Changing the Work of Innovation: A Systems Approach

What is it about?

To achieve faster organic growth, firms need to change their prevailing narrative about innovation from growth denying to growth enabling. This requires changing the system through which the work of innovation gets done. This article describes the work systems model of organizational change and shows how a leadership team can select the most influential elements of the system to make a desired narrative a reality. Four elements of the work system are especially effective at encouraging a growth-affirming narrative: leadership commitment to innovation talent, prudent risk-taking, customer-centric innovation, and aligning metrics and incentives.

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Why is it important?

------------------------------------------------------- Contribution to Academic Scholarship ------------------------------------------------------- This article makes contributions to several areas of scholarly research: (1) How innovation capabilities contribute to organic growth, (2) Organizational change through changing the systems through which the work of innovations gets done, and (3) How narratives are developed and inspire and influence a change initiative. ------------------------------------------------------- Contribution to Management Practice ------------------------------------------------------- Provides a tested roadmap to leadership teams on how to use innovation to grow faster than their rivals. This roadmap is based on the work systems approach to organizational change, and identifies the most influential drivers of change. ---------------------------- Author Perspective ---------------------------- I have been studying and consulting with firms on how to improve their ability to innovate to drive faster organic growth for several decades. Greg has been refining and applying the work systems change model change model for almost as long. There was a natural fit of interest and the result has been an exemplar of the benefits of cross-disciplinary collaboration..