A lot of businesses are finally starting to understand the importance of innovation. They are truly ready to embrace change, and they even have put enterprise innovation software in place. What they are missing, however, is someone who leads. This is understandable, because it is confusing to have a “leader” in place when everyone has been saying that there has to be a bottom-up approach. The way to manage this, however, is by putting a whip in place.
What Is a Whip?
A whip is someone who enforces innovation in a company. The term coms from politics, where the whip is an individual who ensures the party is disciplined and follows legislature. One of key roles of a whip is to make sure that party members attend whenever there is a vote. This comes from hunting, whereby hunting whips would stop a hound from moving too far away from the pack.
Why Is a Whip Needed for Successful Enterprise Innovation Software?
In order to truly have a culture of innovation in a place, a whip, or even multiple whips, are needed. This ensures that the business moves beyond having good intentions and actually moves towards implementing things. According to various reports, around 35% of businesses still have fewer than 10 people in their organization dedicated to innovation, despite nearly 100% being aware of the importance of innovation.
So why are there so few dedicated people? One of the reasons is because a CEO decides whether or not a plan should be accepted, then chooses who leads on this, and finally picks a senior staff member to assist. Then, the CEO moves on and gets on with other business. That is the greatest mistake of all.
It is important to understand that an organization is a continuum. It is a whole and one than is bigger than the sum of its parts, which is its people. It is only when organizations focus on ensuring everybody is on board that the intrapreneurs they have start to come forward and share inspirational initiatives. Good companies redesign themselves so that it fosters entrepreneurship and efficiency.
How to Accept the Whip?
Some people believe that true innovation for businesses that have resisted it, is like accepting a “new world order”. This doesn’t point to conspiracy theories, but rather to the fact that true innovation means that companies have to change the way they run their business and the way they think. This is necessary for acceptance of the whip as well, and takes four key elements:
- Resources must be detached from the parent company.
- A network of decision-makers has to be created.
- The parent company has to be fully invested.
- The portfolio has to reflect the innovation goals that people share.
A whip is there to ensure that the culture of innovation is whipped into shape. They are the key person of importance within the innovation team. But that is where their role ends, because it is the other members of the innovation team that make the actual innovation happen.