This post was previously published first company.
How does a newly hired chief technology officer (CTO) find and grow a siled innovation within a large company?
How can you avoid wasting your first six months as a new CTO thinking you’re making progress when the status quo is working to keep you at bay?
I had coffee with my friend Anthony, who had just been hired as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of a large company (30,000+ people). Scratch the inside of another big company. However, this is the first time he has become his CTO for a company of this size.
good news and bad news
The good news for him was that his new company provided an essential service, and regardless of how much they stumbled, they were in business for a long time. It didn’t keep up with technology and new, faster-moving competitors.
We laughed when he was told by senior executives that all existing processes and policies were working fine. It was clear to him that at least two of the four divisions did not want him on board. Some groups think he intends to ruin their empire. Some groups are dysfunctional. There are also, as he said, “world-class people and organizations for a world that no longer exists.”
So the question we had in mind was how to break into a large, complex enterprise of that size quickly. How do you get the wins on the board and the coalition to work? Perhaps getting people to agree on a common problem or strategy? Do you find islands of innovation in your organization?
the beginning of the journey
In the first week, executive staff introduced him to existing corporate incubators. Anthony has long come to the same conclusion as me. Incubators of very high-profile companies do a great job of shaping culture and getting great press, but for the most part their biggest product is a demo that never gets deployed in the field. was. Anthony concluded that his new company’s incubator is no exception. Successful organizations recognize that innovation is not a single activity (incubator, accelerator, hackathon). It is a strategically orchestrated end-to-end process from idea to deployment.
In addition, he had already found that nearly every department and function was building groups for innovation, incubation, and technology scouting. But no one had a single roadmap of who was doing what across the enterprise. More importantly, it was not clear which of these groups were actually delivering products and services at high speed and continuity. His first task was to map all these activities. was to do
Innovation heroes are neither repeatable nor scalable
Over coffee, Anthony said he knew he could find an “innovation hero” in a company of this size. Others in the company refer to someone who single-handedly fought the system and delivered a new product, project, or service (see article here.) But that’s what his company is all about. If so, his job will be much more difficult than he thought, since the heroism of innovation as the sole source of deployment of new capabilities is a symptom of a dysfunctional organization.
One of Anthony’s roles as CTO was to:
- Map and evaluate all innovation, incubation and technology scouting activities
- Help companies understand that they must innovate and execute at the same time. (this is ambidextrous Organization (seeThis HBR article))
- Educate your company that there are different processes, people and cultures for innovation and execution.They need each other, they need to respect each other and depend on each other
- Create an innovation pipeline from problem to deployment and adopt at scale
Anthony wanted somewhere three, four, or five levels down in the organization to be the true center of innovation. Department/Group Individually, we were already accelerating our mission and delivering innovative products and services at high speed.his challenge
Find these islands of innovation, understand who was implementing them, and understand how they were implemented
- Leverage existing company capabilities and assets
- Understanding if/how existing processes and procedures were adopted/circumvented
- There was continuous customer discovery to create the products customers needed and wanted
- Figured out how to deliver quickly and urgently
- And if they somehow made this a repeatable process
If these groups existed, his job as CTO was to take what he learned from them and do the following:
- It helps you understand the barriers your innovation group faces and build your innovation process in parallel with your execution process.
- Use their work to create a common language and tools for innovation on existing missions and rapid acceleration of delivery
- Documented innovation doctrines and policies make products and services fast and perpetual
- Instrument processes with metrics and diagnostics
leave the office
Over another cup of coffee, the question we were trying to answer was how does a newly hired CTO find real islands of innovation in a company his size?
The first to start was the innovation hero/rebel. They often know where all the innovation bodies have been buried. But Anthony’s insight was that he needed to get out of his eight.th He spent time where his company’s products and services were developed and offered.
Most innovative groups aren’t just talking about innovation, they’re likely to be the ones quickly providing innovative solutions to their customers’ needs.
one last thing
When he finished his coffee, Anthony said, He almost spat out the rest of his coffee. We asked how many years department C level staff have been with the company. “Some are decades old,” he replied. I just pointed out that in larger organizations it can fail by saying you’re just “visiting”.
When he left he seemed a little more concerned than we started. “Apparently my work has been cut short.”
lesson learned
- Large companies often have departments and functions with innovation, incubation, and technology scouting, all operating independently without a common language or tools.
- Heroes of innovation as the sole source to deploy new capabilities are a symptom of dysfunctional organizations
- Innovation is not a single activity (incubators, accelerators, hackathons). A strategically orchestrated end-to-end process from idea to deployment.
- Somewhere three, four, or five levels down in your organization is the true center of innovation. Accelerate your mission and deliver innovative products and services at high speed.
- The CTO’s responsibilities include:
- Create common processes, languages and tools for innovation
- Perpetuate them with documented innovation tenets and policies
- And don’t tell anyone you’re a ‘short timer’
Filed Under: Corporate/Government Innovation |