Setting the Leadership Tone

A culture of innovation sometimes means cutting through the bureaucracy of the organization to encourage creativity and curiosity. A culture of experimentation and risk taking is also important, as is promoting a growth mindset and culture among the team. It also means overcoming the barriers to innovation, such as resistance to change, fear of failure, siloed thinking or a lack of resources.

According to BCG’s “An Innovation Culture That Gets Results,” the culture of an organization can be hard to pin down. Nevertheless, it defines that culture as “the collective behavior that shapes how new products and services get built and marketed to customers. To use an analogy, innovation culture is like software that runs on the “hardware” we generally associate with innovation: the strategies, governance, processes, organizational structures, metrics, and other aspects of the operating model.”

So how as a leader do you ramp up your innovative culture? BCG points to several specific tactics:

• Clearly articulate the specific behaviors that are most critical to innovation success. Among them: striking a balance between freedom and accountability; encouraging risk taking; and fostering playfulness while adhering to company standards. Companies that take their innovation culture seriously are crystal-clear about how these behaviors are defined: “freedom,” for example, means seeking input, not consensus, while empowering decision making; “encouraging risk taking” means telling teams to dream big, learn from failure, and improve continuously. Companies that lead in innovation culture make sure to cultivate and reward those behaviors.
• Activate these behaviors through the actions of leaders. An innovation culture is shaped from the top. Leaders articulate an innovation vision for their company and personally engage in key ecosystem outreach activities. They inspire innovation by providing the needed hardware to support the software: the incentives, platforms, and mechanisms for celebrating, cultivating, and rewarding new ideas; the accountability and ownership that teams need to operate unencumbered; and the freedom to collaborate with external partners.
• Most importantly, embed the core behaviors into the operating model. Innovation culture leaders know it takes more than setting up creative spaces with ping pong tables and espresso machines or laboratories segregated from the rest of the workforce and the company’s day-to-day currents. Culture runs deep: it’s embedded in a company’s incentive systems, policies, processes, and practices. These companies also foster a strong innovation culture in their very hiring practices, seeking new employees that have an innovation mindset as well as those with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and ways of thinking.

Creating an Environment Where Innovation Thrives

During FEI25, Ophelia Chiu, Vice President, Strategic Innovation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, held the session, “Establishing an Innovation Culture Roadmap,” providing a practical framework for cultivating an environment where innovation thrives.

Chiu discussed the establishment of an innovation culture road map. She emphasized the importance of shared experiences and community among innovators. Their strategic innovation team defined three core principles—community, entrepreneurial thinking, and belief in everyone as an innovator—to guide their efforts. They developed the KITE framework to support learning and engagement, while also recognizing the need for tailored approaches based on diverse staff personas. The presentation highlighted the challenges of implementing innovation programs and the importance of fostering an environment conducive to creativity and collaboration.

Watch the above video or see the full analysis of the session in All Things Innovation’s Discussions section.

The KITE Framework

Chiu also shared a practical framework called “KITE” for cultivating innovation culture programs based on her team’s experiences. The framework consists of four pillars: Knowledge, Inspiration, Translation, and Engagement, designed to meet people where they are in terms of content, format, and tone.

1. Knowledge: Providing learning opportunities at all levels with a mix of formats to create accessible entry points and mechanisms for skill-building.
2. Inspiration: Sparking imagination and curiosity through experiences that offer excitement and respite from daily routines, such as immersive workshops, TED Talks, innovation days, or hackathons.
3. Translation: Supporting real-world application of innovation skills by providing consultative guidance to teams doing innovation project work and enabling learning through doing.
4. Engagement: Sustaining innovation culture by building a community of innovators, fostering belonging and competency, increasing transparency about innovation activities across the organization, reducing silos, celebrating innovation projects, and creating peer support and mentorship.

Winning with Innovation Culture

Every corporate culture operates a little bit differently and may face different sets of challenges and innovation barriers. But as BCG outlines in its study, companies that lead focus on four aspects of their culture to win on innovation: how they create, how they team, how they lead, and which successes they celebrate.

As BCG observes, “Culture leaders clearly articulate the specific behaviors that are most critical to their innovation success, activate these behaviors through the actions of leaders, and embed the core behaviors into their operating model.” Ultimately, through the balance of both the hardware and software of the innovation culture, the team can not only survive but thrive.

Video: “Establishing an Innovation Culture Roadmap,” featuring Ophelia Chiu, Vice President, Strategic Innovation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, courtesy of FEI25.