Develop A Culture Of Innovation

Create the foundation to innovate from.  This all starts with your organizations purpose.  From there we can gain leadership support, create organizational structure, and develop innovation skills that will drive new revenue generating innovation opportunities.

Si2 will help your company create a culture of innovation by designing innovation into your DNA and who  you want your organization to become.  

Your purpose is WHY you exist as a company.  It is why you get up in the morning.  Your Vision Statement is what you aim to achieve with your existance – how you will realize  your purpose.  They are 20-30 year statements that don’t change.  Vision or purpose statements are outward focused.  They state how you will change the world and make a difference.  They are your organizations compass and Northern Star.

The mission statement of the company states how we plan to achieve our vision.  It is usally 3-5 years and changes as we achieve each goal.  These are normally more inward focused on the company – increase revenues by X, be #1 in X market, etc.  

Customers:

• 72% say it is more important than ever to buy from companies that reflect their values. (Cone/Porter Novelli)

Employees:

• 83% of Gen Z in the US consider a company’s purpose when deciding where to work (Cone/Porter Novelli)
• Employees who report that their job has a “special meaning'” are 11x more committed to staying with their organizations (Great Place to Work)

Without ensuring you have a strong culture you will not be able to effectively execute your strategy in a sustainable way.  You can create a great strategy, but you must have employees buy-in and commit to the benefits of the vision or they will NOT execute it successfully!

Your employees want to know what matters most to the company, where the organization is headed, and how they will make a difference to the world.   Customers, partners, and stakeholders also want to know why you exist.  

In the core elements pyramid to the right, you will see that organizations need to start with values, vision, mission, and then move to goals and specific activities.  We must create a foundation to build upon.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” (Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland – sort of)

You can design and document your culture to be what you want it to be.  It is no different than any other process.   It is not some fluffy concept that just happens.  Your organization will have a culture whether you design it or not.  Wouldn’t you rather have one that excites you to get up in the morning? 

There are tools and frameworks that can help your team design the culture you have dreamt of.  The Culture Design Canvas is a tool that can help us design and document your current and future culture.  As a leadership team we will create your purpose/vision statement.  You can incorporate feedback from employees and other stakeholders to complete the rest of the canvas.

Design the Culture You Want

Si2 can lead your team through a culture design workshop to design and document your culture on the Culture Design Canvas.  There are six key elements of your culture we will design for your ‘to be’ state.  Some of these are beliefs that will give employees a sense of purpose, and some are actions that will help engrain and embody the culture you desire. 

The key areas we will discuss and design are:

• Purpose
• Values
• Behaviors
• Recognition
• Rituals
• Cues

Examples of Great Vision (purpose) Statements

25 words or less.  Start with “To” and an action verb.  Use a word that ties it to what your organization does.  Make it focused on the greater good.

In the workshop, we will create or evolve  your companies purpose or vision statement into one that your employees, customers, and the market will feel passionate about.

Google’s Vision Statement:

“To provide access to the world’s information in one click.”

In order for your company to be able to continually innovate and find new ideas, you must design innovation into your culture and your operations.  Employees want to be innovative and help foster new ideas that bring value to the organization and to the world.  As the leadership team, you must enable this by creating the structure needed for an innovative culture to flourish.

The leadeship team will self-assess your current innovation culture and how ready you are to innovate.  This exercise will educate the team on what areas are important for an innovative culture, and will show you where the biggest areas of improvement are for your company.

The Culture Map is a tool that can help organizations map what is actually happening in their culture now.  We start with Behaviors, then the outcomes from those behaviors, finally we do an analysis of the good or bad things causing those behaviors.  

This 1-page canvas can be used to help with basic culture design, as well as focusing on innovation behaviors.