for your people to take a holistic viewpoint, to become empowered and to act on their own initiative in a way which promotes the creation of solutions. But to do so they will have to unlearn bad isolationist habits, replacing them with skills such as empathy, understanding and communication.

But perhaps one of the hardest lessons to learn rests on the shoulders of leadership. Building a culture of innovation is not like any change management exercise which has gone on before. If it is to succeed then the leadership have to fully assimilate the innovation ideal within their every decision, action and attitude. Half measures and paying lip service to the change simply won’t do.

A culture of innovation is not just an add-on to the past, it is the start of an adaption which will lead to a constantly evolving future, led by true customer insight and the ability to bring products to market which solve a genuine problem, add real value to the customer and drive competitive advantage and growth. For it to succeed, not just the leadership team, but leaders at every level throughout the organisation have to learn to embrace innovation leadership, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. It’s not always easy, changing the habits of a lifetime can require some concerted hard work. But if you want to create the change you have to be the change; and if you want to create a better future for your organisation its customers and key stakeholders then learning innovative behaviours is the only option.