10 Elements of an Open Innovation Culture

Dear All,

For growing organization, widely spread innovation culture is extremely important, in each stakeholder, employee, partner and manager has to think and act as an entrepreneur, and train themselves to see the real opportunities in each obstacle.

When I read the book about innovation, I noticed the below list of an open innovation culture (Source: Stefan Lindegaard, The Open Innovation Revolution: Essentials, Roadblocks and Leadership Skills, Wiley, 2010.  “10 essential elements of an open innovation culture”, June 9, 2010.)

Please read it, and review it,  and digest the philosophy and the way of looking to your life and your business. It is going to be helpful for sure.

1• People who can manage relationships with customers and partners: If you’re going to open up your organization to ideas from the outside, then you need “agile and people who have the soft skills of emotional intelligence.”

2• A willingness to accept that not all of the smart people work at your company: At the same time, to be successful at open innovation, your organization’s culture must not just accept this idea intellectually, but also have a willingness to seek out these outside ideas.

3• An understanding that failures are learning opportunities; and a willingness to reward those efforts and that way of learning. “Failure is a way of life for companies that pursue innovation seriously, and a leader’s response has a huge effect on company culture and, therefore, on future projects.” Celebrate failure and learn from it!

4• A willingness to help employees build the knowledge and understanding of how an idea or technology becomes a profitable business.

5• Dismiss the Not Invented-Here syndrome: “If we make the best use of internal and external ideas, we will win. We don’t need to own everything ourselves and keep it under tight wraps. We should profit from others’ use of our innovation process, and we should buy others’ intellectual property whenever it advances our own business model.

6• A willingness to strive for balance between internal and external R&D. “External R&D can create significant value; internal R&D is needed to claim some portion of that value.”

7• Willingness to be a risk taker rather than being risk averse.

8• Accepting that open innovation does raise intellectual property issues.

9• Understanding that open innovation requires open communication. “Work around confidentiality and intellectual property issues to create an environment based on trust.”

10• Not needing to always be first. “Building a better business model is better than getting to market first.”

My Best Wishes

Batur Erdoğan