Innovation by SIT

A. How much time each month do you dedicate to innovation?
1. About 5 minutes
2. 1-3 hours
3. 5-10 hours
4. Should I also include sleeping and weekend time?

B. How many innovation books have you read over the last year?
1. They write books on this stuff?
2. 1-3
3. 2-6
4. I lose count

C. How many Innovation companies are you familiar with?
1. Ooh, an innovation company!  What’s that?
2. 1
3. 5
4. All of them

D. How many innovation conferences did you attend over the last 2 years?
1. I’m sure I’ll visit one some time soon…
2. 1
3. 2
4. Attend… or speak at?

E. What’s the most effective way to encourage innovation in your organization?
1. Reward it
2. Make it “ok” to try and fail
3. Provide management backing
4. All of the above

F. What’s your preferred approach for coming up with new ideas?
1. Wait for a good idea to spark
2. Sit with a few colleagues and brainstorm
3. Use systematic tools for innovation
4. Call in the professionals innovation facilitators

G. What is the best reason for kicking off an innovation initiative?
1. There’s never a good reason to change existing successful practices
2. When there’s time and money
3. Only in a crisis situation
4. Innovation can always help me find better ways to reach any organizational goals

H. What does an organization need to do for it to become more innovative?
1. Create a constant pipeline of new products
2. Provide skills for innovative thinking for many employees
3. Put organizational support structures in place (steering committee, clear criteria for success in innovations, etc.)
4. All of the above

I. What is your reaction when you hear the term “innovation”?
1. Last year’s buzzword
2. Show me the money
3. I’m about to hear something exciting
4. Motivation to ask “What can we be doing differently and better?”

J. How many innovation blogs do you subscribe to?
1. What’s a blog?
2. 1
3. 3
4. Everything that I can get my hands on

K. What do you do to overcome your mental fixedness?
1. What’s fixedness?
2. Brainstorm
3. Try and challenge my assumptions
4. Fixed, moi?

L. What is the greatest barrier to organizational innovation?
1. My refusal to share my ingenious ideas?
2. Different kinds of fixedness
3. No clear method of measuring innovation efforts
4. Seeing innovation as separate from day-to-day business

M. What, in your opinion, is the most effective way to secure your company’s long-term future?
1. Keep on doing what we know works
2. Copy our hottest competitors
3. Re-think and improve our business model, products and practices
4. Make me CEO

How You Scored

13-25
You sound like you put the “no” in Innovation… 
Playing it safe, sticking to good, common-sense business practices, you are dependable and a steady performer.  However, keeping an open mind can help you improve your company’s performance.  Innovation is more than last year’s “buzzord” – you can come up with new ideas that can make you more competitive in an ever-changing world.  It might actually be your safest bet.

Tip for your type:
You’ve made a good start by visiting our innovation blog, keep reading and we’re sure innovation will soon become a habit.

26-38
You’re clearly an innovation champion.
You have a well-rounded, holistic view of Innovation and are clearly already using it to your advantage.  Although you realize that your individual contribution plays a major role, you know that it’s a team’s innovation effort that delivers the most effective results.

Tip for your type:
Experience a systematic, counter-intuitive approach to innovation that challenges conventional methods, learn more by reading the Harvard Business Review article: “Finding Your Innovation Sweet Spot?” (available from the HBR website or info@SITsite.com)

39-52
You’re an innovation master and mentor
You implicitly understand innovation to be a key driver of your business success – and experience has proven to you that it’s a vehicle to achieving a host of top business objectives, like organic growth, cost-cutting, and becoming more sustainable.  You’re consulted by peers and colleagues looking for someone to champion their cause to do things a little differently – and you’ll fight in their corner, safe in the knowledge that it’s the innovators who are reshaping the world.

Tip for your type:
When they make you CEO, be sure to call us in for an organizational innovation project – we have much to learn from you. info@SITsite.com

Join our free inventive thinking webinar. For additional info and registration click here