Page 177 - Free the Idea Monkey

A committed (Ring)leader implicitly asks the same question in
every meeting: “How does this help us get to our vision?” That’s what
happens after you make a sincere declaration—if you are serious.

When it comes to accountability, the question to ask is this:
Who is the one person in charge of turning the big idea into reality?
Our experience is that if you don’t have a single individual who is
accountable, your declaration is in trouble. Read: it will likely fail. If
one person is not accountable, then nobody is accountable.

Your chief innovation officer, or whoever is accountable, must
institutionalize the processes, and the behaviors that lead to a cul-
ture of rigor, risk and results. Innovation can give you an amazing
competitive advantage. But without accountability, it becomes an
expensive and demoralizing exercise.

Track It. Finally, if you want to see
progress, you need to employ Peter
Drucker’s famous phrase: “What gets
measured gets done.”
So if you are serious, here are some items
to measure and evaluate:
People/Policies/Culture
• How many people are dedicated to the initiative?
• How much training is being done?
• Does leadership sponsor key initiatives?
• Are incentives aligned to drive key initiatives?
Process/Resources
• Is there a formal process in your organization?
• Does your process track—and allow for—failures as well
as successes?
• How much time does an initiative take from idea to profit?
• What does your innovation portfolio look like?

162 C H A N G E Y O U R P E R S P E C T I V E , C H A N G E T H E W O R L D