Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney
Step into the world of relentless creativity with the Killer Innovations Podcast, hosted by Phil McKinney. Since 2005, it has carved its niche in history as the longest-running podcast. Join the community of innovators, designers, creatives, entrepreneurs, and visionaries who are constantly pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo. Discover the power of thinking differently and taking risks to achieve success. The podcast covers a wide range of topics, including innovation, technology, business, leadership, creativity, design, and more. Every episode is not just talk; it's about taking action and implementing strategies that can help you become a successful innovator. Each episode provides practical tips, real-life examples, and thought-provoking insights that will challenge your thinking and inspire you to unleash your creativity. The podcast archive: KillerInnovations.com About Phil McKinney: Phil McKinney, CTO of HP (ret) and CEO of CableLabs, has been credited with forming and leading multiple teams that FastCompany and BusinessWeek list as one of the “50 Most Innovative”. His recognition includes Vanity Fair naming him “The Innovation Guru,” MSNBC and Fox Business calling him "The Gadget Guy," and the San Jose Mercury News dubbing him the "chief seer."

With major shifts in the global economy, businesses need to be ready.  Amid a slowdown of growth, companies that thrive are using innovation to grow the intangible economy.  Steven is the global head of innovation at KPMG. Steven joins us to talk about the intangible economy and what companies need to know.

Scale and Investment Equals Growth

CEOs and boards who are serious about innovation must consider the intangible economy.  KPMG conducted a study of 15,000 global firms with at least 250 employees. They called the top 10% of these firms frontier firms.  The other 90% were the followers. A remarkable factor in the findings: major growth seemed to remain with the frontier firms. Very few followers were able to reach growth at the frontier level.  Of the firms, only 18 follower firms moved to frontier status. What separated the two? Scale and how a firm invested.  Frontier firms used data and AI to transform their platform for productivity.

Harness the Power of the Intangible Economy

The value of data is clear when one considers how Amazon has harnessed its power.  Smart businesses are finding ways to use data as a business strategy.

The four pillars to consider in developing data and AI strategies:

  • Using data to change customer experience and predict customer behavior.
  • Valuing assets in the organization differently.
  • Creating service capabilities as an organization.
  • Transforming the workforce with data and AI.

Creating Core Capability Around Innovation

Using innovation to grow the intangible economy requires more than having an innovation team.  You have to create core capability around innovation inside the organization. There are a number of things that can prevent that from happening.  KPMG worked with Innovation Leader to survey large organizations worldwide about innovation. The responses reveal what is stifling innovation in organizations.

 

  • Lack of leadership engagement and support of innovation
  • Politics or turf wars between departments
  • Company culture
  • Inability to act on signals
  • Lack of budget
  • No vision or strategy

The need for innovation has never been stronger.  Leadership involvement is the driving force behind it.    Innovation is a capability not a box on your chart or team name.  The organization will take their lead from the CEO. You have to live it every day with your team.  

Challenges Faced

There are many challenges to sustaining innovation.  Part of the problem is that leaders don’t understand what innovation is. Defining innovation is an important step.  Customize the definition of innovation to fit the organization. Set the standard for the culture of innovation. Innovation is characterized in three ways:

 

  • Incremental Innovation - asks people to think differently about what they do and drives new thinking.
  • Adjacent - things you are doing that are tangential that add value.
  • Transformational - turning a traditional business into a platform for creative transformation.


Lessons Learned

One challenge that leaders face is building innovation as a sustainable activity.  Advice Steve gives for those trying to transform their organization:

 

  • Find a respected and known leader who gets things done to lead innovation.  Give that person the mandate to start building a disciplined innovation capability.

 

  • Work on the culture of the organization overall. Establish cultural momentum by talking about it and making it a strategic set of imperatives.  

 

  • Develop contests (hackathons).  Create a place that acknowledges and celebrates people across enterprise for innovation.  

 

  • Put real money behind the investment portfolio.  Money matters.

 

When it comes to your budget, be clear with yourself, your people and the marketplace.  Money should be tracked explicitly against the specific use case and efforts.

To track what Steven Hill is doing at KPMG, check out the KPMG website.  You can also reach Steven on Twitter or his email.

 

Five Minutes to New Ideas

Some people might wonder what ethics has to do with innovation and creativity?  Some organizations could take a lesson on how to establish and reinforce a culture of good ethics.  A culture must reinforce its core values. The Boy Scouts did this. Five Minutes to New Ideas explores how organizations can learn a lesson in ethics from the Boy Scouts.  What standards of ethics have you defined for yourself and your team? Does your team know the ethics you expect from them? Do you hold everyone, yourself included, to that standard?  Let’s set the standard for ethics in innovations.

Direct download: Using_Innovation_to_Grow_the_Intangible_Economy.mp3
Category:Past Shows -- posted at: 12:00am PDT