This year marks the 30th anniversary of Post-it® Notes. Spencer Silver, co-inventor of the Post-it®, is credited with saying, "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this."

Innovation sometimes happens purposefully, and other times, it happens by chance. Inspiration happens far more often, but translating inspiration into innovation is the tough part. Industry-leading companies know this, and they have a corresponding common trait: they aren't willing to rest on success. They encourage and support innovation. They push it.

Innovation is not just a fluffy penchant for creativity. It is truly a competency composed of many elements. These include leadership, culture, competition, communication, analysis, implementation, and reward. For product companies, innovation tends to be a core competency because of the nature of the market. Better, faster, tastier, more convenient—those qualities translate to competitive differentiation and customer demand. Financial services companies tend not to have innovation as a core competency (feel free to disagree). Yet now more than ever, that's exactly what these companies need.

Here are some elements of the Nolan process we use when helping clients tackle innovation:

• Goals: aspirational targets that establish the realm of opportunity for innovative thinking
• Ideas: from employees, customers, competitive intelligence, industry best practices, and other industries
• Analysis: risks, practicality, required resources, hard dollars, benefits
• Implementation: translating inspiration to innovation with well-defined, actively-managed projects
• Shelf Life: innovations get copied and commoditized over time. Keep pushing

You can do that.