What do innovative companies do, and do extremely well?

Ok, observations from another senior leadership meeting for a global powerhouse …. in this case, a dinner talk held last month. I had a room full of senior VP’s, regional representatives from around the world — over 200 high performance individuals.

So what did I focus on? Aside from a variety of fast-paced trends redefining their industry, I also spoke about some of the things I’ve seen from world class innovators.

• they permit self-organizing teams that abolish hierarchy
• they establish an “enabling” culture that encourages open thinking, rather than a “stifling” culture that glues the status quo into place.
• they focus on knowledge replenishment: they know the knowledge they have is going to go out of date quickly.
• they have redefined innovation to make it inclusive, rather than making it the domain of a small, elite group
• they are prepared for big market and industry transformation, and know that success in the future is not guaranteed
• they presume growth and opportunity, rather than stagnation and threat
• they revisit plans wtih regularity, knowing the future is not cast in stone
• they focus on collaborative innovation rather that narrow innovation
• they’re aligned to scientific rapidity as a key strategy for future success
• they invest in experiential capital, knowing that every mistake they make by trying something new is an asset to be treasured
• they focus on extreme skills specialization, aware that their ability to find extremely unique skills will be crucial to future success

I could go on.

The fact is, world class innovators do all these things and more.

For some more inspiration, check out the “What Do World Class Innovators Do That Other’s Don’t Do?” post found below.