February 19, 2015

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University of Texas McCombs School of Business | Webinar: The Two Key Barriers To Sustained Innovation

February 19, 2015, noon to 1 p.m., online

This is based on the material in my book Relentless innovation. What we found in our work and research is that year of focus on efficiency using tools like Lean and Six Sigma have eliminated variance and risk taking in many corporations. When you add to that the focus on “right sizing” and lean staffing, there are few people to attempt innovation and little incentive to do so. “Business as usual” becomes the prevailing paradigm. Innovation seems risky and unusual and distracts from getting the “normal” work done.

If companies desire more innovation, there are several important factors to address. The first is the overriding importance of “business as usual” and the second are the people who sustain it – middle management. If we can create a balance between the focus on business as usual and innovation, and encourage managers to allocate resources to both of these activities, innovation can flourish. Of course there are other factors to consider: gaining new skills, influencing the culture, rethinking engagement, rewards and compensation.

This presentation is a fast paced and somewhat lighthearted look at recent corporate history, and the factors that contribute to the struggles many corporations have with innovation. It will highlight the changes that are necessary to sustain innovation in an organization. Further, we’ll recommend areas of focus and specific changes that are necessary if a corporation hopes to compete with fast paced innovative competitors.

The presentation will take approximately 45 minutes, and I’ll be glad to take questions at the end.

About Jeffrey Phillips:
Jeffrey Phillips is VP Marketing and a lead consultant for OVO Innovation. Jeffrey has led innovation projects for Fortune 500 firms, including T. Rowe Price, John Deere, GlaxoSmithKline, Hewlett-Packard, U.S. Bank, AIG, Raytheon and others, government entities within the Department of Defense, academic institutions and non-profits based on OVO Innovation’s Innovate on Purpose™ methodology. The Innovate on Purpose methodology encourages organizations to consider innovation as a sustainable, repeatable business discipline, rather than a discrete project.

Jeffrey has led projects using a range of innovation methods and techniques, including scenario planning, ethnography, voice of the customer, lead user analysis, jobs to be done and the customer experience journey. He has facilitated the development of thousands of ideas, many of which have become new products and services.

Jeffrey is the author of two books about innovation: Relentless Innovation, which examines the reasons 3M, P&G, Apple and Google can sustain innovation over time while others can’t and Make us more Innovative, a book that encompasses much of the OVO Innovation methodology. He has contributed to several other books about innovation, most notably the book Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing. Jeffrey’s blog about innovation, Innovate On Purpose, is ranked as one of the top blogs about innovation on the web. He also contributes to other innovation-oriented websites such as Innovation Management and Innovation Excellence, and writes for Texas Enterprise and other management oriented sites. He is a sought after speaker and has presented to corporations, innovation oriented conferences, and at a number of universities. In 2010, 2011 and 2012 he chaired the Innovate North Carolina conference and has been a keynote speaker at Queen’s University, University of the Pacific, UNC and several other colleges and conferences.

Innovation consulting, training, workshops and speaking engagements have taken Jeffrey to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Western Europe, South Africa and Central America as well as across the US.

Jeffrey has an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin and an undergraduate degree in engineering from the University of Virginia.

Register here.