If an organization does engage in innovation at all, it often focuses on creating a new product or service that generates revenue for the organization. But research by Mr. Volberda, professor of Erasmus University, shows that innovation is only 25% technological and 75% social innovation. But at the same time, the biggest cause of inability to innovate appears to be organizational culture, as high as 51%. Thus, it can be concluded that it is important to create an innovative organizational culture. This helps organizations grow, but in reality this proves difficult to achieve. For this to happen, it is important that we define a unified perspective on how we interpret and use these terms. We describe that in this article.

Everyone innovates

In recent decades, innovation has become increasingly important. Whereas for a time many organizations focused on optimizing their core business, now many companies are trying to make the shift to what will take them further, aka: trying to innovate. The definition for innovation that is commonly used is:

“The development of new products and services that create value for customers, supported by a sustainable and profitable business model.”- Tendayi Viki – The Corporate Start-up

This is a clear explanation for innovation. In practice, many companies approach innovation as a project assuming that innovation has a beginning and an end. We see innovation more as an ongoing process. We believe that organizations must learn to look at innovation differently for it to be successful. We shouldn’t think of it as a project but as a process which continuous presence. Just as constant attention is given to optimizing the core business, it should also become just as normal to constantly create new elements.

Development can be on more than just a product or service. Innovation can take place on many different elements, for example: developing new ways of collaboration (forms of work), developing a new language around a particular topic or accelerating adaptivity by organizing decision-making power differently. By this kind of process also falls under innovation.

Patience as the holy grail

Another important element is that when innovation is started, it should not be assumed that a successful innovation will have been made by next month. On average, it takes a company 3 to 5 years to become a thriving business. Innovation also has a long-term life-cycle, yet it is often assumed that a new product or service is conceived within a month. This is not how it works in practice. It is not a eureka moment that you can plan in advance. It’s a process of trial and error, discovering as you go along what works and what doesn’t. Therefore, it is important to be patient. But it goes beyond patience. We believe you need to trust those engaged in innovation. This is a fundamental value for innovation to succeed within your organization. You have to trust your people and the innovation process in an authentic, genuine way. Another fundamental value associated with this is take responsibility. Should something happen once in the process of innovation-for example, a mistake, failure or negative effect-and yes, this is going to happen-you resolve it as a team. You are 1 team with 1 task, namely: to provide the best possible value for your client in your own way. You are jointly responsible for that, and that also means taking responsibility when things don’t go so well for a while.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast

In our opinion, culture plays a crucial role in an organization. When your culture is not in order, it directly affects your organization’s strategy and results. Historically, culture is defined as “the way we do things around here” door Lundy & Crowling (1996). The more extended definition of culture, more precise corporate culture is:

“Culture is the pattern of beliefs, values and learned ways of coping with experience that have developed during the course of an organization’s history, and which tend to be manifested in its material arrangements and in the behaviors of its members.” – Brown 1995,1998

So, it shapes the behavior and attitude of people: what is encouraged, discouraged, accepted and rejected. A good example is how do you cope as an organization with people who are running late in meetings all the time? Do you accept this, do you speak to people with a cautionary tone or do you actually joke about it. There is no right or wrong but it does determine what the normal course of events is. Because culture is a relatively vague concept, we can say that there are a number of elements of very important value:

• Culture is something shared by people.
• Culture is carried by people.
• Culture is learned.
• Culture is neither immediately visible nor directly influential.
• Culture has an enduring, stable and difficult to influence character

Creating a culture of innovation

By combining culture and innovation, we ensure that an organization becomes agile and adaptive. An innovation culture consists of combining the following three elements:

• The constant development of new elements (products/services/work forms/ect.) within your organization
• Employee development inside and outside your organization
• To be a physical meeting place where knowledge and development from outside can be implemented and where experimentation is allowed with how new things should find their place within the organization.

Being an innovative organization doesn’t just happen. You create the right culture step by step to move toward the so-called Innovation Excellence. We believe in creating the right mindset so your organization can move step by step toward Innovation Excellence.