Success Factors to create a Culture for Innovation

This blog series explores the 13 Critical Success Factors (CSFs) essential to driving innovation in your organization. Developed over 25 years of experience with business innovation leaders, this guide is designed to help you assess, improve, and sustain innovation across all levels of your enterprise.Each blog post focuses on a unique set of success factors, helping you build the foundation, leadership, process, and mindset necessary for future-proofing your business and creating a culture for innovation.

Innovation Isn’t Optional Anymore—It’s a Business Imperative

But here’s the big question:

Is your organization truly ready for innovation—or just talking about it?

To find out, we’re inviting you to rate your business on a simple 5-point scale for each of the 13 CSFs:

• 5 = Outstanding

• 1 = Needs Serious Work

1/6: Is Your Business Really Ready for Innovation?

Set the foundation for innovation by addressing the why, where, and how.

In this first post, we’ll explore the foundational factors—the ones that make or break innovation before it even begins.

1. A Compelling Case for Innovation

Innovation must be rooted in a compelling story—one that creates urgency and personal relevance for change.

2. An Inspiring, Shared Vision of the Future

Innovation needs 'Future Pull'—a shared, motivating vision of where the company must go.

3. A Fully Aligned Strategic Innovation Agenda

Set a strategic agenda to align innovation investments with your business goals and risk tolerance.

1. A Compelling Case for Innovation

Before any breakthrough or big idea, there must be urgency.

Unless people inside the organization understand why innovation matters—and what’s in it for them—innovation will always lose out to the priorities of the existing business.

More than 500 years ago, Machiavelli nailed it:

“There is nothing more difficult to carry out… than to initiate a new order of things... For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order..."”

People protect the status quo. That’s why innovation must be anchored in a compelling story of why change is imperative. It must feel urgent at the organizational level—and personal at the individual level.

📌 Ask Yourself:

Does everyone in your organization understand and support your reason for innovating? Can they articulate what’s at stake if you don’t?

2. An Inspiring, Shared Vision of the Future

Without a compelling vision of the future, decisions default to the past.

Most organizations take an inductive view: looking at yesterday’s results and extrapolating forward. That always makes the business look relevant. But true innovation requires a deductive vision—a leap into the unknown that dares to ask: What will our future demand of us?

We call this “Future Pull”—a motivating, shared image of where you’re going and why. Without it, every decision is up for debate. With it, your teams can align, act, and invest with clarity.

📌 Ask Yourself:

Do you have a clearly articulated vision of the future? Does it inspire your teams to move forward with intent?

3. A Fully Aligned Strategic Innovation Agenda

Innovation is a journey into unfamiliar territory. Without a map—or at least a compass—it’s easy to get lost.

That’s why the third foundational factor is having a Strategic Innovation Agenda—a roadmap that answers:

• What business are we really in (now and going forward)?

Unless everyone understands this “Chasing shiny objects” that don’t fit your business strategy can lead you astray and waste valuable resources. Clearly understanding what business you are really in helps you focus and prioritize.

• What level of risk are we willing to accept?

• How will we balance incremental vs. breakthrough innovation?

Most companies should spend 70–80% of their innovation resources on sustaining today’s business. But without a portfolio approach, every idea competes with every other idea, and breakthrough thinking gets starved of time and attention.

📌 Ask Yourself:

Is your innovation effort aligned with your business goals, your risk appetite, and your resource capacity?

How Did You Score?

Let’s tally up your self-assessment so far:

✅ Download the Innovation Scorecard

Use it to track your Innovation Culture Assessment as you journey through all six of our blogs covering Innovation's 13 Critical Success Factors

Reach out

If you’d like help assessing, designing, or implementing an innovation strategy—we’re here to collaborate.