Innovation - the execution of new ideas that provide growth and differentiation for our businesses - cannot simply be reduced to one set of iron-clad, all-encompassing rules. Human ingenuity and creativity cannot be reduced to a mathematical formula. But, we can gain substantial guidance from the successes of other small business innovators and innovation specialists. The Institute for Innovation Development will be compiling and reviewing these cross-industry successes for the purpose of distilling principles for action which can direct our growth decisions and guide our innovation efforts. This week’s additions to the Institute’s Innovation Library provide 3 different checklists for innovation success.

Harvey Mackay’s article “Innovate or Die” highlighted how individuals and firms “found a better way to do something” citing 2 essential quotes for emphasis:

“Business has only two functions, marketing and innovation.” Peter Drucker

“Innovators anticipate or create a need and fill it.” Dennis Waitley

Mackay also discovered and shared Hewlett-Packard founders’ original vision on innovation. Legend has it that these rules on innovation were posted in their original garage startup:

1. Believe you can change the world.

2. Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever.

3. Know when to work alone and when to work together.

4. Share tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.

5. No politics. No bureaucracy. (These are ridiculous in a garage.)

6. The customer defines a job well done.

7. Radical ideas are not bad ideas.

8. Invent different ways of working.

9. Make a contribution every day. If it doesn’t contribute, it doesn’t leave the garage.

10. Believe that together we can do anything.

11. Invent.

In a recent FastCompany article, “Google Reveals Its 9 Principles of Innovation”, we were offered a series of productive ways that any enterprise, large or small, can adopt to borrow Google’s innovative culture for their growth efforts:

1. Innovation comes from anywhere

2. Focus on the User

3. Aim to be ten times better

4. Bet on technical insights

5. Ship and iterate

6. Give employees 20 % time

7. Default to open processes

8. Fail Well

9. Have a mission that matters

With the study of innovation and its successful practitioners, the more you read and compare and contrast steps and approaches taken, the more you start to see patterns of behavior and recurring themes.The various lists you find in the innovation literature reinforce the picture that growth and differentiation leadership come from:

People – with belief in change, confidence (not ego), passion, customer empathy, with a certain mindset 

Who Act - boldly, challenge status quo, not incremental in their thinking -

Approach - not striving for perfection, experimental, OK to fail on path, invest time to learn -

Behave - expand their thinking and inputs, are open and observant, flexible, collaborate widely, test (doing pilot projects), actively experiment to learn, creatively use what they have to the fullest.

Our third article, “The Power of Principles in Innovation”, goes even deeper into more foundational principles of innovation itself. It continues the point that innovation fundamentally is a mindset and a way of being that allows you to “see” new ideas for your business:

Primary Principle #1 Everything is Connected to Everything

Primary Principle #2: Thought is Generative 

Principle #3: Everyone is Creative and Innovative

Reading the above 3 articles and others in our Innovation Library will give you many of the best approaches used by successful innovation practioners to guide your innovation efforts. The good news for all business owners is that innovation, at core, consistently has been shown as a way of thinking and being (behaving), offering particular ways of tackling a problem or challenge. It follows that by studying these approaches, we can determine key elements of action and make them into ongoing processes for guiding our business decisions. As a process, we can practice these steps and through repetition and learning, we can get better and better at them. Bottom-line, innovation best practices can be consciously and purposely developed to strategically build a better, more dynamically growing and differentiated business. It is only a matter of increasing your skill at them. The Institute for Innovation Development will be your ongoing innovation resource and support partner in learning and applying these innovation best practices for your growth and differentiation efforts.

Bill Hortz

President and Dean

Institute for Innovation Development

This article was previously posted on Financial Advisor Magazine Online.

The Institute for Innovation Development is an educational and business development catalyst for growth-oriented financial advisors and financial services firms determined to lead their businesses in an operating environment of accelerating business and cultural change. We position our members with the necessary ongoing innovation resources and best practices to drive and facilitate their next-generation growth, differentiation and unique community engagement strategies. The institute was launched with the support and foresight of our founding sponsors—Pershing, Voya Financial, Ultimus Fund Solutions, Fidelity and Charter Financial Publishing (publisher of Financial Advisor and Private Wealth magazines). For more information click here.