The (Non)Sense of Employee-Focused Innovation Training

A lot has been written about Innovation Training in the recent past. At Culturevate, we clearly see the sense of such training, but there are some important conditions that needs to be met for these efforts to generate long-term impact for an organization. Not all companies understand these conditions, which often leads to mediocre results and missed opportunities. One extra difficulty is that a good Innovation Training should be driven by and aligned with several functional parts of a large corporate organization.

An innovation training effort should be an integral part of any corporate innovation program/strategy. A concrete training effort gives a clear message that innovation should be taken seriously and supports your employees who may not know how or where to begin.

However, just launching an innovation training effort independently, without context to a company’s strategy or culture, will create confusion and generate low output at best. We prefer a model that makes use of the momentum of a training effort to explain (and reinforce) the organization’s innovation program and strategy throughout the curriculum. This way, you achieve the additional advantage that a big picture strategy is much better understood by the community and that the training fits in the big picture strategy of the company.

Read the full blog about The (Non)Sense of Employee-Focused Innovation Training visit Innovation Management. Also get updated with our Latest Articles related to Organizations and Culture, Strategy, Life Cycle Process etc.

13 Practices of the World’s Most Innovative Organizations

    Successful organizations know the significance of innovation in business. Apple is a good example of how effective innovation management can improve your products and scale up your business. After reaching on the brink of collapse, it achieved new heights of success by implementing effective innovation management policy. The success of its innovative management strategies once again brought it in the league of leading organizations. If you are an entrepreneur who wants to learn from innovative management strategies of successful organizations, consider the following thirteen strategies.

In non-technical language, innovative management is any process that involves changes in planning, ideation, technical execution and production of resources in a way that can make a system more functional for people. In context of business, it focuses on two major objectives:

• Improving operational systems of an organization
• Enhancing products/services for end-users

In the former case, it takes into consideration the leadership, management and resources that make up the working machinery of an organization. In the latter case, it works on the systems and processes involved in creative and technical aspects of developing a product/service. An effective innovation strategy results in better performance of employees, increased productivity and higher customer satisfaction.

Read the full article about 13 Practices of the World’s Most Innovative Organizations at Innovation Management.

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Misconceptions About Culture

Dharmesh Shah, co-founder and CTO at HubSpot, lists some of the most common excuses early-stage companies give when asked why conscious effort isn't put into developing culture. Entrepreneurs often point to office parties and perks, or the supposed importance of their mission as their startup's culture. They also claim culture grows organically, or that they just don't have time, Shah says. Read full article about Misconceptions about Culture visit Innovation Management. Also read our latest articles on Various topics based on Innovation along with our Online Learning Innovation Programs.

Making Work Fun to Improve Culture and Engagement

For HR and business managers, it can be challenging to create a productive workplace where employees are motivated to be engaged. It may be time to make work fun again with a variety of practices and tools that are implemented. To transform the environment of your workplace and create a positive environment. Here are a few simple changes that can benefit the business.

Schedule outings

Allow your employees to get a break from their cubicle by scheduling outings throughout the month, which can include hosting a movie night at a local theater or taking time to visit the zoo together on the weekend. This will allow them to avoid burnout and get to know one another in a new setting.

You can also schedule sports competitions that allow the staff to compete against one another over a game of baseball, basketball, and soccer. This can offer a greater sense of unity within the company and allow everyone to develop trust and transparency with one another.

Makeover the office

It’s easy for employees to have a lack of motivation when they’re surrounded by white walls and a lack of decor for several hours a day.

Send out a newsletter

Give your staff an interesting piece of reading material during the week by sending out a letter. This can provide fun facts about the company, highlight certain employees, and even provide fun activities to enjoy during the season.

Read more about Making Work Fun to Improve Culture and Engagement visit Innovation Management.

Also visit our various programs of Online Learning Innovation Programs and also get updated with our latest Articles.

How Innovation and Authenticity Complement Each Other in a Corporate Environment

Authenticity and innovation are two of today’s biggest corporate buzzwords. They are often considered as separate values, but in reality they have much in common and in this article we will examine the areas of overlap and potential leverage benefits.

Neither of these terms have the same definition from company to company, or even amongst individuals. For the purpose of this article we will use the following definitions:

• Innovation is the process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value or for which customers will pay. (reference BusinessDictionary.com).
• Authenticity is the quality of being real or true, and is best understood as a social construction that has been put into place to achieve a particular aim. (Cambridge Dictionary online and Library Trends (Vol.56, No. 1)

With that out of the way, let’s examine ways in which authenticity leverages and supports innovation, and vice-versa. Some examples include:

1. Authenticity and Design Thinking

Without an authentic approach it is difficult to identify those key pain points that drive the development of truly innovative ideas.

These days’ innovation within a corporate setting is synonymous with Design Thinking (DT) approaches. The fact is that DT requires a genuine understanding and appreciation of not only what is possible, but what is most beneficial from a client / end user perspective.

2. Roles in innovation

People often think that being innovative is a singular focus on coming up with the lightbulb idea that will change everything. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. The reality is that innovation requires a range of skills and abilities, and few people possess all aspects (Suzan Briganti at Totem writes about this). Accordingly, it is important for innovators to recognize their true, specific skills in the context of identifying, selecting and executing new ideas.

Read full article about How Innovation and Authenticity Complement Each Other in a Corporate Environment visit Innovation Management.

Also visit our various programs of Online Learning Innovation Programs and also get updated with our latest Articles.

Innovation Management - The Boom – Not Doom – from Market Failure

New Sources of value

While it might seem that the disruption du jour is all anybody is ordering these days, making innovation, growth and new value seem like insurmountable things, businesses should focus on where they can find value most quickly. So why not begin where others have ended in non-consumption, organizational friction or market failure? Such unexpected failures provide opportunities for solutions, and solutions are the source of explosive value.
What do these three common challenges mean in business terms? Simply that the economics are not valuable enough to get folks to focus on them. Often, it seems that the problems are too unwieldy to tackle, the transaction costs are too high or the friction is too great to internalize the costs within a firm. However, understanding these issues can help explain why a vast number of businesses are difficult to franchise or scale, or a segment of a market is perceived to be of insufficient value, and therefore of no benefit or interest.

Take any expanding company and ask: what underlies your growth? Across industries and time, explosive value has come from addressing market failure, organizational friction, and non-consumption head-on, through the development and deployment of new assets and capabilities. These issues create a white space or void – an opportunity – in which an innovative solution can provide businesses with the value and growth they seek.

“Across industries and time, explosive value has come from addressing market failure, organizational friction, and non-consumption head-on”

Taking on Market Friction

An excellent example of taking on market friction is Uber. The essential value proposition of Uber is ‘convenience’ – get a car when and where you want it and the payment for the service is transparent. Eliminate the frictions of inconvenience and payment transactions and what do you get? Explosive growth.



“Market breakdown can be seen in Google and Apple iTunes l with material implications on explosive value creation (for them) and value destruction (for others).”

Finding Solutions to Market Failure

The gap between the significant need for innovation in this arena and the meager returns to those who invest in this innovation management which represents a market failure. How so? The typical pharmaceuticals business model is based on price-times-volume equals revenue opportunity, meaning investment focus. However, anti-microbial resistance does not follow this model because the more the drugs are used, the lesser the efficacy of those drugs.
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