Relentless Innovation! Three Simple Words For Success…

What are the big issues that organizations need to be focused on?

Think about three simple words: transformation, acceleration, and collaboration.

That’s been the focus of a number of CEO-level keynotes I’ve done. A good example was a dinner keynote I did for key clients of BASF, a global chemicals company, in San Antonio, Texas, that was built around three simple words.

How do these three words help senior executives reframe the idea of innovation? Like this:

• transformation: nothing will ever be the same, and complacency with strategy is not a great idea for going forward. What worked in the past surely won’t work in the future!  Everything is changing at a furious pace: business models, customers, products and services, new competitors, organizational structure. Give me a minute with your company or association, and I can give you deep insight into how your world will look entirely different five to ten years out.
• acceleration. Companies need to relentlessly reinvent themselves, particularly in terms of the products or services they offer, the markets they operate in, the business proposition at their core. In this world of hyper-connected global business models, speed is the new metric for success going forward. Give me a minute with your company, and I’ll give you innovation heroes who are busy reinventing themselves at the velocity that is demanded today.
• collaboration. To transform and accelerate, be relentless with structure. Constantly rethink you skills they employ, the partnerships you pursue, and the insight you glean from shared ideas. We’re in the era of the global idea machine as witnessed with crowd-thinking and crowdfunding — align yourself to the new insight that comes from the connected organization. Give me a minute with your company, and I’ll give you insight into the new hive-mind of success that is a 21st-century innovation hero.

Does it work? One fellow at the dinner came up to me after, observing: “I’ve seen a lot of speakers, but your crystallized todays’ world in a really unique hard-hitting way. Oh, and it was great fun too!”

It was an awesome event, in an intimate setting, with senior executives of some of the largest energy and infrastructure companies in the world!