So, you think your company is innovative?

Maybe you’ve held a board meeting about the importance of innovation, appointed a Chief Innovation Officer, or even allocated an innovation budget, and invited your employees to brainstorm innovative initiatives.

And that’s that, now you’re an innovation-led organization, right?

Wrong.

Does your Chief Innovation Officer have an actual budget that’s just theirs and isn’t competing with other “safe” or Bread & Butter projects? Do they have a line of authority? Are your innovation initiatives aligned or embedded within your company’s broader vision and goals? Are your employees incentivized to promote innovation?

Because without an accurate and applicable innovation strategy, you’re just a square watermelon.

Let us explain.

Commonly sold in Japan, square watermelons, were first designed for practicality purposes. They are easier to transfer as they can be stacked, easier to cut as they don’t roll, and fit more compactly in Japanese refrigerators, which tend to be on the smaller side.

Innovative right?

Not exactly. 

Costing upwards of $200, they can only be produced at the expense of their contents, as they must be picked before they are fully mature to maintain their shape, which makes them inedible and essentially ornamental. They JUST missed the point, leaving their main purpose of being consumed behind, they are instead just fancy and expensive gifts that leave their recipients hungry.

Just like the square watermelon, you may be executing ‘innovation-like’ behaviors, that while well intentioned, miss the main goal and just sound good instead of cultivating an enterprise-wide innovation culture.

Innovation isn’t merely a supplement to a current culture, a marketing ploy, nor is it a checkbox, or a budgeting exercise.

So, what is the right way to avoid square watermelon syndrome?

This is where our Innovation Audit comes into the picture…

When explaining to our clients the benefits of an innovation audit, we usually start with what other audits might overlook.

We believe that a successful Innovation Audit is based on facts, performed by an independent entity, while using “out of the box” standards that align with our client’s holistic innovative posture. We go the extra mile with our clients to define their desired areas for inspection and to determine the relevant comparable measures to insure maximum benefit from the audit to our clients.

As we see it, if one of those crucial ingredients is missing the entire outcome is different. For example, when omitting “out of the box” standards to instead stick to well-known standards (like ISO or local laws and regulations), you might end up with a standard audit that overlooks the unique characteristics of your organization, resulting in frustration.

Additionally, if the audit is conducted by an internal party without maintaining independence, the outcome instead becomes a self-examination, which is definitely helpful, but not as helpful as being examined by a fresh pair of eyes, that can compare you to the standards of the entire market.

Lastly, if facts are omitted when conducting the audit… you probably already know that the audit cannot be trusted.