Have you ever been told “no” by a member of your staff? Have you ever been really upset that things aren’t being done the right way? Have you fixed those problems? Well, if so, you just killed the two key factors of innovation – Openness and Freedom. Elements like these affect what we call “the environment” and it is the most overlooked area by executives. What we find is that most executives rarely look at improvement in more than one or two of the three areas necessary to manage an innovative organization: People, Process and Environment.

Innovation management requires assessing the organization from several angles. Many corporate innovation leaders we find are seeking out the next tool or software solution but will it have the effect on innovation results that they want? For most organizational leaders looking to improve their innovation results, focusing on process alone is likely to be the least effective. Why is this the least likely place to start to improve innovation management? Because people run processes.