"Guessing what the pitcher is going to throw is eighty percent of being a successful hitter.  The other twenty percent is just execution." - Hank Aaron

A lot of organizations "intend" to innovate.  They have innovation as part of their "strategic roadmap."  Innovation is their "key to growth."  Some even go so far as to "pursue" innovation best practices.  Lots and lots of organizations "have it in mind" to innovate.  PR and marketing firms are giddy over the amount spent on their services by organizations doing nothing but touting their plans for innovation.  But where the rubber meets the road, how much actual innovation do you see from these companies? 

Innovation is about execution...and organizations that fail at execution, fail at innovation.  Doesn't get much simpler than that.  But it is a simple truth.

Leaders who spend their day doing a lot of talking, but very little executing, find themselves fighting fires, reacting to problems and focusing singularly on the short-term.  Leaders who spend their day executing, instead of talking, have time to focus on the future and anticipate problems/opportunities. 

Last time, we talked about how project management integrates so tightly with innovation management.  That's because project management focuses on execution.  If you are good at project management, you are good at execution.  If you are good at execution, you are good at moving ideas from concept to reality...or innovation. 

Project management is only one of many structured approaches to well-managed execution.  The Stage-Gate concept is another.  Lean Manufacturing/SixSigma models are yet another.  You can even get as simple as the checklist concept, given renewed attention in the Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande.

Here at Think For A Change, we use a unique combination of innovation management concepts to focus on execution that include culture/climate, idea management, processes/tools/techniques, strategy and measurement/metric systems.  A measurement of your organization's ability to execute across these concepts combine to form an innovation maturity score using our trademarked Innovation Management Maturity Model.  Once you understand where you stand, where your areas of opportunity reside and where you want to take your organization in developing a mature innovation management practice, you can begin to develop an execution plan around innovation.

Few organizations suffer from a lack of ideas.  Instead, they suffer from a lack of ability to execute upon their best ideas.

Imagine "executing" a plan for innovation...instead of just "intending" to innovate.  What would happen to your profit if you "executed" upon your strategic product roadmap...instead of "pursuing" the best practices of your competitors? 

Leaders lead.  Leaders plan.  Leaders execute.  Leaders innovate.

Be a leader!  Execute!  Innovate!