One on One with Slalom's Brad Jackson

Of the Fortune 500, about 70 companies have been on the list every year for 50 years. The average age of these firms is 115. These firms have been built to last. What's their secret? Brad Jackson, co-founder and CEO of Slalom Consulting, suggests that the common denominator of those 70 firms is that they've built a culture of innovation. How they've managed to do that is another question, entirely. Jackson will shares his secrets of innovation, which have not only enabled the 30 percent year-over-year growth of Slalom, but also prompted Slalom's clients to move out of their comfort zones and consider unique possibilities they didn't even know existed. As part of Jackson's "5 Secrets to Creating a Consultancy with a Culture of Innovation" presentation at the Consulting Summit in New York on Oct. 24, attendees will learn some new techniques for innovating professional services firms and the clients they serve.

Consulting: What are the steps to creating a culture of innovation?

Jackson: There really are three areas of innovation that I would call "The Innovator's Trilogy." The first one is the "why"—finding the big purpose and the big problem statements that would impact society. The second is taking an idea and moving it to a prototype in the market. The third is around scaling. Actually, I think a lot of consulting firms know how to scale. And I think a lot of firms understand the why, as well. My presentation is going to focus on that second step, going from idea to prototype, and we've got something that we've been working on at Slalom around this step and it's had some amazing success. Consulting: What's that?