Culture

Fail and learn to innovate

April 27, 2010 by Jurjan Huisman | 1 Comment

In a recent blog post on the Innovate on Purpose blog, the author Jeffrey Philips borrows a famous quote from Winston Churchill and bends it towards the field of Innovation: “Innovation success is based on going from “failure” to “failure” without a loss of enthusiasm.” In a lot of companies he writes, the fear of failing inevitably creeps in. This is very true. Personally, I think this stems from the fact that people responsible for a project/idea more or less connect their career to the project. From experience with different innovation projects I would suggest to take a step back and let ideas roam through the company to evolve more. At Innovation Factory we like to see ideas as a seed.

Most often ideas need some attention and enrichments from others to grow to a more mature state before a good decision can be made whether an idea should be picked up to start a project. Hence the seed metaphor; a seed also needs some attention and enrichment (water) to grow. The nice thing about the upcoming social software tools (Enterprise2.0 software) is that they suit this approach very well. First of all with tools like idea management software it is very easy for employees, and possibly suppliers and clients as well, to contribute ideas. But the real difference stems from the fact that you can use the collective brainpower to enrich (or grow) these ideas. A third interesting aspect of these type of tools is the fact that ideas (and their enrichments) get stored online. So far my story about software tools, because as the name implies they are merely the tools to become more innovative; It’s all about the way you use these tools whether your company will be successful at innovating.

To come back to the failure aspect, another quote in this context is very apt. It is a quote from Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, directed to his employees: “I hope you fail often and I hope you fail fast”. As I described before, Google is a very innovative company. What Schmidt implies with his statement is that he wants Google employees to try out a lot of new ideas. In his quote the company culture is pronounced that it doesn’t matter if you make mistakes or formulate an idea that won’t make it. It is part of the process to come to new successful products or services as long as you learn from the mistakes and failures. The more you fail, the more you learn; while the faster you fail, fewer costs are made to learn. This learning from failures and discovering rapidly whether an idea is worth an investment in time and money to develop further is very well supported by social tools like idea management software. Like stated before, all the failures (ideas that won’t make it now) are stored online. So others that come up with the same idea at a later stage won’t have to spend time and money to do research for that idea. While over time, the market might have changed or new technologies might have come available and an idea that was rejected before might be great to develop now.

Probably the most crucial aspect in the above described situation is creating a company culture where failure is not punished but stimulated. A CEO stating that exact message is a very important drive for a company to become more innovative.

Tagged , ,

Successful implementation of communities 3

November 23, 2009 by Jaap Linssen | 1 Comment

In two previous posts I described exercises that will improve the chances of success for your community. During the first exercise you describe in great detail what activities people will engage in and think about barriers the way it adds value to them. In the second exercise you check for what activities the community software tools actually lower barriers to collaboration.

Barriers

During the third exercise you check the activities against 8 barriers that can hinder the community performing these activities. If the activities or the people involved in these activities are hindered by any of the barriers described below, it is best to find other activities that are less hindered. There are ways to deal with these barriers, but I will discuss these in a later post.

Freedom and time

In many cases engaging in online collaboration or knowledge sharing does not tie directly to peoples day to day work. This becomes more the case as the work people do is more standardized. The moment someone helps solve a colleagues problem in another part of the business, this will take up time without direct benefits to the helpers business. Of course on a larger scale this does add value to the company as a whole. However, we see many cases where management does not want to allow people time to engage in such activities because the results do not add directly to their bottom line. If people aren’t given enough freedom and time to engage you will be dependent on those that will engage in their own time. Ask yourself if that group is large enough to make your community vibrant.

Transparency

The use of enterprise 2.0 technology within your company will increase transparency in your organization. It will be more transparent who is competent in certain areas and who contributes. It will also be more transparent how decisions are made. There are many people within organizations that believe transparency will not benefit them. The resistance stems from the fact that people think they will be held accountable for certain actions or colleagues will think less of their competences than before. Because this barrier is so personal and threatening to people, you can expect them to put up a big fight against transparency.

Knowledge is power

There are people that hold their position because they have valuable knowledge. These people are often afraid to share because they believe it will make them obsolete. This barrier is also a fear barrier and hence very powerful.

Fear of stupidity or fear of being ignored

There is nothing worse than looking stupid or being ignored where everyone can see. This barrier has most impact in the initial stages of a community. If a community is not very vibrant yet, the barrier to engage with the community is larger than in situations with a lot of vibrancy. Have a close look at the people that are to engage in the activity to make sure the percentage of fearful people is not too large.

Negative marking of people

In many communities there is a small group of very active people. Especially in the early phases of a community you need to manage their activities a little bit. In the early stages the community often still has to prove its usefulness to the company. Skeptics and threatened people will be looking for ways to damage the initiative. An easy way to do so is to target enthusiastic people. In almost all communities I’ve seen, very active people are marked as “having nothing better to do.” Be prepared for this and subtly protect these people from themselves and the skeptics.

Confidentiality

The fact that confidential information could leak easier when using a community with so many people involved, is a valid concern but also an important weapon of the more skeptical people. It is the most heard reason for people not to engage.

Competition

Map out other community initiatives within the company and analyze if your community, when successful, will threaten them. Also talk to IT to establish if the platform you are likely to chose does not conflict with their plans. If so, plan to deal with it. There is nothing more deadly for a community than a change in technical platform for any reason other than an improvement for the community.

Management participation

As with everything you want to achieve within an enterprise, if management does not endorse the initiative, forget it.

If you are starting a community it is best to start the community with activities least hindered by the barriers described above. As the community becomes more vibrant and gains more trust you can start initiatives that have more barriers to overcome.

Of course there are strategies to deal with the barriers described here. I’ll write about these in the near future.

Tagged , , , , , ,

Stop pitching Social Media to management

November 18, 2009 by Jaap Linssen | 2 Comments

not-social-media-150x150Social media are HOT! However, the term does not catch on with management. Some say it’s because management is not modern enough. Maybe that is true. However, I recently heard a manager say: “Social? I’m running a business here. Let them socialize at home.” It’s a very understandable reaction. The question is if managers react to the results of well implemented 2.0 technology or to the fact that the word social insinuates that people engage in non work related activities. I believe it has a lot to do with the latter. So let’s stop calling it ‘social’ and tell them what’s in it for them.

We like the term ‘Connected Business’ as it better describes what this technology does. It is set of tools to break down silos in large enterprises and have their employees connect to one another. Employees that are connected to one another have access to each other’s knowledge, skills, and experience. This connectedness then leads to more problems being solved in less time and more innovative ideas being tested and enriched in less time. On the back off these advantages enterprises can save  money because there is less need to purchase knowledge through consultants and commissioned research.

So you become more operationally excellent because of the improved problem solving, you become more competitive because you become more innovative, and you get all this at lower costs. Yes, it’s as simple as that.

Tagged , , , , , ,

Successful implementation of communities 2

November 16, 2009 by Jaap Linssen | 2 Comments

communityThis post describes one of three key exercises you need to perform to improve your chances of having a vibrant (enterprise) community.

The key value gain for enterprises that engage with social platforms is that employees are enabled to solve more problems, improve their practice and test or enrich new ideas.  All without raising the costs of doing so.

The knowledge and experience of thousands of colleagues can be easily accessed through a social platform. If you have an idea or a problem you can search the community for shared knowledge or discussions on that topic or find experienced colleagues by searching profiles or discussions they participated in.

Many enlightened enterprises have recognized these benefits, however most struggle to create and maintain vibrant communities on social platforms.

I recently wrote a post on the importance of addressing the “what’s in it for me?” question for potential users of an online community. If potential participants do not clearly see what they can get out of participation, they will not engage. We regularly run workshops with participants to identify how collaboration would add value for them, with who they would collaborate, and on what subject collaboration and sharing would add value.

If you have answered the “What’s in it for me?” question. There is another factor that has great influence on the potential success of an internal enterprise community. It  is related to the fact that enterprise 2.0 technology, or social media, help overcome a number of important barriers.

Firstly, space and time. If you have people in several different locations it is difficult and costly to bring everyone together to collaborate. It also makes it difficult for employees on different continents to know what their colleagues are up to. By having rich personal profiles, listing your projects, and having technology for online collaboration, you can lower the barrier of space and time significantly.

A second barrier has to do with the fact that, without tools, people are only capable of effectively networking with about 150 people. This phenomenon is often referred to as Dunbars’ threshold. Online networked communities can help overcome Dunbars’ threshold by what is called ‘loose ties’. An on-line community with loose ties and search capability can let you access a multitude of other peoples skills and experience, beyond the scope of your physical network of 150.

Imagine you have a problem or an idea; you can enter a community and do a very focussed search on profiles within the community, quickly identifying relevant people to talk to. You can also ask the community an open question and the people with the relevant knowledge will reply. Finally, and Linked-In is a good example of this, you can have loose connections with a large number of people. The platform then updates you periodically of all the activities of the people in your network.

For the third barrier we go back to Dunbars’ threshold. It is the reason why small companies are able to have successful collaboration and large enterprises struggle. W.L. Gore is an example of a company that is very collaborative and innovative. To maintain this level of collaboration they cut up any business unit that grows over 150 people.

The traditional answer of most governments and enterprises to this issue has been hierarchies. With hierarchies Dunbars’ problem can also be solved. When it comes to collaboration and innovation hierarchies also have a number of significant downsides. The main reason hierarchies hold back collaboration is that communication needs to travel great distances, up and down the ranks, to reach it’s destination. Add to that the fact that there is a lot of internal competition, power play,  politics and there is a big barrier to surmount if collaboration (and innovation) is to occur. Communities can help get around this barrier because the participants interact directly without having to work through the hierarchies. We call this the democracy of participation.

When companies plan to start a community, the barriers are often overlooked. Having defined the “What’s in it for me?” question and created a list of things people will do together on the platform, you need to test all of them to see if they actually lower one or more barriers. The more barriers are lowered, the better your chance of creating a vibrant community.

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Successful implementation of communities 1

October 20, 2009 by Jaap Linssen | 3 Comments

Communities, by definition, need to be valuable to all its participants. Enterprises in many cases only deal with the ‘What’s in it for me’ question from their own perspective. They often fail to truly address this question from the participants perspective.

If it isn’t clear to an employee how he or she will benefit from collaborating with others on an internal community, most will simply not engage. Add to that the fear of asking a ‘stupid question’, not giving the ‘right answer’, or being ignored when asking a question and internal communities often quickly grind to a halt.

We use a simple slogan when we help enterprises set up communities: ‘People Doing Things Together.’ When setting up a community, you need to go into a great level of detail defining this and make sure they valuable. The definitions can be generalizations or actual examples. The more focused, the easier it will be to show potential users ‘what’s in it for them’ and get them engaged.

People Doing Things Together

Some examples:

  • Product managers ask for available market research for a new concept they have.
  • Marketeers test a new proposition amongst peers.
  • R&D tests the market potential of a new application with marketing and sales colleagues all over the world.
  • Controllers share and discuss their annual budgeting spreadsheets to get best practices for next years budgeting rounds.
  • HR searches the community for a person suitable for a certain role based on expertise and experience shown in peoples’ community activities.
  • A product manager wants to make a manufacturing investment but his market will not give him sufficient revenue to justify the investment. He asks product managers in other markets for their potential revenue. Their combined markets may justify the investment.
  • An insurance product manager in Belgium asks his colleagues in The Netherlands if they have implemented a specific coverage in their insurance, and if they have how it was done and what the result was.
  • Before testing his new campaign in an expensive survey, a marketeer tests the campaign, at no costs, in his own organization.
Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Open Innovation at Nestle

May 5, 2009 by Jaap Linssen | No Comments

I came across a summary of a speech Helmut Traitler, Vice President for Innovation Partnerships at Nestle gave at an Open Innovation Forum in Cambridge.  It is a beautiful example of a company purposely innovating and I have nothing to add to Saul Kaplan’s account of the presentation.

“Embracing open innovation and new business models  Nestle clearly recognizes that to achieve its growth objective it must extend its internal capabilities to establish a large number of strategic partnering relationships.  It has embraced open innovation and works aggressively with strategic partners to co-create significant new market and product opportunities.  Worldwide, Nestle employs approximate 5000 people in 24 R&D centers and over 250 application groups.  It extends its reach by tapping into the technologies and expertise of more than a million researchers around the world.

Importance of strategic focus within target benefit areas  Nestle has a very clear framework to screen new opportunities.  It has identified target benefit areas that relate to nutrition, compliance and quality, and taste.  In order for any idea to be pursued it must be strategically aligned with one of the identified target benefit areas.

Read More

Tagged , ,

Implementing Idea Management

April 7, 2009 by Jaap Linssen | 1 Comment

This article describes the main reason idea management projects tend to underperfom.  It then provides an insight into a proven 4 step methodology for successfully implementing idea management.

Why Idea Management systems underperform
Although idea management systems are seen as a crucial driver for large organisations to become more innovative, they have to be seen as a tool supporting ‘a more widespread organisational change. These systems need to support a process and an organisation, not the other way around. There are scores of cases of companies that buy and deploy a system without the required consideration given to what needs to be in place for such a system to deliver its full value.Light bulb

In our practice we most often see idea management systems being deployed with a lack of focus. The organisation has not scoped the problem(s) they want to be solved and identified the people that should  participate in solving them. If you open up the system to a large group of people without a clear question many employees will enter the ideas they have been walking around with and couldn’t sell. This creates a tsunami of poor ideas overwhelming management that cannot evaluate properly because they do not have the capacity to do so. Because the quality of the ideas is low management will not increase resources to evaluate the ideas. This results in neither being able to evaluate ideas properly, give feedback to employees, nor find the good ideas. The lack of feedback leads to disgruntled employees who feel the organisation is not taking them and their ideas seriously. The lack of good ideas lead to disgruntled senior management that feels they are wasting budget. On average such implementations do not last very long.

This wouldn’t be such an issue if you could stop, rethink and try again. However, you have just lost your employees trust. The organisation will need years to forget that, in their eyes, their ideas have gone to waste.

Gary Hamel wrote the following analogy to playing Golf in an article called Innovation Hacker:

Read More

Tagged , ,

Creating a culture of innovation

February 23, 2009 by Jaap Linssen | No Comments

Since reading Gary Hamel’s latest book The Future of Management, I have been intrigued and inspired by the way W.L. Gore has innovation running through its veins, where the key word is collaboration.

In short, if you have an idea at W.L. Gore you are free to pursue it, although with such discipline that results from normal work are not jeopardized. There are no formal processes to guide these innovations. ‘All’ you need to do is to convince your colleagues about the potential value of your idea and get their help.

The mechanism is quite simple. Ideas with high perceived value will get a lot of support and bad ideas will not get support and vanish.

Working in this way W.L. Gore is able to scan great numbers of ideas and many are killed in an early stage and in a natural way.

The result is that W.L Gore is a very healthy company, is viewed as one of the most innovative companies in the world, and has been consistently ranked high in the lists of best places to work.

We use parts of the Gore vision at our clients a lot to improve the way they innovate.

I came across a presentation of W.L. Gore’s CEO, Terri Kelly, for MIT Sloan School of management. They summarized her talk as follows:

“A lot of companies ask about ’How do you innovate ? What do you invest in R&D?’ They’re not really the right questions to ask. We would flip that and talk more around ‘How do we create the right environment where collaboration happens naturally — that people actually want to work together, that they actually like to be part of something greater than just the individual contribution?’ And if you get that part right, all the other pieces fall in place that allow us to creat this great innovation cycle within Gore.”

Here is the entire 55 minute presentation. It is absolutely worthwhile to watch!

Tagged , , ,

Innovate the Google way

February 9, 2009 by Jurjan Huisman | 3 Comments

The Google StoryRecently I read the inspiring book “The Google Story“. Google is seen as one of the big examples of an innovative company and a lot of people state the 20% rule as a reason for that high level of innovation. The 20% rule refers to the percentage of time that software engineers get to work on whatever interests them. Personally I think that the 20% rule is not the main reason that Google excels at innovation. What is more important to my opinion is the culture and work philosophy at the company. Let me elaborate on that…

Read More

Tagged , , , ,

Leaders Open Up!

December 10, 2008 by Ebbe Nieuweboer | No Comments

Politics is on everybody’s minds lately. Even in Europe the media is full of articles on the new president-elect of the United States, Barack Obama and vice president-elect Joe Biden. It is therefore the perfect time to ask what leaders of organisations striving to become more innovative can learn from politics.

Le Roi Soleil
Louis XIVLet’s start off with a short history lesson. The record for the longest documented rule for any European monarch to date is held by Louis XIV who reigned as King of France from 1642 until 1715. He celebrated great military success in the Franco-Dutch war, was a patron of the arts and spent abundantly on artists who, as a result, produced work that remains influential to this very day. He commissioned the Palace of Versailles; a splendrous court spanning 800 acres, which is one of the largest castles in the world, and is on the UNESCO World Heritage list. He was also responsible for creating a centralised French state, governed from the capital, and thus eradicating the remnants of feudalism. For much of Louis’s reign, Versailles was the centre of power in Europe. He was popularly known as The Sun King, referring to the notion that, similar to the planets revolving around the Sun, so too should France and the court revolve around him. All in all, he could be considered one of the greatest rulers in history.

The extravagant riches he and his court lavished in, however, are a stark contrast with the relative poverty of the people of France. His numerous wars and excessive spending effectively bankrupted the state. Due to his meddling in foreign politics, an increasing number of coalitions seeking to overthrow the snobbish king were formed throughout Europe. When he finally died in 1715, four days before his 77th birthday, he allegedly instilled the following onto his young successor Louis XV:

“Do not follow the bad example which I have set you; I have often undertaken war too lightly and have sustained it for vanity. Do not imitate me, but be a peaceful prince, and may you apply yourself principally to the alleviation of the burdens of your subjects”. 

Under foreign and domestic pressure, his successors were not able to sustain Louis XIV’s government. 74 years after his death, the ancient regime was overthrown, ringing in the start of the French Revolution.

Barack ObamaOpen Government
Fast-forward three centuries. In the Open Government initiative, American citizens are invited to tell their story, the issues that matter to them, and share their concerns, hopes and policies they want to see carried out. While there is no guarantee that anything will be done with these contributions, at the very least Barack Obama sends out a very important message. In his own words:

“I ask you to believe – not just in my ability to bring about change, but in yours.”

Unlike other presidential candidates, Barack Obama did not solely rely on the social elite for backing. He turned to everyday people. Besides an unprecedented sum of over $650M in campaign funds, this resulted in a thing of far greater value: the support of the public!

Two types of executives
How do these examples of Louis XIV and Barack Obama relate to companies striving to become more innovative? While there are many similarities between company politics and country politics, I would like to focus on leadership. In organisations, both large and small, we can distinguish between the same two types of people:

Rulers: I know everything better then you do. I tell other people what to do, how, and when to do it, because I’m the boss. I will get rid of you if you don’t agree with me. I respect people in more powerful positions then me. I doubt other people’s opinions and ideas. I keep juniors, subordinates, and ‘crazy people’ down. I deserve praise and reward for my accomplishments. I am never to blame for failure. I am afraid for my reputation and position of power, which I attained by bragging and bluffing. I start all my sentences with the same letter.

Leaders: All the people in the world together know far more then I do. Everyone deserves respect, regardless of their position. People that have a fresh and unusual view can provide valuable insights. Sharing with, and learning from others is not scary. Investing in a durably successful organisation is most important. Failure is a chance to learn. Doing a good job and making sure others can do a good job as well is most important.

As you might have noticed, the above is somewhat polarised for the sake of argument. Additionally, it is important to note that ‘rulers’ are not necessarily obnoxious or conservative people. Several of them are actually highly innovative and successful individuals. Their personal successes are, however, quite irrelevant. Real innovation leaders bring an entire organisation, including the people in it, to a higher level of  innovativeness. An entire organisation being innovative is always more valuable and more sustainable then one person directing innovation from the throne. And, although plain old fashioned good luck is quite important, there is much evidence that truly innovative organisations continuously outperform their less innovative competitors.

Just as any company needs to be innovative and open to achieve a sustainable growth, so should the leaders of these companies. After all, when even the new president of the United States is not afraid to listen, why should the leader of any organisation be? My next blog article will give some tips on how to be an innovative leader.

So do you know any examples of either type? And which type are you?

Tagged , , ,