Посты с тэгом: GE

Don’t Brand Your Innovation Program

Published date: January 24, 2011 в 3:00 am

Tags: branding,corporate innovation program,Deming,ecomagination,GE

Companies should avoid the temptation to brand their innovation program. While it seems like a great way to bring excitement and focus to innovation, branding these programs does just the opposite. Employees become cynical, they wait it out, and they go right back to doing what they were doing before.

I liken this advice to that from Edwards Deming on quality. His 14 Key Principles are legendary in the quality movement worldwide. Principle Number 10 says:

“Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.”

In other words, don’t cheer people on to do something they already do or, worse, don’t know how to do. For example, don’t place huge banners in the cafeteria or on the employee website about the importance of quality. That’s because…they already know it! It annoys employees when the company condescends.

The same is true with innovation. Branding your corporate innovation with hyperbole and slogans only defeats the purpose. But there are some who would argue the merits of branding. It signals leadership support, and it creates enthusiasm. GE’s “Ecomagination” for example, makes a clear statement about the company’s emphasis.

What to do? A recent study on the effects of time pressure on innovation outcome might lend some insight. Michael Hsu and Hsueh-Liang Fan demonstrated that putting time pressure to innovate in a company that already has a high organizational innovation climate actually hurts performance. In other words, cracking the whip on employees who already perform well makes them perform worse. On the other hand, creative outcomes will be enhanced by putting time pressure in companies with a poor innovation culture.

Perhaps the same could be said for branding your innovation program:

In corporate cultures where the innovation climate is strong and well supported, branding the innovation does absolutely no good. It may signal that something is wrong, or the leadership just doesn’t get it.
In corporate cultures where the innovation climate is weak or non-existent, branding the innovation program may give a short term burst of energy and results. ‘Might as well try it…nothing else seems to work.

If you insist on bringing high visibility to your innovation program, don’t brand the entire program. Rather, brand the innovation training program. Signal to your employees that you are serious about giving them the skills that matter most – the ability to create new and useful innovations across the entire enterprise. THAT is worth bringing attention to.

Innovation Allocation

Published date: August 19, 2008 в 10:09 am

Written by: boydadmin

Category: Uncategorized

Tags: allocation,fixedness,GE,innovation,leadership,marketing,R&D

Who leads innovation in your company: marketing or R&D? It’s a trick question, of course. But it’s a useful question for Fortune 100 companies to consider. Has your company made a conscious choice of how it “allocates” this leadership role?
Allocating innovation to one group over the other will yield a different business result. The approaches to innovation by marketing are dramatically different than approaches to innovation by R&D, so the outputs will be dramatically different. The question becomes: which group will outperform the other?   Technical-driven innovation or marketing-driven innovation?
But there is another layer of complexity.  Allocating innovation resources to one group over the other will also yield a different kind of innovation. Market-driven innovation speaks to what is salable. Technology-driven innovation speaks to what is technically possible. Which group delivers the type of innovation that is best suited to the company’s growth strategy? Now the decision of who leads innovation becomes even stickier.
This question is a bit like deciding how to allocate your money in an investment portfolio. Which allocation of funds will give you the total return and the type of return (tax advantaged, etc) that you need? The tempting answer here is to assert innovation leadership should be shared between the two. Diversify your innovation allocation just as you would diversify your personal investment allocation. I’m not so sure.  Here’s why.
For a company that knows exactly what its customers need, then it’s just a matter of developing it. A technically-led innovation approach makes the most sense. L’Oreal, for example, does virtually no market research with its customers. It gathers no “Voice of the Customer.” Yet it knows exactly what customers need because…..L’Oreal tells them! In that case, innovation is led by the technical team to deliver the beauty compounds and formulas that will thrill their customers. The innovation approach here is described as “Problem-to-Solution. Engineers lead this because they excel at solution matching.
A company in the refrigerator space such as GE or Whirlpool needs a different approach. Breakthrough innovation is more likely to be found in the “Solution-to-Problem” mode, best driven by the commercial marketers who excel at problem matching. The marketer needs to use an approach that relieves them of their preconceived notions about what customers want. They seek to avoid “fixedness” around their current product so they can solution spot more freely. Only then will they be able to envision new concepts of home refrigeration that never would have emerged with a technical approach.
The best companies maximize their innovation investment return by consciously allocating leadership to either marketing or to R&D. In the end, innovation is best driven with a team approach but with clear role accountability and direction depending on market conditions and corporate strategy.

Innovation Muscle

Published date: May 18, 2008 в 12:37 pm

Written by: boydadmin

Category: Uncategorized

Tags: apple,Fortune 100,GE,innovation,muscle

The best Fortune 100 companies see innovation as an ongoing capability, not a one time event. These companies work hard to build muscle around this capability so they can deploy it when they need it, where they need it, tackling their hardest problems. Companies do this to keep up with the ever changing landscape both inside and outside the firm.
What does it mean to build innovation muscle? I think of it as the number of people trained, the frequency of using an innovation method, and the percentage of internal departments that have an innovation capability. Call it an Innovation Muscle Index: N (number of trained employees) x F (number of formal ideation events per year using a method) x P (percent of company departments with at least one employee trained in an effective innovation method). IMI = N x F x P .
Building innovation muscle is not much different than building body muscle. Let’s turn to an authority, http://www.muscleprogram.com/, and see how to build body muscle. Here is an exact quote taken from that website. Then I have overlaid my interpretation of it from an innovation point-of-view in parenthesis and in bold font.

“You need to decide what kind of (innovation) muscle form you’re looking to achieve. Drawing on examples nearly everyone is familiar with, you need to decide if you want to look like Arnold (GE) Schwarzenegger (bigger bulk) or Bruce (Apple) Lee (lean and toned). This decision will help you determine which kinds of exercises you do and how you do them.

Now, with all of that out of the way, let’s look at some things you can do to build your (innovation) muscles!
If you don’t already, start getting your body (company) used to working out. Start running (innovating) every day, not jogging (brainstorming) or walking (copying others), to help get your blood (growth) moving and your (innovation) muscles primed for building. You’re not running a race so you don’t need to be a speed demon. Instead, maintain a comfortable and steady pace, taking long and powerful strides (initiatives).
If you want to have the lean, Bruce (Apple) Lee appearance, you need to work with lighter weights and have a higher number of repetitions (innovation workshops) in each set. By doing this, you are toning and shaping your (innovation) muscles into longer and thinner forms. If you want the Arnold (GE) look, you need to work heavier weights (more departments using innovation) and do fewer repetitions. By doing this, you are toning and shaping your (innovation) muscles into short and thicker forms.
Ensure that you have a regular plan, focusing on specific (innovation) muscle groups, and stick to it. Don’t try to work every (innovation) muscle in your body every day of the week. At best, this will lead to burnout (budget crunch) and at worst it will lead to injury (downsizing). Your (innovation) muscles will be getting worked hard, so they need to have time to recuperate.
However, you should rotate your plan every month. For example, let’s say that you are working on your chest, shoulders and biceps (new products) on Monday; your abdomen, forearms and upper back (new services) on Wednesday; and your lower back and legs (new strategies) on Friday. Every four weeks, rotate one day so that you’ll be working on your lower back and legs on Monday; your chest, shoulders and biceps on Wednesday; and your abdomen, forearms and upper back on Friday. The following month, rotate one more day.
This will allow each of your (innovation) muscle groups to take advantage of the fact that you probably workout differently on each of those days. If you simply stick with the exact same schedule forever, then you’ll find yourself quickly running into what are known as “plateaus,” where you just can’t seem to build that (innovation) muscle group past a certain point. With a rotation schedule, you will avoid this problem by giving each (innovation) muscle group the benefit of your natural changing body (company) rhythm.
If you keep these general guidelines in mind and consistently work at your plan with passion and intensity, your body (company) will be more toned (competitive) and shaped (growing) than you ever imagined it could be. While it won’t happen overnight, it probably won’t take as long as you’re afraid it will.”

Посты с тэгом: GE

Don’t Brand Your Innovation Program

Innovation Allocation

Innovation Muscle

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