Innovation Culture

 Strategy, structure and coaching - in combination - are required to help individuals, teams, and organisations with their innovation competencies and capabilities. Taking into consideration internal systems, processes and ways of working, alongside new external-facing approaches, ventures can develop a holistic culture and system of innovation.

Scale-up leaders fuel a culture where constructive challenge is vital. Bigger teams and more hierarchy can stifle the atmosphere of challenge startups thrive upon. However, strong scale-up CEOs can deliver organisational clarity whilst retaining a healthy culture where challenging the status quo is welcome and normalised. Within reason, strong contention and alternative views are signs of a creative and confident team, mature in their ability to discuss, agree and move on. Robust scale-up CEOs use culture together with clear, regular objectives to allow them to step back and proactively manage any areas of conflict.

Scale Up Nation identifies the need to ensure the development of a learning and experimental culture - both internally and externally - as the venture seeks to find new customers and markets, maintain innovation, build an effective operational engine, and develop to a structured yet flexible organisation.

Ongoing experimentation helps. A mindset that celebrates failure, provided it is the result of calculated experimentation risk not incompetence, requires curiosity and an open mind, alongside a willingness to challenge one's own convictions. As the complexity increases, learning and unlearning is needed. A learning culture enables the people in the organisation to learn by themselves, increasing the levels of flexibility and adaptability in the organisation in the face of fast change. This allows for a growth mindset to become an embedded part of organisational behaviour (i.e. integral to employees’ selection, development and interaction).

Structuring innovation systematically is not simple. Research has shown that close to 90 percent of efforts put into R&D at large corporations and businesses fail. Yet research has also indicated that high-growth ventures which embrace innovation can more easily grow their operations. Being in possession of key innovation skills and knowledge plays a crucial role in success for scale-ups, especially given that behavioural dynamics shape fundamentally influence a venture’s performance. The challenge for each scale-up is to define, then implement, the right approach. 

There are large knowledge gaps around how to do this properly. Such critical areas are seemingly being often overlooked by accelerators and scale-up service providers, with those we interviewed informing us that: 

“The lack of culture of innovation programming is something we have identified as a gap. It is definitely something we want to do.” - interviewee

“We look a lot at founders. A lot is driven by the individual, who understands what a culture of innovation could look like. A leader who can develop and shape a culture is part of the process.” - interviewee

“Development of culture of innovation programmes will be valued as ventures move from growth to scaling phases. Even market leaders have given this little consideration. This is something we probably should think about.” - interviewee

These needs must be urgently addressed. 

To date, academic researchers have not begun to examine this important subject on the continent. They should. But vocational expertise and execution will be far more critical in the short to medium run.

The MIT Leadership Center points to three simple starting points: 

1. Create tools that allow everyone to communicate strategically about innovation. 

2. Vet and refine ideas collectively and continuously.

3. Keep top leaders focused on helping them get the resources and support they need.

There are many more additional factors, such as clear goal setting (setting the bar beyond what is reasonable) and open communication and supportive collaboration across teams, units and divisions. 

In our experience, immersive, hands-on, mentored approaches which focus on tangible outcomes can equip leaders with skills, capacity and capability to effectively drive meaningful change. Expert coaching ensures practical business challenges are considered, with participants building individual skills and specialist knowledge, alongside organisational cross-functional collaboration within an organisational division. Dedicated frameworks will allow new ideas to flourish, and the critical steps required for practical, real world application and delivery.

Harvard Professor Gary Pisano warns against mistakenly depicting innovative cultures as pretty fun, typically characterised by a tolerance for failure and a willingness to experiment, and that they’re seen as being psychologically safe, highly collaborative, and non-hierarchical. But the truth is innovative cultures are hard to create and sustain. That’s because the easy-to-like behaviours that get so much attention are only one side of the coin. Professor Pisano rightly points to the fact efforts must be counterbalanced by some tougher and frankly less fun behaviors: an intolerance for incompetence, rigorous discipline, brutal candor, a high level of individual accountability, and strong leadership.

While there is no set formula for building an innovation culture, it does not happen by accident. It is a long, considered, calibrated and relentless journey. Programmatic approaches must be instigated to ensure innovation cultures are fostered within scaling ventures early in the journey (and continuously thereafter). These are the hard yards of innovation. Bringing on board expert specialists would be highly recommended.