How Good Is Your Company At Killing Ideas?

One of the most sensitive conversations to have with leaders is when I try to convince them that they cannot pick the winning ideas on day one. At one workshop, a regional leader kept insisting that the innovation teams need to bring her some ‘10X’ ideas. What she...

The Nine Advantages Of Being A Corporate Startup

What is better? Running your own startup or driving innovation within a large company? Steve Jobs was very clear that it is better to be a pirate than to join the navy. There are freedoms that come with running your own company. Startup founders do not have to answer...

The Intrapreneur’s Mindset

Intrapreneurship is not the same as entrepreneurship. While there may be some similarities, intrapreneurship has distinct challenges that require a different mindset from innovators. Our culture tends to celebrate the brash entrepreneur who takes risks and disrupts...

On Pirates, Privateers And Corporate Innovation

Alex Osterwalder, best-selling author and inventor of the Business Model Canvas, hates it when innovators refer to themselves as pirates. This is because pirates originally operated outside the law and if they were ever caught they were killed. In one sense he is...

What Makes A Good Innovation Coach?

In a previous article, I wrote about how companies can stop relying on consultants and build their own innovation capabilities. It is difficult to scale innovation as a repeatable process if companies continue to rely on external coaching and training for...