Archive for corporate
Idea Cancer: The Danger of Good Ideas (Growing Out of Control)
Posted by: | CommentsNussbaum on Design (BusinessWeek) has a though-provoking column that mentions several innovation principles from designer Diego Rodriquez. One of these is “Killing good ideas is a good idea.” That’s the kind of counter-intuitive blasphemy that merits reflection. Of course, developing good ideas is essential, but without the killing phase, good ideas can lead to “idea cancer.” Ideas from late-stage idea cancer strangle many organizations and many minds–when ideas grow without control, unregulated and unchecked by proper objectives and reality. Ideas can metastasize and choke the arteries of business, cloud the mind, and weaken all life support systems in the end, unless they are regulated and killed at the appropriate time. So many great failures begin with good ideas, and lots of them.
Innovation is often more about execution and planning than idea generation. A weak idea, implemented ITERATIVELY with the right talent, can be adjusted based on feedback from the system (e.g., the market) and become successful. Even mediocre ideas can beat good ideas if there are great skills, good leaders, and good execution. But add an occasional great idea to the mix and the success can be remarkable, if the dream isn’t cluttered with lots of distracting good ideas along the way.
Innovation requires discipline. One has to focus and learn iteratively in the process, and not let unrestrained good ideas shut down your innovation engines with “idea cancer.”
Dark Energy and Dark Matter: What Astrophysics Can Teach Us about Innovation Success
Posted by: | Comments
The Matter-Energy of the Cosmos is Mostly Dark Matter and Dark Energy
It’s that way in the business world. too. Companies can create tidy org charts and draft neat process maps to describe how they work, but the unseen reality outside the visible systems may be what really dominates operations. Increasingly, experts in knowledge management are learning that easily overlooked and often invisible intangibles can dominate corporate value and performance. Numerous intangible transactions may be essential to the success of a company, including casual information sharing between trusted friends, helpful exchanges of tips and best practices between employees or between external partners and internal employees, or loyalty that is gained when people are included in decision making. The invisible linkages and hard-to-observe exchanges in a company’s internal an external ecosystems may be the real engines of value creation, regardless of what is on a process map or workstream. By not understanding the value of such intangibles, corporations can easily break key linkages and crush subtle engines of value creation.
Many companies focus on their “value chains” – a term popularized by Michael Porter in his seminal 1985 work, Competitive Advantage. The value chain describes the linear chain of events as materials and products move from sourcing through manufacturing and out to the market. It is a highly useful paradigm for manufacturing and was highly applicable to much of the economy in the era when Porter was doing his research. But since that time, the explosion of the knowledge economy has changed the way we work and create value. One of my favorite authors, Verna Allee, a revolutionary expert in knowledge management, has detailed the move from the value chain to modern ecosystems and Value Networks in her book, The Future of Knowledge: Increasing Prosperity through Value Networks (Burlington, MA: Elsevier Science, 2003). Verna Allee and Associates have introduced a clever, methodical tool called Value Network Analysis for analyzing and visualizing the transactions of intangibles and tangibles that affect a business.
After my training in Value Network Analysis by Verna and her associate, Oliver Schwabe, an exciting new perspective on business and human behavior opened up. I have been highly impressed with the power of Value Network Analysis and the insights that it can rapidly deliver for a company. The Value Network Analysis work that Innovationedge has done as part of larger projects for some of our clients has been a very exciting part of my work since joining Cheryl Perkins’ exciting company. We value the tool enough that we had Verna Allee speak at the 2008 CoDev conference to introduce other business leaders to the basic concepts behind Value Network Analysis. I’m very pleased to see a community emerging of people using Value Network Analysis and developing exciting tools for it.
Here are some resources that you may find helpful in further exploring this area:
- Value-Networks.com
- Hosted Value Network Tools
- A Value Network Approach (PDF) – 2002 Whitepaper by Verna Allee
- ValueNet Works™ Analysis for the Discovery of Viagra (PDF)
Part of the initial output in Value Network Analysis are maps, called “holomaps,” showing human entities as nodes and transactions of tangible or intangible items between them. There is much that can be learned from such holomaps – a topic for later discussion. For now I’ll show you two sample holomaps I created to illustrate simple ecosystems. One shows several external nodes around a manufacturer and the other shows some structure within part of a corporation. For simplicity, the maps lack all the labels explaining the transactions.
Holomap of an External Ecosystem
Holomap of an Internal Ecosystem
One interesting approach is to use the “holomaps” you get in Value Network Analysis as tools for “what if” scenarios to explore what new partners might do for your business model, or what new business models might do for your ecosystem. Using holomaps to explore innovation ecosystems is a particularly fruitful approach for those doing open innovation and wondering who should be in their external ecosystem.
We have further information on this topic that we’d be happy to share with you. It’s certainly something you should look at to understand how business really works.
Feeding Innovation: Nurturing the Social Component
Posted by: | CommentsMany creative corporate employees trying to innovate fail because they don’t fully grasp the social component of innovation. It is a social beast that must be fed and nurtured in many ways. It requires healthy relationships and many connections within your organization in order to help your peers and others recognize and act on the value you provide. For companies and individual inventors, developing the ties with the right people is again critical for innovation success, even at the earliest stages of your journey. The social component is often far more important that the technical components of innovation.
In this Pixetell video presentation, I briefly discusses the social side of innovation and give a plug for one of my favorite books, Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, a resource that can help corporations and individuals better “feed innovation.” Keith’s book, coupled with the insights we provide in Conquering Innovation Fatigue, can help you build the right relationships you need for innovation success.
Who’s Mining the Shop? The Need to Mine for Inventions in Companies, Universities
Posted by: | Comments“Who’s mining the shop?” This is a question that needs to be asked for every university, company, and organization capable of creating inventions. In my corporate and academic experience (am the former Corporate Patent Strategist at Kimberly-Clark Corp., and was a professor before that), numerous inventions never get the protection they deserve because nobody was there to coach the inventors, to recognize the potential for intellectual property, and to do the extra work required to develop a sound IP strategy for the work. Many inventors know almost nothing about intellectual property. Many don’t even recognize that what they have developed is an invention. This can be especially true in businesses when the invention is developed outside of a normal R&D department, such as a new business method or software tool. But even research scientists and professors may miss the patent potential of their work unless there is someone there to coach and guide them. Technology transfer offices are charged with this task in many universities, and legal departments or patent review boards have this duty in many companies, but both can miss huge opportunities unless there is someone who goes out to mine the organization for inventions. That involves reaching out to groups and individuals, educating them (often in presentations or group meetings) about intellectual property, being available for one-on-one discussions, asking questions, looking for signs of exciting developments, being an advocate and mentor, and constantly mining for IP gold.
One of the many exciting experiences I had at Kimberly-Clark came after recognizing that a particular remote mill had developed some clever solutions to a few problems they were facing. After further inquiries, I learned that the mill had some very bright engineers who were solving lots of problems in clever ways. I suggested that there may be some patent opportunities coming out of that mill, and arranged a trip to spend a couple days there giving presentations and doing interviews of team members to see what they might have. I found many exciting and potentially patentable advances from their work, and ended up working with them to generate nearly a dozen invention disclosures, several of which were filed as patents. This created a lot of excitement for the mill and helped them pay more attention to the IP potential of what they were doing.
As with that mill experience, part of successful mining involves helping people write up the initial invention disclosure. When people are very busy and writing disclosures doesn’t fit their job description, someone needs to be the assistant/mentor who basically writes it for them, taking away the pain of the IP process. It requires resources, but it can lead to substantial returns.
Look over your organization and consider what you could achieve by applying some additional resources to help generate IP through proactive mining. It’s something we can help you with at Innovationedge. Something I personally really enjoy doing. And I consider it an important step toward overcoming innovation fatigue in some organizations.
Who’s mining the shop? Great question.
Beware Unintended Innovation Killers from Laws, Regulations, and Corporate Policies
Posted by: | CommentsIn the game of chess, experienced players know that a move that looks tempting can often open up fatal weaknesses that deliver swift defeat later in the game. With experience, discipline, and solid strategic skills, good players can look several moves ahead and be aware of broad patterns and principles that can give one an improved position with options for success in endgames too far away to calculate in advance. Novices look for easy fixes to threats and quick attacks based on looking just a few moves ahead. Many times they are surprised at how their moves to solve a problem or gain an advantage make them easy prey. Their style of playing is fraught with moves that bring unintended consequences later in the game.
One of the great tragedies of human decision making is the pernicious inability to consider far-reaching implications of an action. To avoid harmful unintended consequences of a decision, there are two possible solutions: 1) get assistance from experts providing guidance from many difference perspectives and do the best to consider new areas and issues that were previously overlooked, and 2) follow proven principles and strategies that increase the odds of success in spite of the impossibility of calculating everything. Both of these principles can be and probably should be used.
Innovation, for all the voices hyping it, is one of the least considered factors when policy makers start shaking things up. Whether it’s a new law, a tax policy, a regulation, or corporate policies, decision makers easily overlook innovation–real innovation, not just money spent in the name of innovation–because they tend to overlook the individuals who are the source of innovation. Real innovation begins in the minds of individuals with a vision and must be nurtured to succeed. The voice of innovators, including the voice of entrepreneurs, inventors, university professors post-docs, corporate R&D staff, etc., is rarely heard. The voices of CEOs or other top leaders from big companies may be heard. The voices of direct reports to a CEO may be heard. The voices of celebrities and activists may be heard, but who actually seeks out and listens to the real innovators or prospective innovators in our economy? Who considers what impact a law or policy will have on those individuals and their incentives to innovate or their ability to succeed? They are among the voices that should be carefully considered when making policies to avoid unintended consequences that might crush innovation and economic growth.
There are several general principles that should also be considered by policy makers. Innovation at the personal level, which is one of the themes of Conquering Innovation Fatigue, requires personal liberty. It requires a system in which individuals and companies are motivated to take on the high risks of innovation because there are incentives to succeed. These incentives for many require a form of government in which intellectual property rights are respected as well as property rights in general. When property can be seized capriciously, or when the fruits of one’s innovative labors can be taken on a whim or taxed to death, why bother innovating?
Every law, every policy, every act of government should be constrained by general principles, such as those espoused in the US Constitution, and done with care to avoid harming the economy with unintended consequences that trample on the delicate flower of innovation.
Death Panels for Innovation: How Are Your Corporate IP Review Boards Doing?
Posted by: | Comments
Is Your Company on the Cutting Edge of Innovation? Your IP Review Board May Be.
Death panels have been a hot topic for speculation from some folks worried about health care reform, but in the world of innovation, genuine death panels have long been in place in corporations. Innovation death panels, disguised as intellectual property review committees or IP review boards, have been sending great inventions and great business concepts to an early death for decades. Further, the ways these panels operate can kill innovation at a broader level by discouraging inventors, keeping them out of the loop, and ensuring that whatever is left of their drive is unlikely to bear fruit.
Rationing has to be a reality when it comes to IP because only a small fraction of potentially valuable concepts justify the expense of filing a patent. But failure to pursue a patent need not be an innovation killing event. It can, in fact, be a valuable opportunity. When operated properly, the IP review board can provide a tremendous opportunity to educate, motivate, guide, and inspire corporate inventors, even when the current invention they have brought forward is not right for patenting.
One key is treating the inventors with respect and giving them a chance to be heard, as well as a chance to hear and learn from the review board. Many inventions are not properly understood before a decision is made, and inventors facing that can become cynical. Many inventors in corporations also don’t fully grasp how decisions are made and what the review board is looking for. Use the review process as a way to help the inventor understand the process and the criteria for decision making. ideally, you have a written strategy statement that provides guidelines and specifies where innovation is needed, helping the inventors know what to invent. You can also use the review board experience to recognize the contributions of inventors, treat them with respect, and help them feel motivated and connected, even if their first few tries don’t go anywhere.
The culture engendered by your IP review board or committee can be a matter of life or death for innovation in your company. Don’t let it become a death panel. Watch the process through the eyes of the inventors–listen to the voice of the innovator–and make sure you have a healthy and wholesome system that strengthens innovation, not decapitates it.
In Conquering Innovation Fatigue, we discuss the importance of understanding innovation from the perspective of innovators, and make recommendations for managing and motivating prospective innovators in the corporation, including suggestions for running IP review boards and guidelines on building trust, aligning innovation efforts with corporate needs, and creating cultures of innovation. Sections on corporate innovation are written for both employees seeking to develop innovations and for leaders seeking to encourage it. You must understand and conquer or work around the many innovation fatigue factors that impede innovation in so many corporations.
Conquering Innovation Fatigue for Those in Corporate R&D
Posted by: | CommentsRecently I spoke to a group of engineers, scientists and managers about the challenges of innovation fatigue within corporate R&D. I condensed that presentation down to just 14 minutes and have made it available using Pixetell.com, a nice system for recording a presentation.A short URL for the presentation is http://tinyurl.com/jlpres1.
Engineers and scientists are often puzzled by the decision-making processes in corporations, and sometimes get frustrated over the apparent blindness of others to see the potential of an invention or new product or process. Others, however, may see the opportunity through the “Lens of Risk” and find compelling reasons to be concerned. Understanding those other perspectives is one of the topics of this presentation.
Those managing R&D also need to understand the personal aspects of innovation and appreciate the tenuous “will to share” that keeps employees tied to the objectives of the corporation. When the will to share is broken, innovation can dry up quickly and silently, in spite of large budgets and enthusiastic efforts.
The Upcoming Innovation Crisis: Talent Management
Posted by: | CommentsDavid Semb’s outstanding essay, “The Upcoming Crisis in Talent Management” for Chief Learning Officer magazine, points to a tsunami of trouble ahead for US corporations in terms of retaining the know-how and experience that makes business run. The demographics point to a huge loss of experience and knowledge in the next few years. While innovation is not his focus, the threats he describes may be especially severe for innovation talent, including R&D staff.
Consider these alarming statistics: 40 percent of the U.S. labor force is currently made up of baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964)…. However, by 2010, there will be a 52 percent increase in workers in the 55-to-64 age bracket compared with 2005, and 40 percent of the U.S. workforce will be considering retirement…. The first wave of executive retirements will begin in the next four years….
While current leaders may work a few extra years before retirement due to the financial crisis, this will not significantly lessen the impact of the near-term surge in leadership vacancies at U.S. companies.
Retirees will take with them millions of years of on-the-job experience. Yet there are far too few emerging leaders to replace them.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a shortfall of 10 million qualified employees beginning in 2010, with a gulf likely to increase in following years.
According to Deloitte Consulting LLP, by 2012, the U.S. labor force will be short 6 million college graduates to fill new jobs and to replace retired workers. By then, according to The Conference Board, workers from ages 35 to 44 — the subset of the workforce that fills the majority of senior management ranks — will decline by 19 percent.
Seventy-four percent of U.S. business executives surveyed agreed the U.S. will experience a shortage of skilled workers over the next decade, according to BusinessWeek Research Services for AARP.
David Semb is worried about the loss of executive leadership. I’m also worried about the loss of seasoned innovators and the experienced leaders and connectors who facilitate innovation. Much innovation is fueled by or enabled by experienced people with vast, healthy networks that can bring multiple disciplines together or can reach across a value chain or value network to get things done. Suddenly replace such people with brilliant, talented new hires out of college and the almost-invisible ecosystem that gave life to business growth and innovation can wither or even collapse. Likewise, if a majority of your experienced innovators who know how the company works and how to get things done are suddenly retiring, innovation can come to a standstill. Great care is needed to plan for and prepare for these transitions, to help transfer skill and knowledge effectively and to build new nodes in the ecosystem that can keep it healthy and self-sustaining. This does not happen by accident. This does not happen by laying off your older workers and hiring cheaper replacements.
Semb offers some advice for coping with the tsunami of change. Here are a couple of his suggestions:
- Closely align talent management and succession planning with business strategy. Development must tie to strategy, yet a 2006 McKinsey & Co. study showed that more than half of their senior management interviewees felt that talent management strategies did not align with business strategies.
- Train like the future depends on it. Invest in high-impact leadership and business skills training, including strategic thinking, financial acumen and leadership skills….
- Become an employer of choice. Transform the organization into an employer of choice by establishing compensation plans, training programs, remote work arrangements and the scope of job responsibilities so that emerging talent is inspired and motivated.
Many large American companies are responding to the current economic downturn by laying off employees, slashing benefits, imposing hiring freezes, and taking other steps that will create lasting impressions on the rising generation of employees. The wiser companies are finding ways to continue hiring the best talent and look attractive as a potential employer, even though they may be forced to hire less than normal. The wiser companies are willing to take on pain for the next few years in order to rise triumphant for decades to come as they maintain the talent they will need for the future. The talent management crisis, both for business leadership and innovation, is one that cannot be neglected. Focusing on short term fixes now may cost you your future.
Don’t Let Innovation Fatigue Burst Your Bubble: Another Demo from Magic and Innovation
Posted by: | CommentsAs part of the series on Magic and Innovation, today I’m using a simple magic trick with a balloon to illustrate some of the trials in producing successful innovations within a corporation. I begin by discussing the challenges and barriers that inventors and prospective innovators within a corporation face.
Available on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiF6IQO79ag
In this 4-minute video clip, I illustrate some of the principles from our book, Conquering Innovation Fatigue, using one of my favorite magic tricks, a version of the cut and restored paper trick. It speaks to the need for the innovation community in a corporation and other elements to be aligned with the true objectives and goals of the corporation. I performed this effect for the audience of the CoDev conference on open innovation in 2009, where I came up with this line: “If you’re not aligned, you’re skewed.” See if it fits.
From YouTube.com/magicinnovation (the Magic Innovation channel): “Analogy of the Cut and Restored Paper Strip: Alignment and Connectivity for Innovation Success,” August 13, 2009. Recorded in Appleton, Wisconsin. All rights reserved.