Article Dear executives: An intellectual understanding of innovation is not enough… You must experience it first-hand 11 Jul 2016 — 5 min read The Team Brandon Bichler Most corporate leaders these days know that innovation is critical to fending off competitive threats and disruptors and ultimately, staying relevant and compelling to customers. But many of these leaders understand this only on an intellectual level rather than an emotional one. One derived from experience. It’s not a surprise – most leaders have not ever experienced the pace of change that we are seeing today. An environment where technology is fundamental for business, not a back office function, and where a startup business with a bit of VC funding can go after your customers at a “blitzscale” pace. They have not had to run a portfolio of experiments, many of which will never launch. Nor have they ever had to get new products and services into the hands of customers quickly so that they could learn from their behaviour. Or iterate constantly based on those learnings, evolving from very small solutions to ones that become richer and more comprehensive over time. And so they struggle to build a culture and way of working that truly fosters innovation. Some of the best people in the organisation (many of them young, bright stars) who could serve as the building blocks and catalysts for this cultural shift are left untapped or worse, leave out of frustration that the organisation is “too slow”. And it’s a pretty attractive market out there at the moment. Startups are attracting top talent, and it won’t be long before they are competing for your people (and your customers). I believe that you cannot understand these things on an emotional level unless you experience it first-hand. One technique I’ve used with executives and other senior leaders in large organisations is to start by creating that experience for them. I helped one executive team design and build new products and propositions, then taking those designs out (literally onto the streets) to test them with customers, in fast-moving, iterative cycles. I’ve also had senior leaders take calls from customers in their call centre or go through their own onboarding process to have them experience their customers’ “friction” points first-hand. Often, in parallel, I’ve helped these same executives run customer tests with their competitors’ products to understand what they’re competing against. Of course, there’s so much more to building an innovation culture than this, but shifting from an intellectual understanding to a personal experience is a must-take first step.