Name: 8 building blocks to drive innovation and creativity in your teams
Uploaded: 2022-09-23T12:54:39.355Z
Duration: 1264.23
Description: "Innovation takes strategy, discipline, and intentionality". Expert Leo Chan, Founder and Chief Innovation & Creativity Officer at Abound Innovation invites us to imagine a different approach to the process of driving a culture of innovation within organizations. Based on an eight-step building block process he used during his time working in an innovation role at Chick-fil-A.

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English

Our mission is to unleash the
power and joy of innovation

Prior to founding Abound
Innovation, I worked at Chick-fil-A

And prior to that, I was a
senior innovation analyst

I have actually have a background
in visual design, graphic design,

and I met innovation many years
later, but it's a field that I love.

It's something I'm truly,
truly passionate about.

Imagine if your company thrived
with new ideas, because all your

Imagine if your company could
be insulated from disruption

Imagine if your company joined
the ranks of the world's most

innovative companies like
Apple, Amazon, or Netflix.

With a thriving culture of innovation,
I believe that this all could be

It takes strategy, discipline
and intentionality.

If you want a thriving
culture of innovation, you'll

You want to build a culture where it's
everyone's responsibility to innovate.

I've worked in two models
of innovation, centralized

And I'm going to talk
briefly about each one.

So centralized is where there's a
specific group of employees who create,

manage, administer and facilitate
innovation for the organization.

And the biggest pros of this
model is that you'll have a

governing leadership structure
that can ensure that innovation

And this really helps ensure
that innovation is done well.

The biggest con, however,
is that there's an impact to

When you have a specific group of
employees focused on innovation,

there's a potential that the
other employees in other teams

and other departments don't
feel that responsibility.

And so you have the potential
for innovation not to affect

Now, decentralize is a structure
where it's everyone's responsibility

And that's what we
practice at Chick-fil-A.

Every person in every department
is empowered and equipped

And this is truly powerful because
if you think about that, that

means that every single aspect of
your business can be impacted by

The cons of decentralized is that
there's not really a governing

So you don't necessarily have
overwatch over all of the innovation

projects and where they are in
the life cycle and all of that.

And you don't really have the
accountability structure to ensure

So I would like to propose to you
that the best approach is some sort

of hybrid where you're taking the pros
of both centralized and decentralized

And that's what we were
doing at Chick-fil-A as well.

Building block number two is all about
people, and this is really how we

We have three groups of
individuals that help make

These are dedicated resources with
decision-making authority to advance

My team is called Enterprise
Innovation, and there's just

three of us on this team, but
we are dedicated full-time staff

Some of our focus areas include
strategy, consulting and facilitation.

So we're essentially an internal
consultancy for innovation.

We're innovation enablers, or I call
it us catalysts, where we are thinking

about innovation, how it's applied,
how it's thought about the space

This is needed in a decentralized
model, because if you're telling

everybody that you're equipped
to be an innovator, you need

to make sure they're educated
on how they can do that.

I lead a program called
Innovation Coaches, which I'll

And then last is Hatch our
innovation center or innovation lab.

And so this, I think it's
important to have a dedicated team.

It doesn't have to be big, but
to be dedicated, full-time people

The second group that we
have to help with innovation

So if you came to me and said,
hey, I had an idea, I want to

We have fabricators that are actually
good with their hands and can create

prototypes for you to be able to test
and validate and to kind of explore.

So we have people that are artisans
and craftsmen, I like to say.

So, whatever you need, interior
design, graphic, design,

photography, videography, metal
work, whatever you need to get built.

We have people that
can help you with that.

And the third group of people
are innovation coaches.

Best Practice

"Innovation takes strategy, discipline, and intentionality". Expert Leo Chan, Founder and Chief Innovation & Creativity Officer at Abound Innovation invites us to imagine a different approach to the process of driving a culture of innovation within organizations. Based on an eight-step building block process he used during his time working in an innovation role at Chick-fil-A. 

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Leo Chan

Founder  

See the pros and cons of the centralized and decentralized structures when it comes to innovation strategy and the expert's merged approach that gathers the best of the two worlds.

Chapter 1: Structure

How important is to have a dedicated team to advance innovation? The strategy of forming champions to advocate for innovation allow employees to unleash creativity and develop new ideas by getting involved in every stage of development.

Chapter 2: People

Understand, imagine, prototype, validate and launch. This five-step based process is reinforced for every individual in the organization and embedded into the culture through a continuous innovation process which includes educational innovation sessions around process.

Chapter 3: Process

Establishing a common taxonomy or language around innovation is important to the culture as it helps to shape communication and guarantee the same understanding, clarity and consistency when talking about innovation. 

Chapter 4: Taxonomy

Shaping innovation culture involves thinking of different ways of shaping mentality and teaching principles and techniques to drive innovation--always considering how meaningful these interactions are for the different demographics within the organization. 

Chapter 5: Programming

How to share stories of innovation within organizations? By stimulating employees to have enthusiasm around innovation and to communicate it internally with the same enthusiasm, companies can try and consolidate a culture in which creativity and innovation are celebrated and rewarded.

Chapter 6: Communication

Chan introduces five different frameworks to guide thinking applied to innovation which includes: valuing collaboration; valuing diversity; nurturing safety in the organization, freedom of judgment and a culture of embracing failure and taking risks.

Chapter 7: Thinking framework

A different space dedicated to every step of the innovation process can help employees to build a new culture of innovation in the physical environment. These neighborhoods allow collaborators to visualize and experience the culture.