给CEO的三点创新建议

    管理者往往将创新视为少数人的责任，把它交给穿着实验室白大褂的科研人员或善于打破惯性思维的营销人员。事实绝非如此。在当今这个快速变革的世界中，创新能力应体现在一家公司的各个部门。

    孤立的创新将损害公司竞争力。毕竟，全球化和通信技术快速发展导致产品生命周期缩短，意味着竞争优势存在的时间越来越短暂。甚至连雅虎（Yahoo!）这样的公司从万众瞩目到泯然众人似乎只是一夜之间的事情。贯穿于整个公司的创新能力有助于公司改进现有产品、打造明日产品。

    而且，需要改变的不只是企业的竞争方式，还包括人们根本的工作方式。想想Yammer （Twitter企业版）、WebEx等通信技术以及Campfire等协作工具的崛起。似乎人们刚刚掌握一款新的工具，更新的工具又冒出来了。全公司上下的创新能力有助于员工更轻松地使用、适应这些新的技术。

    苹果（Apple）、亚马逊（Amazon.com）等公司的基因中似乎就蕴含着创新的因子；宝洁（Procter & Gamble）、通用电气（General Electric）等其他公司已花费了几十年时间来培育支持创新的体系。如果你才刚刚开始创新之旅，不妨考虑下面三点建议。

形成、传播“创新”的共同语言

    虽然创新讨论往往带有一些神秘色彩，但事实上创新就是找到新的办法来解决问题。但如果人们对创新的定义看法不同，就很难针对创新问题展开富有成效的讨论。同时也更难识别、理解创新将面临的挑战和机遇，并做出回应。

    下面这个简单的测试就可以测试出公司内部是否缺乏创新的共同语言。让一群人写下并念出他们的创新定义。结果很可能千差万别，而这可能导致混淆和挫败感。除了基础定义，还可以详细列明打算遵循的不同创新策略。例如，宝洁有四种不同的创新策略，涵盖了从商业策略（即推动现有产品的试用和使用营销及促销方法）到颠覆性策略（及可能创造全新品类的点子）的不同类型。精准界定每项策略有助于明确创新的尝试。

    Leaders often perceive innovation as the province of the few, isolated to white-lab coat wearing research scientists or "out-of-the-box" thinking marketers. That's not right. In today's quickly changing world, innovation should be a corporate-wide capability.

    Isolating innovation hurts a company's ability to compete. After all, shrinking product life cycles driven by globalization and rapid advances in communications technologies means that competitive advantage is increasingly a transitory notion. Companies like Yahoo! (YHOO) go from darlings to also-rans seemingly overnight. Widespread innovation capabilities improve a company's ability to incrementally improve today's offerings and create tomorrow's offerings.

    Further, it isn't just the way in which companies compete that needs to change; it is the way in which people fundamentally do their work. Think about the rise of communications technologies such as Yammer (the corporate equivalent of Twitter) and WebEx or collaboration tools like Campfire. It seems as soon as you master a new tool, a new one starts to emerge. A corporate-wide innovation capability helps an organization's employees more readily adopt and adapt to these new technologies.

    Companies like Apple (AAPL) and Amazon.com (AMZN) seem to have innovation in their DNA; others like Procter & Gamble (PG) and General Electric (GE) have spent decades developing systems to support innovation. If you are just starting your innovation journey, consider the following three tips.

Forming and spreading a common language of innovation.

    While innovation discussions often carry mystical tones, innovation is really nothing more than finding new ways to solve problems. But when people define innovation differently, it inhibits an organization's ability to have productive discussions on the topic. And makes it more difficult to identify, understand, and respond to innovation challenges -- or opportunities.

    Here's a simple test to determine if your organization is lacking a common language. Ask a group of people to write down and read out their definition of innovation. Odds are there are material differences in the definitions, which can lead to confusion and frustration. Beyond a basic definition, consider detailing the different types of innovation strategies you plan to follow. For example, P&G has four distinct types of innovation strategies, ranging from commercial (marketing and promotion methods to drive trial and use of existing offerings) to disruptive (ideas that have the potential to create entirely new categories). Precise definitions of each strategy help bring clarity to innovation efforts.