The workplace of 2008 has a new addition: the chief innovation officer. This addition stems from yearning for a sustainable growth rate that surpasses industry standards.
Who is available to take charge of this, managing the ideas coming from customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders? Who will lead the effort in process innovation and business model innovation?...the chief innovation officer.

Companies believe that CEOs are too busy setting the overall direction for business growth to also be responsible for leading and managing the challenging and difficult innovation and growth process. The R&D chief has proven unsuitable as well. A Booz Allen Hamilton study of 1,000 global corporations revealed that there is no relationship between R&D spending and the primary measures of corporate success, such as growth, enterprise profitability, and shareholder return.
A 2006 IBM survey of 765 global CEOs indicated that the majority of them believe they will have to make fundamental changes in their businesses over the next two years. New products and services remain a priority, but they are placing increasing emphasis on differentiating themselves through innovation in the basics of their business models.
This has raised the following questions: Who is available to take charge of this, managing the ideas coming from customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders? Who will lead the effort in process innovation and business model innovation?
All of this explains the addition of the chief innovation officer.

THE CHIEF INNOVATION OFFICER
Many corporations around the world are appointing a chief innovation officer (CIO) to manage the growth and revenue generation processes. This newest role in the C-suite has emerged in the past five years and more widely in the last 18 months.
Companies like Coca-Cola, Intuit, AMD, Cargill, Humana, Kimberly-Clark, and Citigroup have paved the way in defining and developing the role of the chief innovation officer. In these companies' view, appointing a CIO sends a clear message to the organization that innovation is of paramount importance to the company and is the engine that drives its growth processes.
The Dawn of a New Rising Star

THE CHALLENGES THAT LIE AHEAD
While growth remains the top priority for most CEOs, staying at the front of the growth curve and generating above-average returns for shareholders over the long term remains an elusive goal.
To celebrate its 70th anniversary, Forbes published its "Forbes 100" list of the largest
American companies, and then compared it to its original list from 1917. Interestingly, only 18 of the original companies managed to stay in the Top 100 list through 1987. Sixty-one of them no longer existed and 21 fell off the Top 100 list. The overall long-term return to the shareholders from this group of 18 companies was 20% less than that of the overall market.
Only two companies, General Electric and Kodak, performed better than the overall market. Since 1987, however, Kodak's performance has deteriorated significantly.
An analysis of the S&P 500 revealed that during the 1957-1998 period, only 74 of the original 500 remained on the list. However, only 12 of the 74 performed better than the S&P 500 index.These studies and several others attest to the difficulty associated with maintaining a high growth rate over a long period of time.

THE AMBIDEXTROUS PARADOX
Companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Toyota, GE, P&G and 3M have been very successful managing an ambidextrous paradox. On one hand, these companies are well known for their operational efficiency and delivering on their promises to the customers. On the other hand, these companies have also been very successful at creating discontinuities.
While Apple is busy maintaining its reputation for producing easy-to-use and elegant desktops and laptops, it is also busy finding new promises for satisfying "jobs to be done," leading to iPod,iTunes, and iPhone. In many scenarios, creating discontinuities involves abandoning the company's existing line of business or cannibalizing present products and services it delivers to the customers.

BUILDING A CORPORATE GROWTH STRATEGY
So what can chief innovation officers do to lead growth and revenue-generation activities?
While there are no silver bullets to deal with these daunting challenges, much progress made during the last decade in understanding the key variables that affect innovation and growth process shall come to the aid of chief innovation officers. Let's look at several of the key lessons:

• Become Adept at Being Ambidextrous. Almost every corporation is on a quest to outperform its rivals in two key business activities: (1) improve the performance of current business and (2) create the future for the business. A by-product of the successful pursuit of these activities leads to a third activity known as selectively abandoning the past. Most companies, however, struggle with balancing these key activity sets. Only ambidextrous companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Toyota, GE, P&G and 3M excel at delivering superior performance now while also crafting a viable future.
  
  
• Manage the Innovation Portfolio. Innovation and design are key to companies achieving organic growth. The objective of innovation is to create new value for customers. This can come in the form of new or enhanced products, services, or business models, and/or behind-thescenes processes.
  When we create a new product or service for customers so they can achieve certain outcomes in a superior way, this is product or service innovation. The mobile phone, for example, was a product innovation that enabled customers to communicate remotely from places with no access to land telephone lines.
  Process innovation involves creating new value in many behind-the-scenes operations. For example, when FedEx created a system that allowed customers to track the location of their packages during transit and delivery via the Internet, most of the innovation occurred in the enabling business processes.
  A business model innovation involves delivering superior value by changing the way business is done. Wal-Mart is well known for its business model innovations in the logistics and supply chain arena.
  
  
• Facilitate Collaboration and Teamwork. Another key to successful organic growth is the assembly of innovation teams that are capable of flawless and speedy execution, and then management of these teams for high performance and collaboration. The best teams are composed of people with diverse problem-solving styles.
  
  
• Foster a Culture and Climate for Innovation. The parts of the organization responsible for leading growth activities must have flexible systems and structures that enable successful exploration, risk taking, and entrepreneurial effort. A climate that is best suited for innovation promotes calculated risk taking, collaboration, and trust. Such a climate enables people to learn from their mistakes (instead of being punished for them), and supports a quicker execution of ideas and a more agile organizational structure. All of this minimizes exposure to innovation risk.
  W.L. Gore is well known for its high growth and innovation. Its culture and organizational structure are hardly hierarchical and have very few ranks or titles, thereby promoting direct,unfiltered communications. The culture is one in which employees feel free to pursue their own ideas, communicate with one another, and collaborate by their own free will and motivation.
  
  
• Lead for Preservation and Evolution. While certain parts of the organization are focused on sustaining activities with short term objectives, others are busy identifying and exploring new activities to meet growth objectives. The CIO has a crucial role to play in managing and responding to these different agendas and needs: while one set of activities is aimed at perfecting existing systems, processes, products, and services, others may be cannibalizing these products or services in favor of better ones.
  It is the responsibility of the CIO to drive and maintain the integrity of both activity sets while leveraging, sharing, and learning from each other. The CIO must empower, motivate, and reward teams involved in activities that require styles that are contrary to theirs. The ability to make difficult and objective decisions, while working with team members of unlike kind, is a rare but essential competency for managing the preservation/evolution paradox.
  
  ENSURING THE CEO'S VISION FOR GROWTH
  While it is the CEO who is responsible for the overall growth and health of the company he or she helms, it is the chief innovation officer who ensures that the CEO's vision remains on track. By establishing and nurturing a corporate culture that balances the opposing forces demanding short-term and long-term growth, the CIO puts into place the pieces that ensure corporate growth.

Phil Samuel, Ph.D. is the chief innovation officer of Breakthrough Management Group, a management consulting firm specializing in performance excellence and innovation. He is the co-author of the upcoming book Design for Lean Six Sigma: A Holistic Approach to Design and Innovation.