Secrets to High Growth Business Success

How can your organization grow its income and/or produce extraordinary performance? Being innovative and creating an innovation culture is one way. Here's how.

1.	BE OPEN TO INSIGHTS. Where do these sudden and clear intuitive perceptions come from? The word insight is formed from the prefix in plus the word sight, so insight literally means seeing inward. Thus, perceptions may come from your inner wiser older self, especially during times of transition.
2.	TURN INSIGHTS INTO IDEAS. An insight is something new that can change how you think about a problem, while an idea is what you do with that insight. Carefully assess the idea. Is it feasible? Conduct market research to determine the size of the potential market and competition.
3.	TURN IDEAS INTO INNOVATION. An innovation can be a new method, idea, product, service, or business approach. The innovation process translates an idea into goods or services that can generate value. The process may include design, development, and testing to ensure that a minimum viable product exists. Protect any Intellectual Property that's involved.
4.	INTRODUCE THE INNOVATION. Through a go-to-market strategy, the new product or service is made available to potential users. Such users may be internal to your organization or friendly customers.
5.	IMPLEMENT. Successfully put the product to work. The best innovation in the world is worthless if it sits on the buyer's shelf unused or, worse yet, if it sits unsold collecting dust. To produce income and grow your business, your innovations must be successfully introduced and implemented in the marketplace.

Meg's Innovation Story

Margaret "Meg" Hansson was one of the first trailblazing, patent-holding inventors and serial entrepreneurs. She pioneered new technology businesses that addressed the needs of women, as well as the health of the planet itself. Among her many accomplishments, she held four patents that helped launch the baby carrier industry!

Hansson was characterized by an innovative, entrepreneurial spirit and a willingness to help others succeed. Beginning at age ten, when she sold soda pop on the street, she went on to found eight start-ups including Gerry Baby Products Company (formerly Gerico, Inc.), now a division of Evenflo with annual sales over $291 million USD.

As a mother of four in Boulder, CO, she knew that women with children needed a better way to carry their young so their hands would be free. This allowed the moms to be more productive and efficient, without worrying if the child would slip off their back or fall out of a sling. She had an insight that there was a safer way. Her idea was a baby backpack. She designed and then patented her innovative product approach. She found the right people to help her build the business and introduce the baby carrier successfully to market. In response to this real market need, sales took off.

Meg Hansson invented a new product, started a new business, created real income, and launched an industry. However, she didn't stop there. She kept innovating her entire life and helping others do the same. That's why she will soon be inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame.

Practical Pointers to Create an Innovation Culture

An Innovation Culture is important in both the private and public sector. Here are examples from my role as Chief Information Officer for the State of Colorado.

1.	DEFINE INNOVATION AS A CORE VALUE. As the State CIO, I helped the Office of Information Technology (OIT) prioritize Innovation as a core value. We defined it as, "Innovation: We foster new ideas. We challenge the status quo and continuously ask how we can do better. Then we take action and make a difference through novel processes and technology."
2.	BUILD INNOVATION INTO YOUR MISSION AND VISION. A vision statement describes what an organization desires to achieve in the long run. OIT's Vision was, "Be the best public service technology organization innovating today for tomorrow."
3.	ESTABLISH INNOVATION GOALS. At OIT we made customer delight our wildly important passionate purpose, or "WIPP". OIT customers were both internal state agencies as well as Coloradans. We agreed on annual wildly important goals, or "WIGs". As one strategy to achieve our goals, we set up an innovation incubator that delivered 10 technological solutions to address agency challenges, like a virtual call center for COVID-19 communications. I also set the goal that by the next year the State of Colorado would win at least one innovation award. OIT won two!
4.	HIRE INNOVATORS. Hire the right people to support the goal. As CIO, I retained, promoted from within, moved off, and hired new team members. We moved parts of the organization around under these leaders to improve processes and better serve our customers.
5.	PURSUE YOUR PASSIONATE PURPOSE. Now that you've set goals, pursue your purpose with all your heart and soul persistently with the right people until you make progress. At OIT, as one example of progress, we introduced the award-winning myColorado™ mobile app with Digital ID, which has been downloaded by over 1 million Coloradans.

Summary

You can deliver innovations that produce real income or extraordinary performance. How? Innovate. Become aware of insights and turn them into ideas. Apply ideas and transform them into innovations. Then introduce and implement the new product or service. Just as Meg Hansson did and as the State of Colorado Office of Information Technology did, build an organization with an innovation culture.

Copyright Theresa Szczurek 2024.  All Rights Reserved.