The role senior executives must fill for innovation success

In a white paper on accelerating or inhibiting innovation, Jeffrey Phillips and Innovation Management Institute identified a leadership gap in innovation. While many CEOs report that innovation is a top priority, there is often a gap between vision and implementation. CEOs and senior executives must play a vital role in innovation success by aligning innovation with strategy, engaging and empowering employees, and providing the necessary resources and tools. However, many senior executives lack innovation experience, face short-term financial reporting goals, or have difficulty managing important versus urgent tasks. To drive innovation, senior executives must provide seven essential capabilities, including creating alignment, deploying trusted methods and tools, effective communication and engagement, empowering people, providing skills, refocusing attitudes, perspectives and rewards, and defining corporate governance for innovation. The Executive Innovation Work Mat provides a framework for companies to adopt to ensure linkages between strategy and innovation, innovation and capabilities, innovation and culture.