Clay Christensen, Scott Anthony and Erik Roth in Seeing What’s Next outline how an organization’s Resources, Processes, and Values (RPV Framework) affect, if not determine, how an organization behaves in the marketplace and ultimately, what an organization can and cannot do. And, Judith Estrin in Closing the Innovation Gap states that “the implicit values of our organizations… can either reinforce or dilute the core values of innovation.”

Given that the goal of most organizations is profitable growth; and a widely accepted source of profitable growth is the ability to successfully bring new innovations (businesses, products or services) to the market, I felt it would be worth exploring the values most critical for success – especially now as many are in the midst of reinventing themselves as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

As I’ve contemplated the body of work surrounding the notion of profitable growth through innovation, it strikes me that the one common ingredient across successful and innovative organizations is the commitment to learning; alternatively, having a Learning Culture. But, what does it mean to have a Learning Culture?

A Learning Culture is not the same thing as learning; much in the same way that innovation is not the same thing as an idea. The commonly accepted goals of learning are: 

• Evaluation – The act of determining the significance, worth, or condition of something through careful appraisal and study
• Analysis – Detailed examination of anything complex in order to understand its nature, or to determine its essential features/components
• Synthesis – The combining of often diverse concepts into a coherent whole
• Comprehension – The ability to grasp concepts, or ideas with the intellect
• Application – The ability and act of putting something to use
• Knowledge – The fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association

And, an organization with an effective Learning Culture continually fosters, rewards, and leverages each of these. 

Similarly, an idea is simply that – an idea. Whereas innovation is the process of identifying new opportunities, coming up with and creating new innovative things (businesses, products, processes or services), and bringing these new innovations into the market in order to create new consumer and enterprise value. 

Over the years, I’ve found that many firms actually have a lot of great data; and often have a decent understanding about what their data are saying. But too often, many firms simply lack the mechanisms, processes, or the leeway to take the next step – which is application (from above). And in our current state of economic uncertainty, application (actually doing something) is critically needed in order for all of us to move forward.

Seth Godin in Kick The Box refers to this as Instigation Capital – “The desire [and competency] to move forward“, in a new or different way. In order to make a difference, you’ve got to actually do something with your smarts. If an organization doesn’t fully leverage what they’ve learned, they are wasting capital and impeding forward progress.

I often refer to this as asking, answering, and importantly acting on three questions. So What? Who Cares? What Difference Does It Make? Asking and answering these questions is useful; but intelligently acting on those insights is imperative for growth.

Thus, a Learning Culture is more than simply hiring and creating a smarter workforce. A Learning Culture is about obtaining, creating, refining, and applying the “smarts” that you’ve gained in such a way as to create defensible new consumer and shareholder value in the marketplace. I tend to believe that the most innovative organizations have created well-oiled Learning Cultures by continually developing and improving the three following innovation competencies:

1. Information – Continually seeking, obtaining and efficiently managing an array of input and feedback.
2. Interpretation – This boils down to continual analysis and synthesis of your information. That is, creating thorough and deep understanding about what your information does and does not mean; as well as vetting potential indicated actions.
3. Initiation – This is about actually “doing something” by employing your Information and Interpretation to develop and launch and/or refine new businesses, products and/or services.

Information

Innovative organizations with a Learning Culture have an insatiable appetite for the right types of information. This will commonly span:

• Macro consumer and economic trends
• Industry and competitive data
• Developments in related and/or adjacent industries
• Consumer, customer and employee feedback related to the relevance and effectiveness of the firm’s current activities, and
• Internal business performance and operational metrics

Interpretation

Innovative organizations with a Learning Culture have a never-ending list of questions; and often have sophisticated techniques for answering them. These questions commonly begin with:

• Why is…
• What about…
• What if…
• How might…
• How else…

And you can bet initial answers are always met with additional questions. 

These firms are seemingly driven to deeply understand what their information is telling them about their current state of operation, and also what opportunities might exist under different scenarios.

Relating back to the goals of learning; interpretation is about Evaluating, Analyzing, Synthesizing and thoroughly Comprehending the totality of an organization’s information. It is this iterative, and ever evolving collection of processes that leads to significant insights.

Innovative organizations with a Learning Culture also have an ongoing commitment to developing and enhancing the skills and tools required to elevate their ability to interpret their information.

Initiation

In my opinion, Initiation is the competency that distinguishes merely good organizations from truly great ones. And the reason more firms don’t excel at Initiation is that often the very Processes and Values they’ve adopted in order to scale and operate profitably, in fact end up being the things that inhibit new initiation and innovative growth.

Innovative organizations with Learning Cultures are always looking to start something new. They are not seeking new for newness’ sake; but rather, they are deliberate and purposeful with their attempts as they pursue uncontested and defensible profit sanctums.

Successful Initiation not only requires a commitment to the entire learning spectrum, but it also requires a process for systematically identifying, vetting, launching, and scaling new innovations (see image below). “Winging it” has seldom a recipe for success.

And the final distinguishing trait of successful Initiators is having a culture that is willing and open to being wrong – and they are experts at learning from their failures.

Some parting thoughts…

Right now, I know many organizations are in survival mode and are trying to figure out what their “next normal” might look like. Just know that times of uncertainty and crisis have always opened the doors for some of the greatest transformational innovations; and make no mistake about it, this is your organization’s game-changing opportunity.

If you are a leader, strengthen your organization’s Learning Culture.

Lean into your core competencies.

Stay close to your customers.

Listen to your employees.

And put forward your plan to become tomorrow’s next success story.