It has been a personal policy to refrain from including our products, services and clients in our blogging activities. However, I feel that a recent client experience deserves to be shared as a real-world and practical example of the conditions and practices that allow innovation to truly meet its potential.

Prior to moving forward with their process and us as a partner, this is the first question that the CEO of a 10,000 employee organization asked me in front of his Executive Committee: “what is the first piece of advice you can give us?”. I replied: “Use our advice because you’re paying for it”. The message that he clearly heard was don’t cut corners that allow you to fall back into your current comfort zone. To his credit, he took the advice to the letter; and the results quickly followed.

Here is are the simple yet critical success factors:

• The CEO visibly leads the innovation process - makes the commitment to the initiative public knowledge, participates in idea development, collaboration and evaluation – CEO submitted the first idea during launch event and the organization followed his lead in droves
• The communications around the program are exciting, clear, purposeful and sustained – the program is always visible and top-of-mind
• Leadership responsibilizes the hottest “rising star” in the organization and assigns them full ownership of the process and results; and they incentivize that person to drive successful results against targeted goals
• The chain of command is made to fully engage and commit to process rigor, top-to-bottom – they are also made aware that performance is being measured  at every step of the process (including their own) to insure compliance and responsiveness to process-related tasks
• Real resources commensurate to the task are committed – this provides the kind of support that drives optimization of the the effort at every level – the innovation process team is structured and funded for success
• An enticing incentive and recognition structure based on participation, task performance and attainment of success goals is put into place so that participation become an opportunity for all stakeholders that add value – it doesn’t just look like more work – it has the vital “what’s in it for me” factor addressed

Going back to the CEO’s first question, it was asked in front of a less-than  homogenous Executive Committee – comprised of:

• 5 Executive Vice-presidents
• 6 Departmental Vice-presidents
• 8 Divisional Vice-presidents
• 3 separate Labor Union leaders

Those kind of competing interests could easily have derailed the initiative and sabotaged the entire process. The CEO’s active participation and vigilant oversight insured that everyone stayed on track. The CEO made it mandatory for all to get on board in earnest and to be fully committed. To this day it isn’t always easy to maintain...but high achievement rarely is.

Now along the way, there has already been some learning; that too is listened too and acted on, so that the proper adjustments to the process are heralded as an opportunity for improvement - this transparency and fast response builds onto the trust and is re-enforced by senior management communications. This socializes the process even more into a cultural norm, which allows for rapid assimilation of changes and acceptance by the corporate community.

Results in the first ten months since launch:

• Annual idea submission: 92.4% over target
• Annual cost savings: 96% on target
• Annual revenue generation: 57% over target
• Annual employee engagement: 13% over target

One can say what they will, but there is no substitute for commitment, action and follow-through. Those are the core elements that make things happen.