The context
Standard Bank was rolling out lean methodologies, design thinking, and open innovation to strengthen its innovation capabilities. But there was a realisation: these practices couldn’t simply be layered onto a traditional corporate structure built for control and predictability. To unlock their full potential, the bank needed a new way of working, one that was customer-centric, commercially disciplined, and experimental.

The challenge
How do you enable innovation without tipping into chaos?
How do you give teams freedom, without losing alignment?

The approach
Working with the Innovation Capabilities Team at Claro Partners, we designed a human capabilities framework for an internal startup team (5–7 members), grounded in the principle of “autonomy in alignment.”

We restructured the employee experience around three key touchpoints:

Position – Define purpose, goals, and contribution
Create – Experiment, build, measure, learn
Reward – Clearly see impact and outcomes

We developed practical tools, reflection practices, and metrics that allowed teams to:

Own their direction
Measure innovation performance at team level
Assess their maturity in new ways of working
Reflect on engagement and growth

The shift
Instead of control versus freedom, the team operated within a high-performance environment built on shared purpose, aligned autonomy, and continuous reflection.

Impact
This work reframed human capabilities from an HR support function into a strategic enabler of innovation performance, demonstrating that sustainable innovation requires intentional design of the human system that powers it.