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Last week, the Outthinker Strategy Network (OSN) hosted our first in-person roundtable of the year at Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island in New York City. The island, located in the East River between Manhattan and Queens, once a site of abandoned prison buildings and mental institutions, has been transformed into a hub of innovation.

Opened in 2017, the Cornell Tech campus and its Tata Innovation Center are strikingly futuristic. Verizon completed construction on its executive education center on the campus last year. As we walked up to the conference center, the metamorphosis was clear—young professionals lounged on grassy hilltops and students buzzed in lively conversation beneath a glimmering skyline backdrop.

Floor-to-ceiling windows around campus revealed thinkers and executives deep in discussion inside modern conference spaces and open floor plans. At the campus’ Graduate Hotel, the OSN event attendees – 24 chief strategy officers and heads of strategy for leading companies – gathered to share the trends and challenges at the top of their agendas. In such an environment, naturally, topics related to innovation came up for everyone in attendance.

These were some of the questions and challenges we heard from chief strategy officers that day:

  • How do you balance innovation investment with maintaining a healthy bottom line?  
  • What initiatives have you successfully attempted to establish a culture of innovation and experimentation?  
  • How do you innovate in a conservative corporate culture where innovation projects will not move the needle against the core business until 2-3 years down the line? 

Hacking the short-term/long-term dilemma

The priority struggle between “core” and “explore” has been a question in strategy for decades, but with today’s climate of ongoing uncertainty and new emergent technologies that promise future disruption, a company’s focus on innovation is becoming even more essential.

Strategy leaders face the challenge of diverting executive leadership teams’ attention to look further into the mid-term (2- to 3-year) and long-term (5-year) horizons. And when it comes to building a culture of innovation throughout the organization, strategists are finding that your innovation messaging matters.

Small shifts in language can drive major accelerations in innovation

In any organization, the language people use shapes the possibilities that employees see and choose. A shared language used to create strategy can either encourage or stifle a culture of innovation. As a strategist, the way you present your message around innovation will have an impact on its adoption.

Ed Knapp, chief technology officer of American Tower, shared a story: “A few years back, we embarked on an innovation growth initiative. The core business is very strong and decentralized with most of our team members locally focused. We initially called these new investments ‘innovation,’ and it made people concerned that every idea was fair game. So, we changed the name to ‘platform extension’ and focused the attention to core business adjacencies. It definitely made people more comfortable that investments would succeed. Wording matters.”

Robert C. Wolcott, friend of Outthinker and co-founder and chair of The World Innovation Network, also joined the discussion. For future-focused conversations and innovation advocacy, he recommends looking outside of your organization.

Paraphrasing The Bible, Wolcott advises, “Never a prophet in your own land. Don’t try to make the case on your own. A great slide deck and Excel spreadsheet won’t sell the future.” Seek external “prophets” from startups, corporations, universities, and/or investors. “Most of all, make sure they’re people your colleagues are likely to respect.”

Delivering your innovation intentions in the right way can ensure that your leadership teams and employees receive the message. At Outthinker, we use a simple framework called the Influence “GAME” that can guide and shape the innovation culture you desire for your organization.

The Influence “GAME”

Corporate innovators often face the obstacles of going up against the core business and influencing culture without having the official authority to do so. But the most successful among them view this political challenge as part of the fun—hence why we call the following framework the Influence “GAME.” It stands for Goal, Audience, Message, Expression.

  1. Goal: What goal do you want to achieve? In this case, your goals are to convince your organization to shift its focus toward innovative ideas, projects, or investments.
  2. Audience: Whom do you need to influence or get input from? OSN strategists recommend involving executive sponsors early in the process. A CSO for a leading construction company said her organization formed a second executive team that would make decisions on innovation projects and put its focus beyond the core business.
  3. Message: What do you want to say—or learn? This is where you’ll want to explore naming options, like the earlier example of switching from “innovation” to “platform extension” as a title. Equally important is setting separate innovation metrics. Innovation accounting expert Dan Toma is an excellent resource for determining the right metrics to track.
  4. Expression: How will you deliver the message? Remember Wolcott’s advice: Never a prophet in your own land. Who is the right person to get your message across? If not you, is there an up-and-coming startup, a company outside your industry, or an intrapreneurial team that is already experiencing wins in the area? Outthinker CSOs also recommend co-funding projects with academia as well as keeping a close eye on venture capitalist investments.

Conclusion

Working in an organization, you are constantly involved in two “games.” At a high level, you play a part in the strategic GAME. This is the big-picture, long-term mission—the innovation projects that could have a major impact a few years down the line. Whether you achieve that mission is determined by the everyday game: the habits, routines, and language that make up the tactical side.

If you can strategize and focus your innovation messaging for the everyday game, you improve your chances at winning the long-term game.

Photo credit: Tata Innovation Center at Cornell Tech, Weiss/Manfredi 

Leverage
Point
“8Ps” of StrategyOpportunity
for Disruption
Recommended Leverage Points
Position- The farmers, individual and corporate, that you are targeting.

- The need of the agricultural industry that you seek to fill.
3- What technologies do you control that can help you tap into market
segments that you previously thought unreachable?

- What are the potential business alliances you could think about with key players in the segment to serve your customers with integrated solutions? (Serving customers with more integrated solutions example: serving farmers with fertilizers, crop protection and other).
Product- The products you offer, and the characteristics that affect their value to customers.

- The technology you develop for producing those products.
8- What moves are your organization taking to implement Big Data and analytics to your operations? What IoT and blockchain applications can you use?

- What tools and technology could you utilize or develop to improve food quality, traceability, and
production?

- How can you develop a more sustainable production model to accommodate constraints on arable
land?

- What is the future business model needed to serve new differentiated products to your customers?
Promotion- How you connect with farmers and consumers across a variety of locations and industries.
- How to make consumers, producers, and other stakeholders aware of your products and services.
8- How are you connecting your product with individual and corporate farms who could utilize it?
- How could you anticipate market and customer needs to make customers interested in accessing your differentiated products?
PriceHow consumers and other members of the agricultural supply chain pay for access to agricultural products.7- What elements of value comprise your pricing? How do each of those elements satisfy the varying needs of your customers?
Placement- How food products reach consumers. How the technologies, data, and services reach stakeholders in the supply chain.9- What new paths might exist for helping consumers access the food they desire?
- How are you adapting your operations and supply chain to accommodate consumers’ desire for proximity to the food they eat?
- How could you anticipate customer expectation to make products more
accessible to customers/agile supply chain?
- Have you considered urbanization as a part of your growth strategy?
Physical
Experience
- How your food satisfies the needs and desires of your customer.
- How the services you provide to agribusiness fulfill their needs.
9- Where does your food rate on a taste, appearance, and freshness
scale?
- Could the services you provide to companies and farms in the agriculture industry be expanded to meet more needs?
- What senses does your food affect besides hunger? How does your
customer extract value from your food in addition to consumption?
Processes- Guiding your food production operations in a manner cognizant of social pressure.8- How can you manage the supply chain differently to improve traceability and reduce waste?
- How can you innovate systems in production, processing, storing, shipping, retailing, etc.?
- What are new capabilities to increase sustainability (impact on the environment, or ESG) components?
People- The choices you make regarding hiring, organizing, and incentivizing your people and your culture.- How are you leveraging the agricultural experience of your staff bottom-up to achieve your vision?
- How do you anticipate new organizational capabilities needed to perform your future strategy (innovation, exponential technologies needed, agile customer relationship, innovative supply chain)?
- How do you manage your talents to assure suitable development with exposure in the agrifood main challenges/allowing a more sustainable view of the opportunities/cross-sectors?
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