Attendees at the September Inc. CEO Forum responded to the new Survey of People-Practices in Innovation as part of a workshop presented by Ruth Ann Hattori and Joyce Wycoff. We thought you might be interested in the perceptions of these emerging company leaders.

Innovation Gap

The session opened by asking these company leaders to quantify on a scale of 1-10 the degree of innovation necessary to insure a successful future for their companies. Then they were asked to rate their current innovation capability on the same scale of 1-10. The difference, designated the "Innovation Gap" ranged from 2 to 8 with an average of 5.3. In other words these CEOs perceived a significant short fall in their ability to be innovative. (Thanks to Robert Tucker for suggesting this powerful pair of questions.)

The Survey of People-Practices in Innovation is aligned with the dimensions of the Innovation DNA and each question is rated from 1 (never true) to 5 (always true) as to "recent experience" and "perceived importance" in order to provide a sense of the gap for each question and the total gap for each DNA dimension. Here's a summary of the results in case you'd like to think about how your organization might compare. Some of the responses reflect the unique perspective of small, emerging companies.

(Experience)--(Importance)


• Challenge (3.5)--(4.4)
  
  

• Customer Focus (3.7)--(4.5)
  
  

• Creativity (3.1)--(4.1)
  
  

• Communication (3.9)--(4.3)
  
  

• Collaboration (3.5)--(3.7)
  
  

• Completion (3.7)--(4.4)
  
  

• Contemplation (3.2)--(4.1)
  
  

• Culture (4.0)--(4.5)

For more info: Innovation DNA and explanation