Solving the innovation puzzle
Frontline staff are a rich source of new ideas if the company climate is right
Tuesday, December 06 2011 || Comment || BY Ed Bernacki
It’s about Intuit co-founder Scott Cook and how he realised ‘frontline troops’ could generate innovative design ideas if empowered to develop them. Part of the strategy is selecting people to prompt new ideas. I wrote about this type of person — an ‘innovationalist’ — in Unlimited’s April 2009 issue.
A close friend of mine works for IBM in Canada. The company launched what it calls “an effective way of collecting quick improvement ideas that will impact practitioners in Canada” and created the ‘IBM Idea Factory’ to encourage staff to contribute ideas.
Little has changed since the 1950s. Back then Alex Osborn wrote Applied Imagination in which he coined the term ‘brainstorming’. It was a way to harness the brains of people to storm through a problem to find more effective solutions. Osborn was very clear that team brainstorming should not replace individual brainstorming. He recommended individuals create ideas to precede and follow a brainstorming session. He wrote, “Some have erroneously thought that this collaborative effort is meant to replace individual effort. The fact is that group brainstorming is recommended solely as a supplement to individual ideation.”
All these stories make the same point; if you ask for ideas, staff will create them. What is sad is organisations like IBM and Intuit did not develop formal programmes years ago. Even sadder is the Harvard Business Review still finds it useful to publish articles on such basic themes. It tells me our leaders are not learning the lessons they should and we not developing our capacity to innovate.
We live and work in a knowledge economy. Companies like Icebreaker cross the line between being a manufacturer of wool garments and a services company that creates knowledge from its designs, brands and international relationships. We know manufacturers invest in R&D for new concepts and processes. It begs the question, where do service organisations invest for their new concepts and processes?
You should answer this question as a business leader. What is your equivalent capability to R&D that drives new ideas and applies them to create value to grow your bottom line?
Innovation is a complicated concept. I stopped looking for the key to innovation long ago. It’s more useful to think in terms of a puzzle.
When you pick up a boxed puzzle, you see the whole picture on the top of the box. When you open the box, you see random pieces that somehow come together to create the picture. Here are four of the pieces:
Opportunity
Nothing happens until a leader creates an opportunity for something to happen. IBM and Intuit created a basic opportunity to engage staff. Where are new ideas needed? What are your growth challenges for the next year? What internal challenges need new ideas? These challenges should be part of a page in your annual plan headed ‘Innovation’. Some may be tactical, like asking staff for ideas in a suggestion box programme. Others may be to develop new ideas for revenue sources.
Motive
Is your organisation truly open to new ideas? Do people want to contribute new ideas? Can you shape a climate that allows for innovative solutions?
Skills
Osborn’s book included 26 chapters of tools to help people solve problems in new ways. These are the skills for solving problems and creative thinking. I recently spoke to a professional group in Wellington and asked, “Who works for an organisation that provides problem solving or creativity training?” Three people in 30 said yes. How will you give people the skills that will enhance new ideas?
Style of thinking
Do all employees think alike? Obviously not, yet do your management policies assume they do? Do you allow people to solve problems in ways that may differ to you? How will you manage this type of diversity and the different ways people think? This is harder than it sounds.
These are four pieces to the innovation puzzle. Use them to shape a basic plan for innovation. The first step is to see staff as a source of ideas. Let’s hope it will not take another 60 years to learn these lessons again.
