INNOVATION ECOSYSTEMS:

with Shannon Phillips

What is an innovative ecosystem?

I’ll confess that I was a huge biology nerd in high school. I loved learning about how humans were designed, along with how we interacted with the planet. I took this curiosity on to university where I studied biomedical science. I transitioned these skills into the business world where I realized I had a unique perspective on understanding the physiology of how we think, act, and interact. I had an amazing opportunity while working with a very large organization to build on this thinking to understand what it takes to manage change and to innovate in a complex system. This led me down a path of learning everything I could about organizational change and behavior, along with finding out how to approach innovation systematically. Finding the answer took me back to my highschool days in realizing that the best example for managing change and innovation as a system wouldn’t come from an existing business model, it was a biology model – It was an ecosystem.

We’ve started to throw the ‘ecosystem’ word around a lot now-a-days, but the true meaning requires adaptability and resilience. It requires structure and continuous learning. It also requires an understanding of the environment and a constant flow of energy. The true meaning of an innovation ecosystem is a new approach to managing change and innovation in a systematic way that is unique to each organization. It’s the new management theory to deal with rapid change!

The biggest value though, in adopting this thinking within organizations, is realizing that the best way to survive is to look at employees as the ‘energy’ that keeps the ecosystem healthy.

This means creating a shared consciousness of listening, learning, and improving. It means understanding that fulfillment for employees is not just about Christmas party’s and ping pong tables, but to provide an environment that supports an employee’s inherent need to improve what they do. That requires structure to capture serendipitous moments of ‘what if?’. It also requires a way to take those moments and turn them into reality. The true purpose of an innovation ecosystem is to therefore, help employees feel more fulfilled. The result, the organization stands the best chance of surviving in the long term because everyone’s working together to explore the future.

How do you build innovative ecosystems?

At UBT we call this approach, human-centered innovation management (HCIM). At its core, there are four areas that make up this framework that align with biology’s version of the perfect ‘system’.

In Nature In Business

N: Environment

B: Understand existing capabilities

N: Nutrients

B: Build structure

N: Energy

B:Motivate employees

N: Recycling

B: Innovate, learn, adapt

Understand Existing Capabilities: To build an ecosystem, you need to know your environment. We use an Innovation Maturity Assessment to identify existing capabilities which helps us assign one of four maturity stages.

What’s the value of creating an innovation ecosystem that’s human-centered?

The best approach to managing constant change is through creating shared consciousness, whether that’s internally within an organization or externally as communities. We’re seeing the impact of this connection through social media as what we call: ‘connected problem-solving’, and if organizations can adopt this approach, no matter their size, they stand the best chance of thriving, and their employees will feel more fulfilled than ever as they feel a sense of contribution. Win-win! To do this though, organizations need to build structure to support this idea of shared consciousness.