By its very nature, innovation defies one definition or a single model. Successful innovators choose different paths based on their organization's particular genetic structure--what we call "innovation archetypes," a unique mix of cultural and operational traits. Understanding your company's traits and comparing the examples of one or more relevant archetypes helps set you on your own innovation path.
Innovation modules (or archetypes) are a unique mix of cultural and operational traits that represent how companies innovate.
The Marketplace of Ideas
These companies encourage individual employee contributions of idea creation and implementation.This invites some amount of chaos, which consequently keeps the pace and energy level high during rapid market and feasibility testing and rollout, but structure exists in the form of implementation mechanisms. Google, where the hiring process emphasizes creativity, energy and passion worth spending one workday a week on, exemplifies this archetype.
The Visionary Leader
Top-down innovation tends to come from a superstar leader who understands the market better than customers do and generates unexpected, even profound ideas that often focus on augmenting existing products and processes. Driven less by individual employee contributions, this archetype has less use for implementation mechanisms. As an example, three words: Steve Jobs, Apple.
Innovation Through Rigor
An involved leadership oversees the development of many products and services by problem-solving, cross-functional teams. who work systematically on internally generated ideas using formal vetting processes. Typical of large enterprises with diffuse product lines; often with a culture of "perpetual crisis." Samsung's large product catalog is overseen by senior executive prioritization and team processes that focus on the design aspect of innovation.
Innovation Through Collaboration
More than the other archetypes, this one works closely with partners and customers when generating new and untried ideas. Leadership sets the framework and oversees pilots and trials involving external collaborators. Locked into implementation mechanisms slightly less than the Marketplace of Ideas archetype, which increases the flexibility to adapt ideas if circumstances change. Vodaphone, which built its global brand on network equipment supplied by partners, typifies this archetype.
