Five questions that can help you find the partners you need

For today’s exercise, start by asking yourself (and possibly your team members) this question:

Do our greatest innovations come from:

1. Inside our company?
2. Collaboration with an array of different external stakeholders?

If your answer was b, move on to the next section. If your answer was a, consider whether you have tried including people external to your company in your innovation processes. If not, it’s time for a fundamental shift in your mindset, and that should be your starting point. Closed innovation thinking needs to shift to thinking that embraces co-creation, based on a diversity of backgrounds and points of view.

One of the key benefits to changing your organization’s mindset to understand that you need to involve your whole ecosystem, and not just your internal players is that it shifts your culture from a “know it all” to a…