Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire

The Need to Innovate

Today’s competitive business climate puts tremendous pressure on company leaders to increase profits regularly, reliably and quickly. Leaders must “hard-wire” their organizations to innovate while controlling costs. City governments and entire nations, too, seek to innovate to drive their economies. All successful organizations start as innovative and responsive but often lose their vision as they grow. When they try to innovate, they struggle. Once upon a time, they were the best at solving problems for their customers, but new competitive entrants to the field displaced them. Organizations that once set the pace end up imitating. Desperate, they try isolated surges of innovation, attempting to correct their problems in a single bound. But businesses must build innovation into their corporate culture. They should learn from innovative organizations instead of copying other firm’s products. Companies must learn to manage change and become flexible to survive crises.

“Innovation Vision”

To establish a foundation for innovation, your company needs an innovation vision, which tells people where you’re focusing, what you want to produce, where...