The below article was featured in The Economist’s 2016 Innovation Forum event summary. Blue Daring partnered with The Economist to host the Forum in Chicago this Spring. The Forum brings together today’s leading thinkers to envision how companies can transform and adapt to flourish tomorrow.

While adopting a culture of innovation has many benefits like product diversification, finding new, more efficient ways to work and staying connected to a more active consumer, it can also appear insincere if your brand doesn’t already have a reputation for it. Best case scenario it looks like another attempt at making more profits. Worst case scenario your leadership looks unfocused and scares your stakeholders; particularly the more conservative ones.

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The fact is you cannot innovate if your brand stands for your products and services alone…

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While you can’t build a reputation for innovation overnight, what you can do is focus on something higher in the proverbial Maslow’s hierarchy of needs—something beyond what you make and do today—your essential value and purpose. The reason you exist in the world.