Leading_Innovation_Change

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Volume 3 · Number 3 · September 2011
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Volume 3 · Number 3 · 2011
141
Leading Innovation Change - The Kotter Way
Praveen Gupta
Adjunct Industry Professor, Illinois Institute of Technology, School of Applied Technology,
201 East Loop Road, Wheaton, IL 60189
ABSTRACT
Innovation has been considered necessary for solving every problem today. In any
business meeting, conference or media innovation is discussed and desired. However,
key challenges in realizing innovation are a well understood framework and an
infrastructure for its successful deployment. Current frameworks including Open
Innovation, Crowd Sourcing and many others do not address corporate needs in terms of
credibility and for its body of knowledge for developing competency. Having established
a credible and teachable framework for innovation, the author realized that organization
leadership is unable to drive innovation due to misunderstanding of innovation principles
and change management at the leadership level. Recognizing success of Prof. Kotter’s
Leading Change model, the author adapts the model to managing the innovation change
[1]. This paper presents application of the Leading Change to innovation management
and providing guidance to organization leadership for innovation deployment.
Innovation deployment has become a necessity for organizations in knowledge age for
achieving competitive edge and sustaining profitable growth.
1. INTRODUCTION
Current conversations about business innovation started in the late 90’s when Professor Clayton
Christensen of Harvard Business School directed businesses to pursue the path of destructive or
sustainable innovations to achieve growth [2]. Since then global competition and market conditions
have necessitated acceleration in innovation. In the rush to innovate, corporations pursued the path of
Open Innovation that helped some organizations or Crowd Sourcing for innovation that is still being
talked about. Neither of these two approaches to innovation has given corporations an ability to
innovate as needed. For example, an article in a recent Fortune magazine states that during 2000 to
2008, Pfizer won FDA approval for nine drugs at an average cost of $6.7 billion for each drug, too
expensive for sustaining Pfizer’s profits [3].
Prior to the current trends in innovation there were tools and techniques to teach people creativity,
methods for new product development along with inventive problem solving methods such as TRIZ, or
methodologies to manage development of new products. None of these methodologies have adapted to
the Internet age, nor have they been scaled up for mass innovation needed in the knowledge age.
Research shows that conventional methods of innovation resulted in a return of up to 20 cents on a
dollar while knowledge-age-friendly innovations result in returns of around 80 cents on a dollar; more
attractive to investors. Since most leaders are unaware of conventional innovation, and new methods
have not been optimized, there is a need for a model to bring change to the corporate culture, making
it ready for innovation, and for a systemically developed framework for innovation ready for mass
adaptation in the information saturated knowledge age.
The author adapted John Kotter’s model for leading change to bring the innovation change needed
in the corporate world. Kotter’s eight-stage process was designed for the 21st century and in the need
to bring innovation sense to corporate leadership. The eight stages are listed below:
1. Establishing a Sense of Urgency
2. Creating the Guiding Coalition
3. Developing a Vision and Strategy
4. Communicating the Change Vision
5. Empowering Employees for Broad-based Action
6. Generating Short-term Wins
7. Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change
8. Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture

2. BREAKTHROUGH INNOVATION FRAMEWORK
In addition to the Kotter’s framework for change management, the author has developed the framework
of innovation based on the study of approaches adopted by great innovators, specifically Einstein for
unlimited thinking and Edison for nearly unlimited innovation, amassing over one thousand patents in
his lifetime. The new framework was developed in search for the science of innovation, and is called
the Brinnovation™ (abbreviated for Breakthrough Innovation) framework [4].
Brinnovation builds on employees’ natural talents, and simplifies the innovation process. The
framework includes the following:
1. Fundamental strategy for business that is sustaining profitable growth
2. Brinnovation framework demonstrating that innovation is a function of effort, knowledge, play
and imagination.
3. Rule of 2 for defining the breakthrough extent of innovation
4. Holistic rules for creativity, and a process for thinking innovatively
5. TEDOC (Target, Explore, Develop, Optimize and Commercialize) [5] Methodology for
developing innovation solutions profitably
6. Measures of innovation including recognition of innovations, employee ideas, and revenue
growth.
7. Portfolio of Fundamental, Platform, Derivative and Variation innovations
8. Business Innovation Maturity Model (BIMM) comprising five stages namely Sporadic, Idea,
Managed, Nurtured and Sustained
3. CULTURE FOR INNOVATION
Realizing business growth without mergers or acquisition requires leading innovation within four walls
by inspiring employees for their better intellectual engagement and output. Organic growth necessitates
creating a culture of innovation, driving change in people’s thoughts and behaviors. Culture is a
frequently talked about issue however rarely accomplished because culture is not a thing or two but
instead is inclusive of everything that happens in an organization. So what does culture consist of? Is
it different in different companies, countries or communities? By understanding the components of
culture one can see that between cultures there are commonalities and differences. It also shows that
to change a company culture certain pieces need be changed to achieve desired outcomes. Based on the
inputs from students representing eight countries the following items can contribute to defining an
organization’s culture:
• Vision, Objectives/purpose/goal
• Rules and standards
• Code of Ethics
• Work atmosphere
• Social responsibility/ caring
• Listening
• Bureaucracy – Speed of decision making
• Communication
• Preferences and interests
• Hierarchy/ structure
• Shared benefits
• History/ traditions
• Rewarding failures
• Recognizing successes
• Motivation
• Help/ support
Thus by changing an organization’s culture to one more suitable for innovation, we would need to
change thoughts and actions. When we say we want to change culture we imply that we’ll bring about
certain practices that are more conducive to inspiring, implementing and rewarding innovations.
Professor John P. Kotter has captured a process for leading change, enabling executives to identify,
inspire and execute actions for creating culture of innovation. Accordingly organizations that are not
142 Leading Innovation Change - The Kotter Way
International Journal of Innovation Science

able to exploit innovation to achieve profitable growth must not have created a sense of urgency,
understood the value of innovation, or learned the innovation process. Without a sense of urgency it is
difficult to set expectations for desired change or to engage employees intellectually. Much of today’s
corporate leadership is more focused on short-term profits, and thus the organization is not aligned for
innovation. Prof. Kotter has outlined an eight-stage change process that can be equally applied to
creating a culture and deployment of innovation.
STAGE 1 – ESTABLISHING A SENSE OF URGENCY FOR INNOVATION
Most companies today are focused on short-term profit, and thus deploy initiatives like Lean Six Sigma
to cut cost; missing the intent of achieving perfection or becoming the best supplier for customers. On
the contrary, innovation is considered an expense thus counter to reducing cost and does not get serious
consideration. Surveys continuously showed that innovation is one of the top priorities of business
executives except when it comes to allocating resources. A recent IBM Global CEO Study shows that
creativity in leadership has become a critical requirement for success in today’s economy [6]. It’s
amazing to note that surveys show what we want to hear year after year. It must be the way questions
are formulated to get desired replies when surveying organizations. Earlier leadership studies have
shown that twenty years ago top leadership attributes included honesty, integrity, futuristic vision and
knowledge [7]. Leadership implies creativity. In an interview published in International Journal of
Innovation Science, Chris Galvin, former Chairman and CEO of Motorola, redefined leadership as
taking followers to a place never visited [8]. Leaders must be creative otherwise how would they create
new growth opportunities!
Due to intense global competition from rising economies and reduced merger activity, the need for
organic innovation has skyrocketed. The challenge then is to understand why most corporations are not
pursuing innovation with a sense of urgency to achieve their business objectives. It requires a different
perspective of business. The purpose of a business must not be to make money but instead to provide
value to its customers and to society. If a business serves customers well it will make money and profit.
Thus the leadership focus must become to serve more customers well, leading the business to profitable
growth. Leadership is required for growth and good management is necessary for profit. Thus to create
an urgency for innovation, corporate leadership must aim for market leadership through profitable
growth. Once the strategy is to achieve profitable growth, leadership would adopt and deploy
innovation to achieve business objectives. Without setting goals for sustained profitable growth,
innovation would not be perceived as needed, even though the term “innovation” would be bandied
about freely.
To create a sense of urgency for innovation, corporate leadership must commit to sustained
profitable growth, strategize to develop a portfolio of innovations for both the short and the long term,
and allocate resources accordingly including resources for deployment. The portfolio of innovation will
include innovation for three to six months, 9 – 15 months, 30 – 36 months, and beyond. Absence of
such an approach indicates too much dependence on existing product mix, and/or the complacency
caused by the absence of crisis at the leadership level, too much information about innovation, a poor
understanding of the innovation process, ineffective corporate performance (including measures of
innovation), too much talk about innovation as an annual program; or even killing the innovation
messenger. I have worked with a few senior managers who tried to introduce innovation to their
company; I never heard from them again. They no longer worked there.
In tough economic times corporate leadership must also go back to a basic idea that community and
business need each other. In order for business to succeed it needs community support for employment
and infrastructure at the least, and community needs business support through employment
opportunities and new solutions. Sustained profitable growth creates a better community and business
relationship that sours when a business purely focuses on profit at any cost without a corresponding
focus on revenue growth.
To create a sense of urgency for deploying innovation leadership must articulate the fundamental
strategy for sustained profitable growth and role of innovation in realizing its business objectives.
STAGE 2 – CREATING THE GUIDING COALITION FOR INNOVATION
A guiding coalition is the catalyst for instilling change in employee behaviors. The innovation team
formed to drill down innovation in the organization must represent the organization not just the
leadership. It must have people with power but without ego, people from middle management, people
Praveen Gupta 143

from operations representing both genders, and must incorporate diversity of experience and culture.
The more diverse the guiding coalition the more likely it will be innovative in its approach to
introducing innovation in the organization. The members of the coalition must be enthusiastic about the
success of the corporation, care for people, educated or trained in credible innovation methods and
tools, and be aware of and interested in measuring innovation performance. The guiding coalition can
assess the corporate performance to identify profitable growth opportunities for innovation, and
develop a persuasive and pleasant message of innovation. Innovation and fun go together.
In the Internet age, the corporate guiding coalition may also include outside members such as
professors, consultants, or associates from professional organizations in related or diverse industries.
The guiding coalition can also use social media tools to spread the message to employees, supply chain,
and stakeholders. Technology can be deployed to engage employees for their input. The guiding
coalition members must understand that all employees will make innovation happen in the company
with their support. Empathy and care for employees is critical to build trust.
Today, corporations are managing people as human capital or headcounts. In the virtual world where
interpersonal skills are becoming less relevant, human capital becomes a term in the economic equation
for corporate performance. In recent years employees were considered as human resources (HR), used
to deliver solutions to customers at the lowest cost. While companies are deploying improvement
strategies such as Lean or Six Sigma, many times savings are measured in reduced headcount, a
pathetic way to communicate how much leadership cares for employees. In Thomas Watson’s time at
IBM HR represented human relations to inspire employees to create innovative solutions. Employees
were trusted for their intellectual contributions, allowed to err, and rewarded for innovations.
The guiding coalition must recognize that employees must be inspired to innovate at work, they
cannot simply be told to innovate. It is interesting that when a company is managed for short-term
profit, the environment is tense, competitive and destructive because of the fear of layoffs. In such an
environment, employees show up at work, pass their time, do the job, become numb of stress, and start
acting dumb because nobody listens to their ideas. They feel disrespected and even mistreated.
When a company is managed for long-term profitable growth, a risk-taking culture develops,
failures are acceptable, and the environment is more fun-loving because employees are thinking freely,
trying different things and hope to contribute to their organization’s success. Corporate drive to
innovation must persuade employees that innovation is vital for their personal success as well as the
corporation’s success. The drive to innovation must be an enjoyable experience they can share with
their friends and families. Employees love to take pride in their work.
Interestingly, many innovative firms have been known to create a culture of fun through a colorful
environment, non-routine activities, less management and more leadership, freedom to think, and tools
and toys to play with. Add the availability of food, and employees love to be at work because they enjoy
being there. The corporate need for innovation must appeal the employee’s heart.
STAGE 3 – DEVELOPING A VISION AND STRATEGY FOR INNOVATION
One of core characteristics of a great leader is the ability to create a vision that followers buy into and
pursue to realization. Vision is a portrait of the future if innovation is deployed. Executives must create
a vision highlighting reasons for and the activities required to deploy innovation. The vision must be
logically compelling and experientially appealing. A vision must be convincing for its value
proposition, exciting to talk about, and providing direction and promise for the future. A successful
vision must be realizable and contingent on the most likely available resources of all kinds, and also
logically achievable.
For a corporation to create a vision it must think like a new business all over again. It is wise to
adjust one’s vision given the current market conditions and evolving community needs. Creating an
exciting vision requires creative leadership. Leadership must review its current strategy and business
model including the product/service mix, business processes, internal competencies and resources. The
review inspires a vision of what can be accomplished in the future (5 – 15 years) in its field, adjacent
fields, or in a totally different field. To create a successful vision requires learning of trends in society
and of various technologies, use of those technologies and growing consumer or customer demands.
For businesses, the fundamental strategy needs to be sustained, profitable growth. The first element
is growth; second, profitably and the third is to sustain it over time, i.e., theoretically perpetuate
success. This may require a combination of acquisitions and innovation, and innovation can be open or
organic. Once that is understood leadership must ensure that growth is accomplished profitably through

utilizing best resources, methods and execution. The effort to sustain requires creating a portfolio that
will include short-term and long-term innovations. In other words, there must be some innovations to
achieve profitable growth in near term, others, in the longer term. We use the terms variation,
derivative, platform and fundamental to describe innovations ranging from real time mechanical
innovations to conceptual innovations that may take years to develop. Such a portfolio allows a
corporation to allocate intellectual and financial resources for innovation accordingly.
We must also understand that innovation can be deployed internally for improving existing
processes and products quickly. Therefore, the vision must include a focused-future and wide-present
application of innovation skills and a related commitment of resources. Commitment to innovation is
a commitment to growth and opportunities rather than purely profit and consolidation. Thus leadership
must create a futuristic vision and a portfolio of innovations prior to launching the innovation initiative
and investing in developing innovation competency internally.
STAGE 4 – COMMUNICATING THE CHANGE VISION FOR INNOVATION
A clearly communicated vision can lead to great successes. President Kennedy’s vision to take the man
to moon in 1960’s, even though perceived to be impossible at that time, became a reality and led to
many subsequent discoveries and innovations. In a corporate environment, clear and frequently
communicated vision is a necessity to in order to become believable to be acted upon. Employees
eventually align to a believable and understood vision. For example, when a small company president
clearly communicated to his employees a commitment to excellence and financial objectives with
shared benefits, profits multiplied in first year. Prior to that the company was happy to meet its
numerical goals, and barely made a profit. In another company, a division of a large corporation, the
president hesitated to communicate with employees, even after hearing from employees that they
wanted to hear the company vision directly from him. Nothing positive happened until the president
resigned.
There are many ways to communicate a vision; story boards, pocket cards, bulletin boards, emails,
posters, signs or town hall meetings. Helping employees see the vision and its benefits inspires and
engages employees. If benefits to customers, employees, humanity, society, or community are strong,
employees will align with the vision. For example, development of the cell phone in 80’s at Motorola
with trend-setting objectives, industry building vision, led to the flip phone and launched the cell phone
industry. Bill Gates’ vision for making information available to everyone led to great successes at
Microsoft.
Any vision for innovation at a corporation must be straightforward without any motherhood and
apple pie jargons; vivid and beneficial for all stakeholders, and without any inconsistencies. Leadership
by example is best way to communicate a vision that must be realized. Fortunately, with innovation
possibilities for a compelling and appealing vision are infinite. That is not the case with cost-reduction
or profit oriented initiatives. The vision must be such that it genuinely challenges the employee
intelligence and requires collaboration from defining the target to commercializing the innovation.
One of the most evident commitments to vision is allocation of resources. Innovation does require
financial as well as intellectual resources while exploring various possibilities. It requires faster
decision-making by leadership and support for taking risks, and acceptance for experimental failures.
The innovation vision and associated communication must clearly allay any employee doubts and give
confidence for employees to align with the vision, and act boldly.
STAGE 5 – EMPOWERING EMPLOYEES FOR BROAD-BASE INNOVATION
When employees hear the word ‘empowerment’ it causes an adverse reaction, it sounds a cliché of
the past that has never meant what it should have. Empowerment is not a buzz word to indicate a caring
for people and empowering in ways to bring out their best. Empowering employees implies listening
to them, investing in them through education, and making them responsible for major
accomplishments. They need the authority to make decisions to accomplish what is expected. In order
for employees to be intellectually engaged they must be enlisted and empowered.
To deploy innovation in a predictable, pervasive and profitable way there must be incentives
throughout the organization for people to innovate. Incentives include absence of bureaucratic policies
and procedures, open communication, and open or common spaces for information interaction.
Incentives also include playful activities to engage thinking minds, and places free of distractions for
reflective thinking. Encouraging and allowing time for play and reflective thinking is critical to an
Praveen Gupta 145

innovation environment. Most corporations hire highly educated and trained people but do not give
them time to think openly to take advantage of their intellectual assets.
In addition to removing barriers, a roadmap is equally important to clarify steps for leadership and
employees to institutionalize innovation in an organization. For example, the Center for Innovation
Science and Applications has developed the Business Innovation Maturity Model (BIMM) that consists
of five stages:
• Sporadic, representing the existing state of innovation,
• Ideas, for engaging employees,
• Managed, for developing new innovative solutions,
• Nurtured, for institutionalizing innovation, and
• Sustained for results, of innovations that progressively advance or mature culture of innovation.
In this model, employees know that leadership expects to use innovation to offer new products or
services to customers for profitable growth. Empowering and engaging employees require achieving
excellence in managing employee ideas, i.e., Idea innovations.
Everyone happens to be creative or innovative one time or another, and has been called genius at
one point by friends, family members or even co-workers. However when corporations desire
innovation on demand, they must invest in training employees in how to innovate. For example, a CEO
mentioned that as a student when someone asked him to think of some creative ideas, he had no clue
how to think creatively. Similarly, most employees today don’t know how to think creatively. Yet,
continual competition in all aspects of business from around the world requires innovation on demand
to be part of the business model. We must train employees in creativity and innovation concepts,
techniques, tools and methodologies. We must train employees in the corporate process of developing
innovative solutions and launching innovative products or services from concepts to deployment, (i.e.
commercialization). Corporations must develop in-house innovation competency, setting up an
innovation room or laboratory, and establish checks to ensure innovative practices become routine.
It has been common that new programs launched by corporate leadership get stuck in middle
management. It is critical that middle managers and supervisors buy into the innovation strategy before
expecting employees to be innovative. I have worked in organizations where employees are told more
about what not to do than of what they could do. Instead of supporting their ideas by saying, “Why
not?” employees are told to bring justification for their innovation. Employees are shown limits and
boundaries instead of stretching beyond the status quo. Empowering employees must also include
supervisors supportive of their innovative practices.
STAGE 6 – GENERATING SHORT-TERM WINS TO INNOVATION
I remember when the Six Sigma program was being developed at Motorola I was asked to manage
Small Wins to Six Sigma, a group of four projects utilizing the Six Sigma methodology. While working
on the small wins we had to develop answers to many questions not thought before, and refining the
methodology for broader deployment. Questions were about using the methodology, measuring
success, and recognizing and celebrating successes. Most importantly, small wins fuel the spirit of
change. Successful initial deployment allays doubts in employee minds, removes hesitation to try, and
builds confidence and support systems in case they need help.
Similarly, deploying innovation through Sporadic, Idea, Managed, Nurtured and Sustained stages
still requires short-term and small wins gained from adapting new methods and tools. Short-term and
small wins also result from embracing new culture, launching innovative products or services, and
ensuring traceable financial impact. Innovation will occur at idea, process, product or service, business
model, or strategy levels. An organization must have a process and system in place to deal with
expected and the surprise elements of innovation. Innovation requires some degree of chaos, and
business requires a great degree of reproducibility and organization. An innovative organization must
change from having a rigid structure, offering standard products or services with a known lead time to
a flexible structure offering customized and innovative solutions on demand to customers.
Short-term wins or proof of the concept solutions allow the organization to address details in order
to make innovations pervasive, predictable and profitable. Short-term wins could be a portfolio of
innovations including two process innovations, three product innovations, a business model innovation,
and dozens of idea innovations. Short-term wins are like holding hands to learn to walk before we start

walking or running on our own routinely. Having a portfolio of innovations such that some contribute
to profit and others to revenue growth will provide broad experience to accelerate deployment of
innovation.
While working on short-term wins for innovation it is quite possible that some of them may not
really become very successful. Initial failures can be equally important to experience as they provide
valuable lessons of what to avoid, prevent future failures, and enable a stronger platform for frequent
innovative solutions. Short-term wins provide visible evidence that the innovation is worth it, and
justifies desired changes in the system. Rewarding successes builds morale and momentum for more
innovations, and discourages skepticism. Short-term wins also gain buy-in from management at all
levels including those in the finance departments. Successes persuade neutrals (those waiting on the
sidelines for the innovation initiative to die) also to join the innovation campaign.
Experience from short-term and small wins regarding innovations strengthen the management
message, teaches us what to do, and what not to do to drive innovative practices throughout the
organization. Well-informed and enthusiastic executives can offer more charismatic and transforming
leadership in pursuit of innovation.
STAGE 7 – CONSOLIDATING GAINS AND PRODUCING MORE INNOVATIONS
Generating short-term wins from innovation creates a great launching pad. Initial successes must
become the foundation for expanded, greater innovation successes. Lessons learned and innovation
methods adapted to an organization’s environment must be extended and expanded to institutionalize
innovation across the organization. People innovate best when they are cared for and their intellect is
nurtured. One must look at the initial wins as seeds that must be watered and nurtured to become trees
of innovations. The organization must foster innovation where every employee is engaged across all
departments.
Publicizing successes will strengthen enthusiasts and soften employee resistance by providing
incentives to understand and join the innovation bandwagon. The success should be used to inspire
employees through the innovation vision, enlist more employees for their ideas, create incentives for
innovation, investment in innovation education, and regular communication of innovation outcomes,
even incremental ones.
One of the challenges during the initial or selective deployment of innovation projects is that
collaboration across departments is required. Priority is not understood equally across all departments.
As a result innovation projects can get stuck in the organizational mud. This will waste resources, dull
the innovation front and finally stall the innovation drive. Instead the leadership must accelerate the
innovation drive after the initial wins, demanding teamwork, accountability and innovative solutions.
Recognizing and celebrating successes is a great way to reinforce leadership commitment and
communicate innovation expectations routinely and repetitively.
To ensure that a newly developed innovation system is sustained over years, the corporate culture
must be redefined accordingly. Corporate vision, policies and procedures, informal rules or behaviors,
code of ethics, work environment, and organization structure must be amended to perpetuate innovation
in everything. Innovative thinking must become a competitive advantage in the near term before
becoming a mandate to survive in a global economy. Leadership roles must be defined and appointed
to ensure innovation deployment and its effectiveness, innovation champions and innovation
professionals to lead the deployment, and every employee must be required to practice innovation.
Innovation training and certification must be used to acquire innovation expertise in order to develop
in-house competency cost effectively. Measures of innovation, periodic review of innovation processes
and products, and actions to nurture innovation in every department must be developed and deployed.
This is the stage when innovation has become a standardized process throughout the organization.
STAGE 8 – ANCHORING NEW APPROACHES IN THE CULTURE
So many times we see corporations developing new initiatives for improvement or innovation only to
be perceived as fads; expected to fade away. In case of innovation, it is a necessity in the knowledge
age for individuals, and critical for corporations to globally compete profitably. Changing demands and
technology are creating customer expectations for a dynamically enjoyable experience. Product life
cycle is becoming like the life of a fruit. Therefore, people must learn to innovate routinely and
corporations must plan a portfolio of innovations for short as well as long-term benefit.
Anchoring innovation is a must to perpetuate a culture of innovation. Anchoring is like hard-wiring
Praveen Gupta 147

one’s brain for innovation. Similarly, the challenge is how to hard-wire a “corporate brain” for
innovation. For example, 3M has had innovation in its vision for decades, the company perpetuates its
culture of innovation through a policy of allocating unaccountable time for freedom to think or do
anything for the company. Similarly, corporations must reinforce innovation in everything through
expectation, environment, measures, activities, and decisions. Leadership walking the talk and talking
the walk are essential to maintain consistency of purpose. If corporations establish a fundamental
strategy of sustaining a certain percentage of profitable growth through innovation the internal need for
innovation will be sustained, and infrastructure will grow and nurture the innovation culture constantly.
Employees will understand the need for innovation to support corporate objectives. From new
employee orientation to exit interviews of departing employees, all must emphasize innovation in order
to maintain an awareness of innovation inside and outside the company. Stakeholders and society then
expects innovation from the company, setting the expectation for leadership to deliver. Without
anchoring innovation in the culture that would be impossible to deliver.
Once a company is branded as an innovative company there is an expectation of innovative products
or services from the company. Expectations of the leader are changed accordingly. When bringing in a
new CEO, it is imperative that he or she must drive growth through innovation, not be a taskmaster to
cut cost for short-term profit only. As new employees join the company they are oriented toward
innovation because of the corporate policies, procedures and job expectations. In a way the corporation
is perceived to be a learning and smart organization. Once as the “corporate brain” is activated for
innovation it does not easily stop; very similar to the human brain.
CONCLUSION
Consulting firms have observed through surveys that CEOs are still not sure how to pursue innovation.
Reasons for being innovation averse include lack of confidence in innovation processes, measures, long
product development times, late to market and a lack of accountability for innovation. As a result
companies offer limited incentives, have no plans for dealing with failures, and question the investment
in innovation [9]. McKinsey [9]
The author recognizes the need for addressing leadership’s inability to manage the change to
innovation culture, engaging employees across the board, turning out faster innovations, and sustaining
profitable growth instead of managing for profits alone.
Leading innovation change provides a proven framework to executives in launching their innovation
initiatives successfully.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author appreciates reviews by Jim Correll, a Master Business Innovator and mentor with the
Innovative Business Resource Center in Independence, KS. The author also would like to express his
gratitude to Prof. Robert C. Carlson, Dean of IIT School of Applied Technology, and his colleagues
Arvind Srivastava and John Forsberg for their inputs.
PRAVEEN GUPTA
Praveen Gupta, a faculty for teaching innovation classes at University of
Illinois, and Illinois Institute of Technology, both in Chicago. Praveen has
focused on developing science of innovation in order to make
innovations more predictable and profitable, and build leadership
confidence in innovation for higher return on investment through
profitable growth. He is a Director of Center for Innovation Science and
Appliactions at IIT School of Applied Technology.
Praveen was the founding editor-in-chief of International Journal of
Innovation Science, and author of the Business Innovation in the 21st
Century book. Prior to starting his pursuits in innovation in 2003,
Praveen had been a thought leader in Six Sigma.
Besides teaching, Praveen is president of Accelper Consulting, where he helps organizations in
deploying innovation. He has developed a Certified Business Innovation program that is offered in
collaboration with Illinois Institute of Technology. Praveen’s innovation curriculum is taught in
multiple universities internationally.
Praveen received his MS degree from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, and BS from Indian

Institute of Technology, Roorkee.
REFERENCES
[1] Kotter, John P., Leading Change, Harvard Business Press, 1996
[2] Christensen, Clayton M., The Innovator’s Dilemma, Harvard Business Press, 1997
[3] Ekling, Peter, Reingold, Jennifer and Burke, Doris, “Inside Pfizer’s Palace Coup,” pg 85, Fortune,
August 15, 2011
[4] Gupta, Praveen, Business Innovation in the 21st Century, BookSurge Publishing, 2007
[5] Keathley, Jane, Owens, Tracy, Fabritius, Willibert, Posey, Kevin and Merrill, Peter, “Innovations
Driven Organizations: What, Why and How, The Quality Management Forum, pg , Volume 36,
Number 1, Spring 2010
[6] Capitalizing on Complexity, Insights from the IBM Global Chief Executive Officer Study, 2010
[7] Kouses, James M. and Posner, Barry Z., The Leadership Challenge, The Jossey-Bass
Management Series, 1987
[8] Galvin, Chris, A CEO’s Perspective – Making Innovation Work, International Journal of
Innovation Science, Volume 2, Issue 1, 2010
[9] Innovation and Commercialization, McKinsey Global Survey Results, 2010
Praveen Gupta 149

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