I recently did a presentation to a large nationwide insurance company around “the state of innovation” today. it was an interesting opportunity to reflect upon some of the major changes that I’ve been noticing going on over the last year.
As this was a pretty senior audience, it was no surprise that one of the items that caught their attention was the state of innovation leadership and how innovation is staffed and led in the modern enterprise.
One of the biggest changes I think is the death of the Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) role. As unusual as it sounds for someone like me to be proclaiming that – I have good reason for my assertion – other than the evidence of numerous high profile CIOs leaving their employment over the last year or so.
In reality – it’s not that companies don’t have the need for the CIO role – but rather that I think innovation has become such a critical part to most company’s future that it has been rolled into a much more important role – that of the CEO. Try finding one CEO statement on any financial report that doesn’t mention innovation nowadays – and I absolutely applaud that approach. Innovation has the capacity to make big – no HUGE – changes to a company. Take Nokia – innovation has taken it from being a forestry company, to a rubber products company, to a telecoms behemoth – without complete executive support for the type of changes required to innovate, it simply wouldn’t have happened. Innovation has to be about helping the organization achieve a direction and goal that it WANTS to achieve – and ultimately there is only one person in the organization that has the ultimate responsibility for that – the CEO.
That’s not to say that organizations can get away without some sort of senior leadership – far from it – that leadership is as important, if not more important, than ever before – but it now is coming from a position that is junior to whomever leads the major change directions within the organization – in some orgs that comes under a Chief Strategy Officer, in Consumer Products companies that is typically the Chief Marketing Officer, in Pharmas and other research intensive companies it falls most likely under the R&D department – and in some cases it’s a position that reports directly to the CEO.
This new role – most frequently then an SVP / VP of Innovation – is the guardian of innovation within the company – ensuring processes are devised, targeted and executed to enable the org’s strategic goals to be achieved. They are the ultimate problem solving expert in the company – helping to not only define the problems that must be overcome, but then also to define the methodology by which they can be solved and ensuring that the organization’s resources are made available to do so. They are the champions of change, the focusing lens of innovation, and ultimately the secret to a successful program.
The CIO is dead! Long Live the VP, Innovation!
The Complete Innovator 