Watched one of those suspense movies that have a laser room security system in it, you know the ones there, they always have a highly trained agent or thief. And he or she has to still some priceless item and it's kept in a vault that has laser beams that shoot all the way through it. And it's impossible to enter this vault without breaking one of the beams. And when you do that, it sounds the alarm. So it's very dangerous and any one misstep in that vault and you're finished and the lasers are everywhere. And so you see the protagonists doing the most amazing aerobatic feats, so as not to break the laser beam.

Lions including, well, maybe Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible where he suspended from the ceiling like a spider. And maybe the most choreographed one of all times is where Catherine Zeta Jones learns maybe I'll call it a laser beam evasion dance, and learns that under the watchful eye of Sean Connery and entrapment Well, you know, the kind that it seemed like for a while almost every movie had a laser beam security system in it. Well, starting innovation in a company is a bit like that, although it's not quite as entertaining. If you're the innovation lead or the one charged with innovation embedment there are hundreds of lasers around you. And the danger of breaking the beam will always cause alarms to go off. I often end up after workshops that I teach on innovation in a discussion with someone and executive who's Come to learn how to to embed innovation.

And they've recently been put in the role or they're new in the role. And they have this look of sheer panic on their face. And it's the same look I had when I was in their shoes, so I completely understand it. And the question is always the same. How should I start? If you were me, how would you do this?

How would you get innovation to the next level if you were me? So that's what we're going to talk about. In this I'm going to talk about some ideas that come from lots of different sources that I've tried or I've seen, that might help you either if you're starting or getting it to the next level. But before I do that, let me just remind you of our definition of the innovation universe that you saw in the introduction to the masterclass series. When I use innovation in the innovation universe, what I mean is how you generate and deliver a cadence of unique add value creating solutions for customers, while framing and leading innovation is a core competency that's embedded in every aspect of your company generating is the external facing part of the model while frame embed and lead are internally facing, it takes all four of these platforms for a company to become innovative.

Just to remind you of the four platforms in the innovation universe, this is our wayfinder we've been using all along. And the four platforms are frame, which is about a strategic mandate that linkage between innovation and the strategy and the sandbox of where you want innovations. The second one is the center of the universe that's generate that creating innovations using customer driven problem solving. The third one is that invisible one that a lot of companies can't see, but it's the one that makes innovation. Work for the long term and it's in bed. And that's renovating your company to make sure it's innovation friendly, and it's driving innovation.

And the last one is leading how you lead and innovation economy and how you unleash human potential in yourself and others. We have four learning objectives in this last module of the innovation universe master class, the module on getting to the next level. The first objective is to learn some additional ideas to either start or improve where you are. Secondly, become aware of a set of actions in the innovation startup space, maybe even a sequence of how you might start up. Third is to expose you to an array of ideas that might add to what you're already doing and the initiative that you have. And lastly, is to imagine some answers to the question if you were me.

Let's look at the agenda very briefly, we're going to divide this into two sections, we're going to look at organizations or companies that have not really started innovation in a big way. And we're going to call that first launch. And then we're going to look at the rest of the organizations that have some initiative underway. And we're going to call that post launch. And in both scenarios, I'm going to assume that you're the one in the lead and that someone has asked you to do this, they've put you in this role, because starting innovation in a company, when you haven't been put into the role is a much different scenario, and much harder. So we're going to take this assumption that you've been put in place to do this.

And now you're either trying to figure out how to get started or you're trying to get to the next level. And in the first launch group, the group that hasn't started we're going to look at three areas. We're going to look at a minimal setup to get you started as quickly as possible, but things you have to do to make this work. And then secondly, we're going to look at the innovation teams themselves. And talk about what those might look like. And then we're going to talk about, I'm going to call them Excel accelerants things that could really make it go faster or have a bigger impact and more positive impact.

In the post launch group, we're going to look at three areas, we're going to look at deeper view of how to get innovation deeper, and I'm going to talk about learning in that standpoint, we're going to look at faster. I'm going to talk about leveraging and we're going to look at wider. And I'm going to talk about scaling and in each of these areas, I'm going to also give you a danger zone, something to be careful of or be mindful of that might happen in that bucket or in that area and maybe an idea to either prevent it or to get out of it. Let's look at the first launch scenario. Let's look at the first bucket in first launch. There's a few things I want to talk about here.

This is some things you have to put in place the minimal startup things that you might think about, so that when you get to the point of starting the first team, they have a better chance for success. So not a lot of things, but certainly not just jumping to the team and getting them started. So let me give you some ideas of some setup, things to think about. The first one is scope. And as the innovation lead, you should have in mind, what is the scope of the Innovation Initiative for the first way and when I think about innovation initiatives and companies, should you think about them in one or two year waves. So in this first wave, you may want to start in one department, you may want to start with one customer segment, you may want to start in your own department.

You certainly don't want to start with the entire company, you will eventually get there. But you first have to prove the case and starting With the entire company is too risky. So be smart about where you start, pick a space, that's going to allow you a really good experiment with innovation and allow it to breathe. That is not so small that when you finally get done, you can't prove your case by it. The second area in the setup that I want you to think about comes from the frame platform. And in the frame platform, we talked about creating a sandbox.

And from that sandbox, what usually happens, our innovation teams go into the sandbox box and they find a I'm going to call it a domain. It's a piece of junk of real estate in there and area in the sandbox that captures their imagination. And so I would ask you to think about picking a domain in the sandbox, and being able to articulate it to this first innovation team or allowing them to pick a domain in the sand box. So don't start with a whole sandbox. That's way too big, just pick an area in there that you're going to work on. And again, make sure this domain has a bit of low hanging fruit to it.

So it's not the most complicated part in that sandbox that you have to think about. But it's not so easy again, that when you finish it, you really can't prove the case. Here's a few other things to think about in the startup mode. I would think about no visits. Now. No visits were started by Phil Newbold.

He's the CEO emeritus of beacon health systems in Indiana and a really great colleague of mine and he started, he and his colleagues started this concept called no visits. And they're really an outreach where people from your company, go to an non competitor organization that has started innovation already, and looks at their innovation effort and learns about how they're doing it so that you can bring ideas back. And as you grow and progress, you're going to return the favor to some other company who's going to want to come and visit you. Now, Phil and his team at beacon have found that companies are very willing to open their doors to talk about innovation if you're a non competitor, and that they get a lot out of the visit, as well. So it's a two way street. Now, the other benefit of these inner visits is be really mindful about who you take along with you take some senior leaders, maybe some that are skeptical, so they can get their questions answered, or they can see innovation in a real context.

Take some of the innovation team leaders, just be thoughtful about who you take on these visits. And I'm not talking about 10 visits, I'm talking about two or three visits. Now another idea in this startup, to help you kind of get grounded is maybe to bring in I call them an innovation luminary for a workshop, maybe a two hour workshop with yourself. senior team or workshop with the innovation team, somebody that has real experience in the space that has led an innovation effort. And that has at least one great story that they can tell about how innovation worked at another company. Here's a dangerous zone in this area, and it's in the selecting the domain.

Sometimes when you start this, there's company pressures for you to start with ideas that already exist. And all companies it seems have a list of ideas or innovations that for whatever reason, have not been executed. And I would try to not do that. I would try to allow the team to start with an organic idea. You might say, you know, once the teams get underway, maybe in the second phase, we'll look at these ideas and begin an evaluation process. And if you do that the best way to evaluate list of ideas like that is To have a set of criteria that fit in the sandbox and allow the people that are presenting the ideas to understand what success looks like.

And I would start by asking the authors of those idea, the people that came up with them if you can find them to do their first level evaluation themselves. Oftentimes when people see the criteria and see what's required, the idea maybe comes out in a different light. I would overcome the danger zone, though, by making sure the teams get to work on something organic, and are not given something that has been kicking around in the organization. Let's look at the second bucket in first launch, and that is first teams. Now the first thing to think about is how you set those teams up, and how you form those teams. And I would do this as carefully as possible because what you're getting ready to do it this first team is probably the most important thing you will do in the whole Innovation Initiative because it's got To make it work or not, and who, and what kind of people are on those teams is going to really, really help with success.

So think about how you want the teams to form are they are they people that can self select? Do you select the first ones, it will pull, we decided to select the first ones. And we used cross functional teams across the value chain. And so that helped us with at least the first ones. And we also sent out a notice to everyone about the kind of diversity that should be on the teams. So spend a lot of time thinking about the teams and where they should come, where the people come from, and what kind of skills they have and etc.

And for this example, I'm going to assume your first teams are full time teams. They may not be they may be people enroll that are innovating in their everyday job. But if you start with full time teams, be really thoughtful about how to form those teams. Here's an Thought. In Whirlpool, we had teams around the world at the very beginning and the team in North America, the only space that we could find for them was in the basement. It was a nice basement, but no one ever saw them.

In Europe, in the European headquarters, the only space we could find there was right by the cafeteria, which was a very fortunate accident. So people would have to walk by the team in this very open crazy space as they went to the cafeteria to get a coffee. And that was really, really helpful. The next thing to think about is a T one engagement survey. Now, you may already do some kind of an engagement survey, if you do in the timing works, add a few innovation questions. If the timing doesn't work, try to get this accomplished because it's going to be part of the data that shows what the organization thought about innovation before the team started and what happened as a result of the teams and think about That's three or four questions like, you know, do you feel like the company is innovative?

And if you have an idea, do you know where to go? And do you have access to tools? And do you think our customers think we're innovative, I don't know what the the right questions are, but something that you can do a T one before, and a T two, either somewhere along when they're almost finished, or when they finish so that you can get a sense of how the organization has changed. The next one is just to make sure that you find the right kind of funding and I would say very light funding, don't over fund the first ones and pick the right metrics that are going to tip it over. In other words, when it's finished, there are going to be metrics that people believe and buy into. You may not have output metrics or revenue metrics.

So you really have to think about what are good metrics. Now, the next one is get some help when you get started in the first one. You won't want to do this every time you want to be able to do this on your own but for the first one I would find somebody who has led an innovation effort and understands innovation to help you get started in an advisory role. Now, there are a lot of big consulting firms and others that you could hire, it depends on what you're trying to do. But at a minimum, bring someone in to help you. In the first round, somebody that has a great example or a great story that they can tell.

The next one is to document this is a little bit like children, you know how people take all these pictures of their first children. And then by the third or fourth, they hardly have any pictures. Same with innovation teams. But this is really important because you're going to want to document you're going to want to video, you're going to want to get stories, you're going to want to collect data, because you never know how you're going to use it later. So I would say collect as much as you can. And lastly, communicate both to the senior leaders and the entire organization about how that team or those teams are doing.

And by the way, I wouldn't pick one team. I would Have two or three teams to start up. That gives you a better chance for success. Now, the danger zone here, the one thing I might want to highlight is that if these teams are full time, you have to have a place for the people and the processes over. Now, we talked about at Whirlpool, maybe you've heard this story, but we had kind of a third, a third, a third rule. third of them went on to become mentors, a third of them stayed to run new innovations that came out of the process, and a third of them went back to their jobs.

And if you pick that or something like that, and they're going back, you have to make sure that that's agreed to upfront. The worst thing that could happen or one of the worst things to your new Innovation Initiative is that people come and work and create these great innovations and when they get finish, there's no place for them back in the organization. Lastly, in the first launch area, think about I call them accelerants things that are going to make it go faster, but also make it have a bigger impact. And here's just a few examples. One thing that a lot of companies do is to start an AI network of highly engaged motivated people from the company that also have impact who are passionate about innovation. Some people may call it an innovation council color Whatever you want, but get a group of people together as the teams are working, and start them thinking about how to get innovation to the next level.

The second thing is an accelerant is the customer, the customer has got to be at the center of everything. And when you're communicating and at the end reporting out, make sure that you're talking about what you learned and how you impacted the customer, how you help solve a problem for the customer or a set of problems. Here's a good time to at the end of the team to do your T to engagement survey. And lastly, just a little idea, but if your company has senior leadership meetings, or some series of meetings for all employees, get the team invited, get them on the agenda somehow to talk about what happened in the innovation or what is happening in the Innovation Initiative they're in and what effect its had on them and what they've learned. Now, the danger zone here is that in some scenarios, no matter what the results, they never seem to be good enough.

So the one accelerant I would think about is making sure that you have a senior leadership's leader sponsor. Somebody who is very well connected in the company has a lot of gravitas has a lot of stroke in the company and can help you and is on your side. Okay, let's look at post launch. This assumes that you've already started the initiative and you're just looking for some things to really help the initiative get to the next level. And here's some ideas that have come from lots of different places around the world as far as people that have started innovation initiatives and and trying to get them to the next level. Now remember, this is about going deeper and going deeper is about learning more trying to figure out ways to accelerate the learning in Innovation Initiative.

The first thing I want to talk about is a repository. There's lots of new information that innovation teams are going to be collecting, and it needs to land somewhere so that it can be reused again, it actually has a competitive advantage. And think about the knowledge you gained from innovation around your competitors, around customers. And around trends. If you're doing discovery, well, you're out looking at mega trends in the world that are going to impact the innovation you're working on. In fact, some innovation companies have groups, they're often in the Strategy Group that just work on megatrends and discontinuity.

So think about how you're going to land all that how you're going to organize it and make it accessible to everyone in the company. The second one is just a little thought, but it's something we did at Whirlpool and it was it really helped. It was about milk Let's say in the middle of our Innovation Initiative, so it wasn't in year one or year two, but we decided to have a balanced scorecard item to change train everyone online, in four hours of online training, had to get 100% of everyone. Now, you know, you can't train people online, or even in a classroom to be innovators, but you can give them a lot of concepts and ways to start thinking about it. So think about a balanced scorecard item have so many hours of training for everyone and it just imagine as everyone's going through that together, how that will impact your Innovation Initiative.

I have a lot of companies that come to the workshop that have an annual innovation retreat, and they invite you know, serial innovators or people that have a deep specialty in an area and it's really just a brainstorming and idea generation learning environment for people that want to come. And lastly, lots of companies think about a TED like topic talks that people can give. Either invite people from your partner companies or outside to come in to do a topic talk or people from inside the company videotaped those and put those online so everyone can watch them. Now, one danger here is if you're going to start this repository, make sure that you're not competing with people already in the organization. Now, it's very likely that the information that you're getting is going to be maybe much fresher and newer, but still figure out if there's a competitive analysis group, let's say or a customer insight group, and go work with them in a very collegial way to get both the innovation repository and their work to the next level.

Okay, the second area I want to look at and post launch is around how to move faster. And in this case, I'm going to look at things you can leverage. Maybe that's already things that are already there that you can marry with innovation or ways to really get it to go faster. Here's a few ideas. First of all, a lot of companies do this and they start with a registry of experts in their company. You know, once you start unleashing innovation from everywhere and everyone it's hard to figure out who in the company might have expertise that might help a team and before you go outside and hire someone, sometimes that expertise exists inside or for other reasons, you might have a specialty that you need to find in the company.

So start a registry of either topic experts or innovation experts. The next thing to think about to go faster is if you started I mentors begin exchanging those with other companies or form a group a network to exchange them among several companies because you Have highs and lows of when you need lots of mentors and when you won't need as many. And when you won't need as many, it'll be really hard to payroll all of those people unless they're out learning and helping other companies. And then when you have a spike, you have lots of people coming in to help you and I have talked about this in the I mentor section. Another thing is, make sure that teams have executive sponsors, if you can, that helps the teams go much quicker. It also helps educate the executive sponsors about what's going on.

Just a small idea. If you have an leadership development program for leaders in your company, take the innovation tools into that curriculum and use them in ways that people can see that they're also helpful in non product non process ways things like helping with the strategy or getting to the next level. So embed those into the leadership training. And lastly, if you have not done this already, become familiar with Lean Startup methods and bring the ones inside your company that are going to help You the danger here that might keep you from leveraging and going as fast as you like would be senior leaders who are just not in the loop or not active. So make sure they have some kind of a sponsorship or mentor role for innovation teams that's helpful to the teams. But it's also helpful to the senior leader in this last piece of post launch, want to look at going wider and really thinking about scaling it.

And I just have some random examples from companies that I think are interesting. One is, and I talked about this a little bit in the series is think about partnering with what I call your installed base people that you have long relationships with, be it customers, trade partners, suppliers, strategic partners, and think about using the innovation process and the new Innovation Initiative to go wider that way, depending on how your company thinks about volunteerism and how they exist. In our local community think about taking innovation out to community, NGOs, to nonprofits, Whirlpool was really successful and still does this today with the nonprofits in the area using the innovation tools to help nonprofits in areas of, let's say, adding volunteers or programming or strategy, lots of different ways innovation tools can help. Think about creating an external network that you're at the center of and think about a couple companies, maybe some universities, maybe some incubators, I mean, have a really wide view of how partners can help you learn and how you can help others.

And lastly, this one's kind of out of the out of this world, actually, I ran a stadium. I have several companies that I work with that rent large venues and take innovation teams and invite people to come and interact with them. In fact, Exelon, the great energy company in North America and also is a partner. And since a lot of students to the Notre Dame I via a program that I talked about earlier annually rents a football stadium and invites innovators from that year and invite suppliers and has great celebratory feel, but also a great learning field. So think about renting a stadium. So those are just a few ideas about how to go wider.

And I think the danger here is kind of obvious. And that is you have to have a really well grounded well supported Innovation Initiative before you start going wider. So sometimes we like to, you know, think about some of these ideas for scale, but make sure that your core is strong in the Innovation Initiative before you start going wider and trying to scale it in different ways. Let's do a really brief summary on the innovation universe in total because this is the last module in the masterclass series and just to recap we have looked at four major platforms that each company should consider and work in when they're trying to become more innovative to renovate to become an innovative company. And the four platforms are frame, which is the strategic mandate generate, which is the customer driven problem solving, embed, which is the organization, renovation and lead, which is unleashing human potential.

We also just went through some ideas about how to either start innovation or how you can get innovation to the next level. And there's lots of ideas out there. So I hope you'll keep learning and exchanging ideas and sharing them with others, including me. So I'd like to thank for being part of the innovation universe masterclass. And I hope it helps you as you're thinking about innovation as you're thinking about a career where you will lead innovation and help others And I hope to see you soon somewhere in the innovation universe.