How Do You Define INNOVATIVENESS? Getting it Wrong Could Cost You

By: Malcolm G. Tyson

Underlying an innovative culture driven by an innovative leader is innovativeness. Innovativeness drives business growth by increasing innovation opportunities.

So what’s the wind the in the sales of those companies that seem to always be producing innovations? Many are aware of the benefits of innovation but struggle with maintaining an innovative culture that consistently generates innovations that keeps your pipeline humming and your bottom line moving in the right direction. What is the blind spot that some leaders just can’t seem to uncover to dependably produce innovations that have commercial success? In this post, we’ll discuss a more practical definition of innovativeness and how to apply it to sales and business growth.

Underlying an innovative culture driven by an innovative leader is innovativeness. Innovativeness is described in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “the skill and imagination to create new things”, which speaks to the duality of the attribute but just scrapes the surface of the importance of innovativeness to business growth and sustainability. The first part; skill assumes that there is an amount of expertise involved in the development of innovations. This assertion is relative to the environment or subject matter involved in the innovation development process. For example, to develop innovations in financial management, one should have a deep understanding of the financial management strategies and tactics. Conversely, think about trying to implement an internal innovation for example, around a communications process and the responsible personnel has no expertise in the details of executing a communications plan. Even the most inexperienced leader would suspect this to be a disaster while instead of creating innovation, they create a source of confusion. So it goes without saying that an innovator should have some skill, expertise, and ability the discipline that they are looking to produce innovations.

Here are a few other posts that describe the additional skills necessary in creating innovative companies:

• • Insights on Value Creation
  • Keys to an Innovative Culture
  • Creating a Culture of Innovation

The second part of that definition talks about the imagination, which is where the separation begins between companies that time after time generate innovations with commercial success and those that don’t. But what is the imagination that assists in the development innovation? That’s a difficult concept to describe much less put into action. To make this concept a bit more manageable, let’s take the concept of mindfulness, which Psychology Today describes as a state of active, open attention to the present and apply it to the matter at hand.

Innovativeness is a state of mind that is attributable to the recognition and active pursuit of opportunities for innovation.

It’s innovativeness that allows for leaders to leverage the influence of associations, create space for innovation, and apply innovativeness regularly. Innovativeness is the 6th sense that prompts subject matter experts to ask “why” or question whether tasks can be done more efficiently even when they are producing a great customer experience. But how can this understanding translate to improved sales and business growth?

Having an active awareness of opportunities for innovation can permeate every aspect of a business. From the product or service being sold to the operational functions that support whatever is being sold. Thus, innovativeness applied to business development may produce possibilities that broaden the pipeline or applied to a service sold to consumers may produce openings for co-creation. The application of innovativeness increases the opportunities for innovation and should also be accompanied with a vetting and validation process that will transform ideas into viable offerings to current and/or new customers. By eliminating the barriers of innovation and actively seeking to apply innovativeness to business development and sales, we can favorably impact business growth and avoid the symptoms of stagnation that so prevalently divert most businesses from reaching their potential.

5 Brilliant Ways To Develop INNOVATIVENESS and Super Charge Your Business

Innovativeness involves skill and proficiency as well as an awareness of instances and causes for its application. While this list isn’t exhaustive, here are some areas to apply innovativeness that will have a big impact on business growth.

• Relationships
  • developed by intentional behavior and the identification of mutual interests fosters trust that produces sales opportunities;
  • that encourage advocacy and loyalty that go beyond current needs generates top of mind circumstances;
  • based on reciprocity in commitment and candor establishes foundations of honesty and integrity instead of just profits and manipulation
• Managing Competition
  • Involves having a clear understanding of the differentiators between themselves and other players in the market as the starting point;
  • Means doing things different from competition and doing what competition does but better to be the logical best choice
• Customer Experience
  • Is adjusted as customer needs change to create a customer centric brand;
  • Comprehensively aligns with the changing needs of the industry to establish a relational nature with prospects
• Communication
  • Is vital in redirecting uncertainties toward the value being provided to customers as a result of new initiatives;
  • Is used to inform, clarify, explain, as well as inspire and motivate potential consumers.
• Empowerment
  • Is a sense of openness to and understanding concerning the benefits of allowing people to function outside of their comfort zone; where the best ideas and highest performers live
  • is critical to the implementation of new offerings to the market

About the author

Malcolm G. Tyson, PhD is passionate about growing businesses and formulating the actions and attitudes that help businesses become even more successful. With over 20 years of experience in management consulting supporting numerous industries including Telecommunications, Aerospace and Defense Dr. Tyson has gained a wealth of knowledge on the various aspects of strategy and execution for business growth. As the founder of Stratascension, Dr. Tyson diligently works to execute its mission of improve business leaders’ ability to innovate and create businesses that leverage strategic decision making in increasingly complex, demanding, and result oriented environments.

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