Page 175 - HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level

164 HBR Leader’s Handbook

Innovation should not be just a random exercise in brainstorming and try-
ing things, but an intentional approach to evolving the company toward a
significantly new value proposition and relationship with customers, while
also sharpening and learning more about the value proposition along the
way.
At Thomson Reuters, the new Catalyst Fund encouraged managers to
pursue systematic and disciplined organic innovation through incremental
steps and ongoing learning from customers. To secure the money, teams
filled out a simple two-page application, describing the idea, its potential
payoff, what would be needed to make it happen, and how the initial funds
would be used. Applications were screened first by innovation champions
and then a Catalyst Fund panel—a sort of corporate shark tank—composed
of Smith and several members of the executive team. The committee met
monthly, both to decide on these new applications and to see the output of
projects in which it had previously invested.
Once the innovation leaders began to get traction in their own busi-
nesses and functions, and the bosses understood that innovation was now
part of their jobs, ideas and innovation opportunities started to emerge
from all corners of the organization. For example, Adam Quinones, a man-
ager in the Financial & Risk business, used the Catalyst Fund process to
propose and then develop an app to enable mortgage-related document
and data validation, risk and liquidity assessment, and customer data and
document storage for the commercial real estate industry. After building a
prototype, Quinones organized a forum for potential customers to test the
product. Based on the customers’ feedback and enthusiasm, Quinones was
able to refine the product and begin to sell it, creating real value to custom-
ers and a supercharged revenue stream for the company.
Every team’s and company’s situation is different, and there is no one-
size-fits-all approach for transforming innovative ideas into breakthrough
growth engines. You will need to develop your own process. But three ways
of thinking about innovation should inform it: getting a jump on disrup-
tive innovation, leveraging the lean startup approach, and embracing fail-
ure in the service of learning.