What is your mandate for (open) innovation?

When innovation leaders start on the path to create an innovation culture – or an open innovation program – it’s critical to understand that they will only get 1½ chances to do this thing right.

Why 1½? If they cannot build momentum on the first attempt, they may be given another shot at it. But this time they won’t be starting with a clean slate, so the odds of success will be less than the first time around. In other words, they will only be given half a chance because the disbelief created by failing at the first try will make any second attempt a serious uphill battle.

For innovation leaders to stand any chance of getting things right the first time, employees must believe that the executives are serious about the transformation the innovation leaders are seeking. The employees will ask questions such as: Is it just talk? Or have the innovation leaders been given a strong mandate to make real change happen? And are the innovation leaders up for the challenge? The answers to these key questions become apparent to employees very rapidly. Any dissonance between the innovation mandate and objective, and the reality of how things are actually being done, cannot be hidden.

I have previously argued that the innovation strategy of a company must be linked to the overall corporate strategy. This strategy must be devevloped by the innovation leaders and be approved by the executives. Once this is in place, a clearly given mandate can help work out the inevitable internal conflicts with regards to resources and authority given to innovation team.

The mandate should be easy to communicate to the stakeholders, who will be involved in making the strategy happen. The mandate should do two things:

• lay out the resources and authority given to the innovation leaders

• clarify how potential conflicts are to be handled

It is not complex. It is, however, important that the innovation leaders get full support from the executives. If middle managers across the company sense that innovation leaders do not have full executive support, they will challenge the innovation leaders when they ask for resources that “belong” to the middle managers. Middle managers have been given very clear assignements and this often leads them to focus on their own agendas rather than on what is best for the company. You cannot blame the middle managers because this is just how they are rewarded and promoted – do you assigned tasks well and you get your bonus and perhaps a promotion.

If an innovation leader gets caught in such a power struggle, the executives need to send strong signals that they are personally committed to the innovation initiative. Executives may even need to show their commitment in showdowns with individual middle managers or groups of them. Jørgen Mads Clausen, former CEO at Danfoss, was very good at taking managers aside and looking them straight in the eye while telling them that he really believed in this innovation initiative and that he hoped the manager shared this approach. This helped.

Innovation leaders must also educate executives on innovation and, more importantly, they must make the consequences of lack of support very clear for the executives. Innovation will not happen if the organization is not supportive and you cannot just assume that they are.

Innovation is not easy either for innovation leaders and executives.  A few years ago, I had an interesting talk with an innovation leader at an international producer of high-end goods. The company had relied on a stable product portfolio for many years, but - despite their success - knew they had to look beyond the kind of incremental innovation they were doing. In fact, this company needed to work on paradigm shifts that included a stronger focus on services and solutions rather than just products.

For this they brought in a great innovation leader who quickly built a team of people with varied backgrounds and competencies. The team created a good mix of incremental and radical innovation, but inevitably the different mindsets led to many clashes with managers throughout the company.

The innovation leader had to educate the CEO on his ideas and mindset. That process went well but the innovation leader and his team continued to clash with other parts of the organization. The innovation leader brought this up with the CEO and he was a bit surprised to receive this response: “I like what you are doing and I really want to support your work. You know that. However, if your initiatives cause too much trouble, I need to listen to our core people. They are the guys who bring in our revenues and profits, and we need this. Try to work this out in a subtle manner.”

The hidden message was that if there is too much trouble the CEO would have to kick out the innovation leader with short notice in order to satisfy the other guys. Unfortunately, as in this case, many innovation leaders do not have a clear mandate from their executives. This can cause bad situations, and it definitely makes the job of an innovation leader even harder.

Do the innovation leaders at your company have a clear mandate to make innovation happen? Or what about your new open innovation program? If not, what can you do get such a mandate established in your company?