A little self-awareness goes a long way. For most organizations struggling to innovate for their customers and in their markets, chances are there is a lack of genuine self-understanding and assessment around what’s getting in the way and why. In my 25 years leading innovation initiatives, I have found that big challenges arise when there’s misalignment between commitment to innovation and actual competence to develop new solutions.
So how to you gain a realistic view of your capabilities? The Innovation Matrix is a great tool to help self-assess where you are – and where you want to be.
What is an Innovation Matrix, and what are best practices, tools and online templates for teams and organizations?
An Innovation Matrix is a way to visualize the different dimensions that exist around fostering innovation. The matrix includes two variables: Competence (i.e., the ability within the company to come up with and execute an innovation) and Commitment (i.e., how important the innovation is to the organization). Organizations can use this tool to determine what category they fall into and what changes need to be made so they get more innovation.
The two dimensions of the Innovation Matrix (Competence and Commitment) create nine different classifications which help business leaders to identify where they are in the innovation adoption process:
- No innovation capacity
- Thinking about innovation
- Talk but no action
- Unintentional innovation
- Average at everything
- Potential stars
- Effortless innovators
- Unconscious stars
- World class innovators
Here’s a freely available template download based on best practices from Praxie.com. As a business leader, it is integral to assess where your company lies on the Innovation Matrix. That’s the only way you’ll know how to leverage the strengths of your organization to drive greater innovation.
About the Author:
Soren Kaplan is the bestselling and award winning author of Leapfrogging and The Invisible Advantage, an Affiliate at the Center for Effective Organizations at USC’s Marshall School of Business, a columnist for Inc. Magazine, a globally recognized keynote speaker, and the Founder of Praxie. Business Insider and the Thinkers50 have named him one of the world’s top management thought leaders and consultants.
