Over the course of the last few months, we were able to interview 10 innovation professionals who are disrupting their respective markets as well as the status quo.

They all have executed multiple innovation projects, have been in the trenches, and had a lot of practical experience to share.

At the end of each one of these interviews, we asked the innovation leaders to very briefly tell us what they believe their peers should a) start and b) stop doing tomorrow.

If you are an enterprise innovation leader, read on to learn what your peers are saying! (or watch the full compilation video below)

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Hussam Ayyad - Founder & Managing Partner @ Action10 Ventures (prev. Founder of DMZ Accelerator)

Stop:

Stop focusing on story-telling and spend more time on action.

Start:

Choose between showcasing your story and doing something innovative for your company. Be selective.

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Ravi Mehta - EIR @ Reforge (Previously Chief Product Officer @ Tinder, Product @ Facebook, TripAdvisor, Xbox.)

Stop:

Stop optimizing for the short term

Start:

Start thinking about the long term and planning to reach the long term through shorter-term, iterative results.

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Julie Kerr - Director, Product Innovation @ ATB Financial

Stop:

Stop thinking that there's a perfect formula for innovation or the perfect person for innovation. It's a combination of a bunch of different things.

Start:

Focus on the customers' problems, not a new technology.

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Kin Chung - Vice President, Credit Innovation at MPOWER Financing

Stop:

Stop thinking that there's only one solution or one crystal clear cut path like ABCD.

Start:

Look at what constraints you have and then decide which ones you are going to live with and which ones you want to get rid of.

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Ore Adeyemi - Managing Director & Head of Strategic Innovation Investments at HSBC

Stop:

Move, do something. Look less inward and more outward.

Start:

Identify and achieve quick wins.

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Anusha Shanmugarajah - Director of Product at Shopify

Start:

Be open-minded to different perspectives. The only way that we get to see things that are different than our lived experience is by being open to different perspectives.

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James Kho - Sr. Mgr, Product Development @ NBCUniversal

Stop:

Don’t dwell on technology that might not have the most value to the business.

Start:

Become better at letting things go if it's not working right.

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Christian Magsisi - Senior Director of Technology & Digital at Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE)

Stop:

Stop creating skunkworks and innovations teams without any goals.

Start:

Commit a part of your budget and organizational resources towards thinking about tomorrow.

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Shelly Bardai - Innovation and Technology Senior Manager at KPMG Ignition

Stop:

Stop trying to innovate without any focus.

Start:

Create sustainable innovation programs that are aligned to corporate objectives.

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Boris Nelkin - Global Finance and Treasury Innovation @ Deutsche Bank

Stop:

Select quality over quantity. Just because you have dozens of ideas doesn't mean they're good, but you're going to have one or two ideas that are great.

Start:

Iterate, iterate, iterate. Fail as quickly as possible to find the right solution that you can adopt quickly.

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Conclusion

Through this article, we hope you learned something new that you can start applying tomorrow. If you want to watch the entire Corporate Innovation Series, click here or follow us on Linkedin for the latest updates.

Want us to interview your favourite innovation leader or role model? Please message us, and we’ll make it happen.

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