Developing innovation plans that will drive sustainable double-digit growth for mid-cap companies is a team activity. Necessary skills and traits for building and guiding that team include:

• A love of being intensely connected to the processes of observing customer behavior, not just listening to what they are saying, and using that to solve customer problems.
  
• Keyed to future-oriented, strategic thought.
  
• Adaptability and agility in rapidly changing situations.
  
• A deep understanding of what motivates talented people.
  
• A desire to nurture and grow innovation and talented innovative people.
  
• An ability to recognize excellence in innovative talent.
  
• An ability to step aside to allow talented people to innovate, while maintaining an ongoing detail-oriented engagement that does not micromanage.
  
• A love, comprehension and respect – plus a dash of skepticism – for the quantitative metrics.
• Conviction in your beliefs, tempered with humility and an ability to quickly modify your beliefs in the face of new evidence.
  
• Comfort with uncertainty in not always knowing the direction of the next step, but understanding that each step will be rooted in the previous step.
  
• Broad understanding of management and business principles.
  
• Conflict resolution skills with diverse personalities in a high pressure environment of uncertainty, scarce resources and conflicting goals.
• Leadership skills that are best demonstrated when people do not feel like they are being led.