How can organisations make the most of innovations?

Associate Professor Stefan Meisiek is currently working with the Australian Defence Force (ADF) – already recognised for its work in the field of strategy and innovation– undertaking a global review of innovation in defence forces to create benchmark standards that will enhance sovereign capabilities.

“It’s not about buying the next warship, it’s about helping service men and women to be active and to continuously improve and innovate, by exploring new technologies and possibilities for how to improve their capabilities” Stefan says.

“My advice is not, ‘Do this and you will be fine’, ‘Buy this and you will be fine’. I am seeking to work with organisations to find ways to build capabilities of innovation from inside out. To be inspired by what other companies do. Be inspired by what Google does; but not try to copy it exactly, because we know that doesn’t work - we’re not Google.”

“And from this advice we can talk about, how do you strategise? How do you lead? How do you run these processes? How do you organise your company to build something that will sustainably work for you, in the language that is most customary for you? That’s what I can help with.”

Looking beyond the ADF collaboration, Stefan’s next project involves working with small and medium businesses to generate quick results. “Instead of one experiment that is do or die, you do small iterative ones in which the company can see on a week-to-week basis what works: What do we keep? What do we not keep? Cheap small-scale outcomes that the company can say, ‘Yep, we can do that’.”