The mindset for Open Innovation – at “Open Innovation in Action” SBC OI summit

By Elisabeth Goodman and Lucy Loh

We had the opportunity to lead a break-out session at the recent Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst (SBC) Open Innovation summit.  It was a day filled with interesting presentations, panel discussions, networking and break-out sessions.

Open Innovation is all about people

Our session was one of the last in the day, so that delegates had had several opportunities to hear and reflect about the question of mindsets and the importance of soft people skills by the time they came to our break-out.

Stefan Lindegaard (@lindegaard) drew our attention to this in a big way in his presentation, when he stressed some of the key characteristics for success as being a networker, communicator, intrapreneur, and an influencer.  Also on his list was the ability to adapt, to tolerate uncertainty and to be an optimist.

The intrapreneur was particularly important in making things happen within the company by paying attention to people and creating the right conditions for innovation.

The pre-lunch panel session exploring the highs and lows of Open Innovation also homed in on the key characteristics for OI.

(By the way, some of the words have lost their associations in the word cloud – such as ‘not control freaks’ and being willing to ask difficult questions’ and ‘admit ignorance, whilst the reference to the bar – is about the place for carrying out negotiations!)

The mindset for open innovation is also about personality types

One of the participants in our break-out pointed out that it was also a question of people’s character when we asked them what the right mindset might be.  That was a great segway for our presentation, which explored two models.

In our first model Elisabeth reflected on how some of the personality type preferences described in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator are particularly relevant to different stages of (Open) Innovation, but that an organisation needed a blend of all personality types to be successful.

We need to find some unique individuals for successful Open Innovation

In our second model Lucy shared the results of her research into mindsets for innovation, and concluded that to be successful, organisations needed to seek out some unique characteristics.

The break-out closed with some final thoughts from the participants, who thought passion to keep going through the ups and downs, and the ability to listen to and understand others’ language and frames of reference were key to successful collaboration in Open Innovation.

Our full presentation is available on Open Innovation in Action – SBC OI summit website.

Notes

Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting (http://www.riverrhee.com), a consultancy that helps business teams to enhance their effectiveness for greater productivity and improved team morale. Elisabeth has 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry where she has held line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and in Lean Sigma and is a member of CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals), and APM (Association for Project Management).

Lucy Loh is the Owner and Principal Consultant at Lucy Loh Consulting (http://uk.linkedin.com/in/lucyloh), a consultancy that helps businesses and organisations develop their business plans, and manage change in their organisations and teams to be able to deliver those plans.  She is also a RiverRhee Consulting Associate.  Lucy has 25 years’ experience in BioPharma, where she has held management roles in strategy development and all aspects of performance management, as well as extensive internal consulting.  Lucy has expertise and experience in organisation development, benefits management and in designing and leading business change. She is a certified Master Practitioner of NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP), which enhances her work in change management and individual coaching.  She is also an accredited trainer with the Institute of Leadership and Management for Strategic Leadership.