Opportunity

The Innovative Manufacturing CRC’s vision was to create a thriving, relevant, and globally integrated  Australian manufacturing sector. As a not-for-profit, independent cooperative research centre, it helped Australian companies increase their relevance through catalyzing collaborative, market-driven innovation in manufacturing business models, products, processes, and services.

Located in Melbourne, with a small, specialised and highly qualified, and skilled consulting team, they realised that they can best support their partner’s overall success by leading them to adopt a more aligned strategic, systemic, cultural, and human-centred approach toward manufacturing innovation by completing a bespoke innovation leadership development program

They sought assistance from ImagineNation™ to further develop their own internal innovation leadership capacity, capability and confidence.

The aim was to know how to embody, enact, and role model to partners what a successful innovation culture exemplifies, as well as know-how to effectively influence people and lead innovation by being effective, resilient, and relevant themselves.

What we did

Designed a bespoke innovation leadership development program that developed a common understanding, language, and application of innovation, an innovation culture, and innovation leadership within their unique context.

This enabled them to effectively influence people and lead innovation by being adaptive, effective, resilient, and relevant themselves.

The innovation leadership development program was designed to include 3 phases and was delivered over 6 months and involved the following key elements:

• Adapting the program content from the proven globally recognized, ICF CCE accredited Coach for Innovators Certified Program.
• Face-to-face team kick-off diagnostic and wrap-up onsite half-day workshops.
• Series of 9 live 60-minute fortnightly webinars, supported by facilitated group discussions.
• Series of team skills practice sessions with structured debrief discussions.
• Series of fortnightly recreation activities between webinars that included reading articles, u-tubes, and on-the-job activities
• A team action learning assignment that resulted in a sales pitch presentation that was signed off and budgeted as an ongoing strategic project.
• A series of short fortnightly videos, host webinars, that could be watched individually, in their own time, to reinforce the key learning concepts and principles.
• Monitoring, iterating and reviewing the team’s progress in completing the action learning assignment via 4 online 45-minute team coaching sessions.
• 2 individual one-on-one online coaching sessions to support team members’ strengths and reduce their personal barriers to innovation-led change.
• A structured feedback and evaluation process.

What we achieved 

The innovation leadership development program was an integrated learning journey enabling team leaders to become trusted advisors.  By including an “on the job” learning approach and methodology, a whole-person focus, at the front end of innovation that:

• Developed a common understanding and language for innovation in their own, and in their customer’s context.
• Further formed and normed the well-being and effectiveness of the consulting team and improved their ability to operate cohesively and collaboratively.
• Enabled the team to look outward and systemically, to role model, interface with partners and interact with clients, at any time, in any environment, empathically and collaboratively.
• Co-created the freedom, trust, and permission to question, challenge the status quo and experiment with new ideas, fail without punishment, and learn from mistakes.
• Improved each team member’s communication, consulting, and teaming skills to lead, influence, and “pull” clients towards adopting innovation as a strategic and long-term leadership lever for increasing productivity and competitiveness.
• Enabled the team to understand, deal and work with the barriers, and people’s resistance factors, to innovation-led change.
• Adopted retreat, reflection and review practices, and generative discovery skillsets to emerge new ways of being, thinking, and doing in real life.