My passion for innovation is no secret. I firmly believe that to thrive, organizations (and individuals) must constantly push forward, reinventing what they do and how they do it to create new value. However, while companies like GE or IBM showcase incredible innovative success through reinvention, their achievements aren’t solely built on a “mindset” or a few “crazy wild innovators.” To truly earn the right to be consistently innovative, and for that innovation to be sustainable, businesses must first build an exceptionally strong foundation.

The Succeed Sooner Hierarchy of Organizational Needs

To illustrate this, I’ve developed a simple model, akin to Maslow’s Human Needs Hierarchy, which I call the “Succeed Sooner Hierarchy of Organizational Needs”:

• (Base) Strong Business Fundamentals: Core operational processes, controls, and structures.
• (Next) Clear Vision and Strategy: The “Why, How, and What” of the business.
• (Next) Aligned Metrics and Measures: Tracking progress against value-driven objectives.
• (Next) Flawless Execution: Effectively delivering on plans and strategies.
• (Peak) Innovation: Purposefully managed and directed creative advancement.

For your Small or Medium-Sized Business (SMB) to truly innovate and adapt to market demands like an IBM or GE, you must build strength at each layer of this hierarchy. Skipping a layer will lead to instability, a “crumbling house,” and a scramble for relevance. As a fractional CIO, a key part of my role is to help SMBs solidify these foundational layers, particularly within their technology landscape, to create a stable platform for future innovation.

Let’s break down each layer:

1. Strong Business Fundamentals:
   • Every business needs robust management of core functions: Finances, Human Resources, Sales & Operations Planning, etc. This requires basic controls, efficient processes, clear frameworks, regular reporting, regulatory alignment, and periodic reviews. For IT, this means stable infrastructure, sound cybersecurity, reliable support, and well-defined IT governance. Active measurement and monitoring here provide the solid ground upon which everything else is built. While entrepreneurs are visionaries, these fundamentals require dedicated, process-oriented management.
2. Clear Vision and Strategy:
   • This is often the CEO’s or founder’s domain. Your SMB needs a clear purpose (Simon Sinek’s “WHY?”), a clear articulation of how it will achieve it (“HOW?”), and the core business and customer base it will serve (“WHAT?”). This vision must cascade from the organizational level down to individual team strategies, ensuring everyone knows the goal and how their work connects. (Referencing my “Connecting Strategy and Execution” post). An effective IT strategy, developed with your fractional CIO, must be in lockstep with this overall business vision.
3. Aligned Metrics and Measures:
   • With solid fundamentals and a clear strategy, you can define meaningful metrics to monitor progress. These should be clear, aligned with desired outcomes, easily understood, and visible across the organization. When individuals see how their work impacts these metrics, engagement and performance improve. IT metrics, for example, shouldn’t just track uptime; they should measure IT’s contribution to business value and strategic objectives.
4. Flawless Execution:
   • Strong fundamentals, a clear vision, and aligned metrics are useless without effective execution across all disciplines: Product Development, Sales & Marketing, Project Management, Operations, IT Delivery, and Customer Support. As one wise leader put it, “Knowledge isn’t power… Execution is.” For technology, this means IT projects delivered on time and on budget, meeting business needs, and IT operations that reliably support the business.
5. Innovation (Built on the Foundation):
   • Once this foundation is firmly in place, your SMB is truly positioned to build a powerful innovation portfolio. Innovation, too, requires management: its own processes, gates, metrics, and measurements, likely different from those governing your core operations. Forgetting to innovate, even with a perfectly efficient current business, is a path to obsolescence (just ask Kodak or Nokia’s former mobile division).
   • Innovation should be an actively managed and directed function, built with the same strategic rigor as the foundational layers.

Aligned Leadership: The Glue That Holds It Together

Finally, aligned leadership across the entire SMB is paramount. The CEO/visionary needs to champion the vision at all levels, while a strong operational leader (COO/CFO, or in the tech realm, your fractional CIO) ensures the foundational elements are strong and execution is sound. These leadership roles must work side-by-side.

What’s Next

You need to earn the right to innovate by building a strong operational and strategic foundation. But make no mistake, in today’s rapidly evolving world, you must innovate to stay at the top of your game and “Succeed Sooner.”

Is your SMB trying to innovate without all the foundational layers of the “Succeed Sooner Hierarchy of Organizational Needs” firmly in place? If you’re looking for a strategic partner to help you strengthen your IT fundamentals, align your technology with your vision, ensure flawless IT execution, and then build a platform for sustainable tech-driven innovation, let’s connect with Succeed Sooner Consulting.