Leading for Sustainable Innovation: Building a Culture of Collaboration and Effective Innovation

The heart of innovation is the combination of two ideas that have never before combined. Thus, the notion of connecting diverse perspectives is essential. But how can leaders build a culture that encourages bringing ideas together? Building on extensive research and decades of experience, Professor Erickson will help you identify specific approaches with the greatest potential for improving collaboration within your organisation.

• Use a seven-part assessment to evaluate your organisation’s “Collaborative Capacity”
  
• Identify the greatest opportunities for improvement
  
• Gain specific suggestions for action
  

Experience Design – Creating End-to-End Customer Experience

Nina Warburton will lead a lab on leveraging experience design for an end-to-end customer experience. She will briefly introduce the approach and explain how it allows the organization to identify and address issues in customer experience. This will be followed by a group workshop.
The lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand the benefits of experience design and learn how to leverage the ’living wall’ to identify issues in customer experience
  
• Work in groups on leveraging experience design
  
• Harvest the workshop’s results
  

Leveraging Innovation for Circular Economy at Scale – and Overcoming Linear Lock-Ins

Markus Zils will lead a lab on circular economy. He will provide a quick introduction to the core principles and building blocks of a circular economy. Markus will explain how innovation can be a pivotal driver for circularity within organizations and value chains. This will be followed by a group discussion.
Lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand the building blocks of capturing value and scaling circular economy innovation
• Work together on a discussion starter case for exploring value creation opportunities through systems-wide innovations
• Discuss how to address the design and innovation challenges in the accelerated transition towards a circular economy at scale
• Harvest the workshop’s results

Creating Safe Spaces and Fostering Brave, Focused, and Curious Behaviors

Maeve O’Sullivan will moderate a group discussion on how to leverage Campfires to create safe spaces and foster brave, focused, and curious behaviors to drive an innovation culture. She will introduce the tools for the subsequent group discussion session. The lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Explore how to translate the Leadership Playground principles within own contexts
• Understand how to create safe spaces and involve people in safe conversations to drive a culture of innovation
• Learn and apply the tools to engage people in safe conversations and brave, curious, and focused behaviors
• Harvest the discussion results

Unlock the Mindset and Motivations for Working with AI

Chris Brauer will lead a lab on how organizations can build a mindset and culture to make the most of AI. He will start the lab with a brief introduction to the core element of building a culture of adaptation and fostering growth mindsets. This will be followed by a group discussion.
The lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Learn how to prepare the ground that is conducive to leveraging AI and drive growth mindsets of learning and experimentation – and overcome resistance
• Understand the different elements of the growth mindset and work through training their own mindsets
• Play a card game to discover individual growth mindset power – join the group of participants with the same growth mindset power to discuss the group’s power center
• Harvest discussion results

The Futures of China – Leveraging Scenarios to Inform Corporate Innovation, Marketing and HR Strategies and Long-Term Plans

Björn Theis will lead a lab on leveraging scenarios to inform strategic involvement in China. He will briefly introduce the large-scope scenario study Evonik has conducted and share the main strategic findings. This will be followed by a group workshop.
The lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand the scenarios and the most important strategic insights for each of the scenarios
• Work in groups on a selected research question focused on innovation, marketing, or HR
• Use the future wheel approach to identify the consequences of the main development with respect to the group’s research question
• Work as a group to determine how to respond to the challenges and opportunities the results of the future wheel present
• Harvest the workshop’s results

Striking the Balance: Navigating Corporate-Startup Collaboration with Do’s and Don’ts

The lab workshop provides an interactive format to discuss and conclude good practices on startup & corporate venturing. Attendees will gain insights into H&M Region Central’s open innovation lab’s top lessons learned and will then discuss how to accelerate their impact as corporate innovation executives.

How to Future Fit Strategic Innovation! Try Out the LEGO Innovation Everywhere Framework

Day to day pressure can distract innovation teams from innovating for the future. Søren Lethin will lead a lab on leveraging consumer centric tools to future-proof innovation. He will briefly introduce the 3C design thinking framework developed by LEGO’s Innovation Everywhere unit. This will be followed by a group discussion.
Lab participants will learn and discuss the following:

• Learn how the holistic outside-in perspective of the 3C framework enables strategic innovation
• Self-assess their organization’s strategic innovation practices
• Discuss and share experiences and best practices on the three elements of the 3C framework

From Customer Journey Mapping to Blueprints – Turning Insights and Strategies into Successful Innovation

In this session we will use customer journey mapping to identify insights and understand the touchpoints, channels and systems that deliver customer experiences. We will look at how this can become a powerful tool for cross-business collaboration and a customer centric culture in your organization.

We will work on the following:

• Work in groups to select a customer persona within either B2B or B2C and map the customer journey
• Identify problems and pain points along the persona’s customer journey
• Discuss how to improve the customer journey and determine what is needed to deliver on the improvements
  

Spotting and Tackling Dilemmas

Thomas Ritter will lead a lab on dilemmas. He will briefly introduce the issue of which dilemmas leaders need to solve and to make tough decisions about. Thomas will start the lab off with a short teaser dilemma. This will be followed by group discussions.

The participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand how to spot dilemmas, discuss them, decide and implement a solution
  
• Work in groups on a provided marketing dilemma with the goal of arriving at a shared conclusion
  
• Share the largest dilemma from their respective companies
  
• Harvest discussion results

Productivity Booster or Creativity Killer? The Power of Generative AI for B2B and B2C Companies

Michael Haenlein will lead a lab on leveraging Generative AI. He will start the lab off with a short introduction to the disruptive and fundamental change Generative AI brings. This will be followed by group discussions.
The participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand the generative AI capabilities
• Work in groups on provided challenges focused on innovation, marketing, or HR
• Explore and identify opportunities to leverage Generative AI
• Determine how to implement Generative AI and identify challenges
• Harvest discussion results
  

Experience Design – Creating End-to-End Customer Experience

Nina Warburton will lead a lab on leveraging experience design for an end-to-end customer experience. She will briefly introduce the approach and explain how it allows the organization to identify and address issues in customer experience. This will be followed by a group workshop.
The lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand the benefits of experience design and learn how to leverage the ’living wall’ to identify issues in customer experience
  
• Work in groups on leveraging experience design
  
• Harvest the workshop’s results
  

The Futures of China – Leveraging Scenarios to Inform Corporate Innovation, Marketing and HR Strategies and Long-Term Plans

Björn Theis will lead a lab on leveraging scenarios to inform strategic involvement in China. He will briefly introduce the large-scope scenario study Evonik has conducted and share the main strategic findings. This will be followed by a group workshop.
The lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand the scenarios and the most important strategic insights for each of the scenarios
• Work in groups on a selected research question focused on innovation, marketing, or HR
• Use the future wheel approach to identify the consequences of the main development with respect to the group’s research question
• Work as a group to determine how to respond to the challenges and opportunities the results of the future wheel present
• Harvest the workshop’s results

From Customer Journey Mapping to Blueprints – Turning Insights and Strategies into Successful Innovation

In this session we will use customer journey mapping to identify insights and understand the touchpoints, channels and systems that deliver customer experiences. We will look at how this can become a powerful tool for cross-business collaboration and a customer centric culture in your organization.

We will work on the following:

• Work in groups to select a customer persona within either B2B or B2C and map the customer journey
• Identify problems and pain points along the persona’s customer journey
• Discuss how to improve the customer journey and determine what is needed to deliver on the improvements
  

Enabling a Culture of Self-Development – A Real Business Transformation

When a new business strategy impacts the operating model, human capital requires learning agility and new capabilities. How to create an eco-system in which employees and people leaders can take ownership of their development and reskill themselves at scale with limited financial impact?

Creating a More Human Future of Work

Lauren Howe will lead a lab on future of work. The lab will have two sections where she will first introduce insights on envisioning the future of work and engage participants in examining how beliefs shape their approach to future of work. In the second section, Lauren will focus on fostering growth mindsets. This will be followed by a group discussion.
The participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand the research insights on the future of work and which skills will matter
• Reflect on their visions on the future of work and the way their beliefs shape their approach to future of work – and how the enthusiasm for tech overshadows social and emotional skills
• Understand the role of growth mindsets for future of work and how to develop social and emotional skills
• Discuss in groups how to foster growth mindsets and overcome obstacles
  

Running on Empty: Reimagining Healthy Workplaces in an Age of Overwhelm and Burnout

Reports of stress, mental ill health and burnout appear in the press every day, with people describing themselves working longer hours, facing higher workloads and dealing with more demands at home and at work than they have ever known before. Given half of the working population now describe themselves as ‘overextended’ at work, the feelings of overwhelm that people report suggest that a large proportion of the global workforce may not yet be in burnout, but without remedial action, may soon succumb. We have now reached a point where employers ignore burnout at their peril. We are in the middle of a global mental health crisis with negative emotions such as worry, stress, anger and sadness reaching record levels. 7 in 10 employees now say they are currently struggling or suffering, rather than thriving in their lives overall. To put an end to disengagement and the talent drain that many organisations are currently witnessing, we need to create a future where organisations are radically re-imagined. In this session, we will explore what a future of retention, engagement and sustainable performance might look like with employees and employers co-creating a shared vision of what it means to lead a healthy work life and how work fits into a life well-lived. We will explore the actions that need to be taken at individual and organizational level to move us towards reciprocity and collective action in order to design future workplaces for that benefit the mental health and well-being of all.

The Futures of China – Leveraging Scenarios to Inform Corporate Innovation, Marketing and HR Strategies and Long-Term Plans

Björn Theis will lead a lab on leveraging scenarios to inform strategic involvement in China. He will briefly introduce the large-scope scenario study Evonik has conducted and share the main strategic findings. This will be followed by a group workshop.
The lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand the scenarios and the most important strategic insights for each of the scenarios
• Work in groups on a selected research question focused on innovation, marketing, or HR
• Use the future wheel approach to identify the consequences of the main development with respect to the group’s research question
• Work as a group to determine how to respond to the challenges and opportunities the results of the future wheel present
• Harvest the workshop’s results