Our team at MTI² is proud to reach an important milestone as we held our first invitation-only Innovation Leaders Roundtable on May 31st 2016. Several times, we had received the explicit request to bring innovation leaders in our network together to share their experiences. The atmosphere we wanted to set was a limited scale roundtable to create great potential in making connections and sharing experiences. As all good things, it ultimately became a bit bigger than we anticipated… We were delighted to host thought leaders from companies such as a.s.r, Ageas, Baloise, Bank of New York Mellon, Baxter, Bekaert, Bentley Motors, Caesar Groep, Callebaut&Co, Dell, Evonik, Fibersail, Ghent University, Heraeus, Hoge Raad Diamant, Johnson & Johnson, Kom op tegen Kanker, Komatsu, Michelin, Nokia, Proximus, Puratos, Renolit, UCB, Unilin and VRT. ​ As a setting, we chose the Pastorale in Reet for a couple of reasons. First, it reminds us of the small Flemish town in the country side we are located ourselves to service clients globally. Second, the Pastorale is one of the most creative settings among Belgium’s many fine dining opportunities. Third, given our intense collaboration with Michelin and its presence as a presenter, it seemed befitting to pick a place the Michelin Red Guide writes raving reviews about. ​ We saw inspiring presentations from Pedro Costa, sharing his experience as head of Michelin’s Incubator in Europe, Sabine Leclercq, R&D Site Director at Baxter R&D Europe and prof. Isabel van Driessche, sharing the experience of Ghent University with their Innoversity Challenge. ​ Enthused by these stimulating talks, we then came together in roundtables, to discuss the most important innovation topics relevant to our participants. While many different topics where discussed, the most frequently mentioned ones that emerged from discussions included the people aspect of innovation, the balance between incremental versus transformational projects, and keeping momentum to establish sustainable innovation. ​ As it is proven that writing down resolutions makes you more likely to succeed (and on top of that, increases your overall happiness), we asked participants to form actionable insights and write down resolutions they would act upon in the next couple of days, weeks or months. We also made resolutions ourselves of course. As a way of following up on one of our own resolutions, we will provide more information on the learnings in the upcoming weeks, so make sure to stay tuned.

1. Innovation Leaders Roundtable
Engaging Your Employees in Innovation
www.mti2.eu

2. Our Inspiration Journey
15.30-16.00 Welcome Coffee
16.00-16.10 Welcome by MTI2 (prof.dr. Stefan Stremersch & dr. Isabel
Verniers)
16.10-16.40 From Seeding to Impactful Ideas in R&D
(dr. Sabine Leclercq, R&D Site Director, Baxter R&D Europe &
dr. Patricia Meijers, Sr. Research Scientist, Baxter R&D Europe)
16.40-17.10 Engaging the Crowd to Address Disruptive Business Models
(prof.dr. Isabel van Driessche, Ghent University)
17.10-17.40 Successfully Incubating New Venture Teams Outside the Core
Business
(Pedro Costa, Incubator Michelin)
17.40-18.00 Break
18.00-19.00 Roundtable Discussions
19.00-21.30 Dinner & Wrap-up
31 May 2016
de Pastorale, Reet
Innovation Leaders Roundtable
Seminar & Dinner
by MTI2

3. Innovation Leaders at the Roundtables

4. Top Three Learnings from Roundtable Discussions
INCREMENTAL VS.
TRANSFORMATIONAL
How to balance between
incremental versus transformational
projects?
SUSTAIN
How to keep momentum in order
to establish sustainable
innovation?
ENGAGE
How to make your employees the
biggest ally in your innovation efforts?

5. INCREMENTAL VS. TRANSFORMATIONAL
How to balance between
incremental versus transformational
projects
KEEPING MOMENTUM
How to keep momentum in order
to establish sustainable
innovation
This Presentation: Engage
ENGAGE
How to make your
employees the biggest ally
in your innovation efforts?

6. Engage Your People
Hire for Curiosity
Frustration
Time
Commitment
Fairness
Clear Governance
What If
Plan
Reward
Celebration

7. Hire for Curiosity
 You have the experts, but…
 Build multi-disciplinary teams
 Diversity for richer ideas (e.g. cross
country and cross seniority)
 Hire for curiosity to get some seed
of intrapreneurship
 Focus on execution to make things
happen
 Is there a new role for HR?

8. Hire for Curiosity: First Who Then What
It’s not just about the innovative
ideas, but more about the people
involved in innovation. It is better
to have an A team with a B idea,
than a B team with an A idea.
“
”

9. Create a Sense of Urgency
 If there is no frustration with
the people there is no
urgency
 If there is no urgency there is
no innovation
 Let people know what the
customer’s challenge is

10. Clear Governance, Fairness & Time Commitment
 If you don’t have clear governance at all
levels (role and responsibility) you are at
a loss
 Treat your people in a fair way and they
will be your biggest ally
 If you don’t allow for a minimum time
commitment you will get nowhere, two
people need to commit for at least 50%,
otherwise there is no team

11. Clear Governance, Fairness & Time Commitment
Introduction Video by Anne
De Paepe,
Rector Ghent University
Grand Jury Composed of
Higher Management of
Ghent University
Live Training of All
Chosen Teams by
MTI2

12. What If Plan
 People left their normal job to work
on the idea
 If the idea doesn't pan out, we need
to provide them with a back-up plan
 If you don’t have a plan for the
people you won’t kill poor ideas

13. Celebrate and Reward
 If there is no reward there is no
motivation
 The best reward is recognition;
recognition visible to all people
including top management
 Celebrate successes – even if
they are small

14. Innovation Leaders Roundtable
Engaging Your Employees in Innovation
www.mti2.eu