Gary Hamel

Every human being has within them a creative spark, yet our organizations harness only a fraction of that latent imagination. While 79% of leaders rank innovation as a top priority, 94% say their organizations aren’t as innovative as they need to be. What gives? If innovation is so important, why do most companies struggle with it? Because few of them have taken a systematic approach to making innovation instinctive for every individual and intrinsic to the organization itself. For innovation to become a genuine core competence, organizations must …

Build creative capital. While most people have creative instincts, it takes practice to learn to think like a gamechanger. You wouldn’t expect someone to hit a golf ball 200 yards down the fairway without a bit of training. So it is with innovation. The quickest way to increase the innovation output of any company is to teach everyone how to upend conventional thinking, intercept emerging trends and invent novel solutions to deep customer needs.

Re-tool the management model. Over the past decade, many companies re-engineered their operating model for speed and efficiency. Few, though, have retooled their management model for innovation. This is now an imperative. Every management system—planning, resource allocation, performance management, compensation and training—must facilitate rather than frustrate innovation. Companies that fail to take a systematic approach to this challenge will soon find themselves preempted by their competitors and abandoned by their customers.

Over the past three decades, Gary Hamel has taught hundreds of thousands of individuals how to imagine and build the future. He has also helped many of the world’s most admired companies design and build innovation-friendly management practices. The result: boldly creative teams and billions of dollars added to the top line.