Welcome to the Innovation Leadership Forum
Photo © Paul Gadd
Innovation has been firmly on the agenda for most organisations for a while. This is no longer enough. Today’s environment demands that organisation place sustainability considerations at the heart of all operations, and ensure it is the key driver for all innovation. Anything else is irresponsible.
More than ever, just asking for (more) innovation is not enough. We all know that curiosity, creativity and the skills of developing and implementing, as well as space – to challenge and question, experiment and explore – are essential. The next big lessons is how to understand, leverage and embed sustainability.
In order to be able to improve conditions for innovation and sustainability we need to start by understanding the organisations’ specific context and starting point. While looking at Best Practice is useful, it is not sufficient. Best Practice, for both innovation and sustainability, needs to be translated into context, and extended to become Leading Practice.
Not much is truly new which is why innovation thrives on diversity and the appreciation of different perspectives and points of view. If collaboration has long since been the secret ingredient for innovation, it is an absolute necessity for sustainability, as true sustainability can only be achieved by taking a systemic approach.
Our context changes faster than ever before. On the one hand this means that the best possible solutions of today is likely to be out of date tomorrow. So we must build in space to challenge and question whether how and what we do remains relevant and appropriate. On the other it means that in order to keep up we might rush into solutions, without looking for and identifying unintended consequences. the belief in ‘technology will save us’ has brought us to where we are – which is not a great place. Technology should serve to create a more sustainable future, rather than pushing the boundaries as far as possible, regardless of future implications.
Dr. Bettina von Stamm created the Innovation Leadership Forum to share and spread her passion for understanding and enabling innovation.
Like to be inspired by innovation-related events, news and other innovation-related activities ? Then you will enjoy our ‘regular irregular’ mailouts!
In oder to address today’s challenges we need innovation, lots of it, for sure. Yet is can no longer be innovation that satisfies the shareholders and bottom line alone. It is absolutely essential that any innovation considers ALL stakeholders, and ensures that all three aspects of the triple bottom line – people, planet and yes, of course also profit – are satisfied.
Bettina von Stamm, Innovation Leadership Forum