Category: culture
What are the drivers for innovation in the Middle East? I recently asked this question of my colleagues in the social mediasphere. I wanted to better understand how people innovate in the Middle East, and compare the drivers for innovation here with that of other societies.My question provoked many responses, several of which pointed to one underlying driver – necessity. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. However, necessity is the most basic driver for innovation. Many other societies have moved beyond necessity.In China, for example, innovation is technologically and industrially driven, and their R&D spending matches that of the U.S. and Europe.The Japanese believe that if they lose money, they will recover it, but if they lose time, they won’t. So a driver of innovation there is the need to produce new offerings quickly, and to be the first to market.In the U.S., there are multiple factors … Continue reading
On Wednesday, March 10, 2010, I had the privilege of attending an innovation conference and discussion – Elsevier’s Corporate Connect Event: Implementing a Culture of Innovation. Given the low price tag (free) and complete sponsorship by one company (Elsevier), I was not sure how much information I would be able to apply directly to my company. I was very pleased to find that the event was far from a day long sales pitch and was truly an opportunity to connect and talk about ways to improve innovation within company walls.The event was organized into four presentations and one expert panel discussion (with multiple networking opportunities in-between). Presentation topics:Elsevier’s Innovation Journey (Jeff Honious at Elsevier)Building a Culture of Innovation (Peter Skarzynski at Strategos)Implementing a Culture of Innovation (Mike Hess at Medtronic)Supporting a Culture of Innovation (Cynthia A. Larson at Eaton)The expert panel consisted of four Information Specialists (super librarians) from Eaton, … Continue reading
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I came across Yougme Moon’s “Anti-Creativity Checklist” over at the Harvard Business Review after a tweet from @lindegaard and it got me thinking…In order to build a culture capable of encouraging innovation or creativity (or both), you must first do an inventory of the psychology and mental models in play in your organization.One great way to do this would be to build an ‘anti-innovation checklist’ or an ‘anti-creativity checklist’. If you start watching the vocabulary that people use in meetings where ideas are being discussed, the behavior of senior leadership as it relates to these areas, and most importantly – how people respond – you’ll get a better sense of where your organizational challenges lie with respect to innovation and creativity. Wouldn’t that make such an exercise of great value to an organization?Anyways, as an example, I’ve pulled out the fourteen items on Yougme Moon’s checklist from the video above, … Continue reading
March’s opportunity to contribute your Innovation Perspectives is now here.This monthly feature presents our loyal readers with different perspectives on a single topic all in one place – from several different authors. It gives our innovation community the opportunity to compare, contrast and discuss them in the comments here on Blogging Innovation and with the 2,300+ people in the Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn.Here is this month’s topic for publishing the week of March 29-April 4, 2010:How should firms develop the organizational structure, culture, and incentives (e.g., for teams) to encourage successful innovation?Thank you to Drew Boyd for submitting this month’s topicThank you to Brightidea for sponsoring Blogging Innovation this month. Find out more about Brightidea here.The submission deadline is midnight GMT on March 27, 2010Several contributing authors will be writing articles on this topic, but you are also welcome to submit an article. The process is simple:Submit your article … Continue reading
I had an interesting discussion recently with a company vice-president that asked me what he could do in terms of facilities design to make the work environment more conducive to innovation. Anyone familiar with my Theory of Constraints (TOC) based approach to innovation improvement will know that my response was to ask him if the facility was his innovation bottleneck. After getting an unsure look, I continued and asked what one thing was most constraining his organization’s new product throughput. He pondered my question for a second or two and replied, “I guess I’d have to say that it’s finding more impactful new product ideas.” That made my response simple. “Then if you want to create a better environment for innovation, get out of yours and into theirs.” He stared at me with a puzzled look for a moment then smiled. “So the internal stuff isn’t where I should focus.”Bingo … Continue reading
“Companies are actually living organisms, not machines. We keep bringing in mechanics, when what we need are gardeners.” – Peter Sengeby Mitch DitkoffSustainable innovation, the endless effort to find a better way, cannot be achieved by robotically lining up best practices and imitating them. The real catalyzing agent for renewable innovation is the ground from which these best practices spring – the confluence of purpose, people, and processes better known as culture. From where will the next wave of groundbreaking innovation come?Not from organizations mechanically mimicking each other’s best practices, but from organizations with the authentic commitment to take their stand on ground that has been cultivated for breakthrough.If you check the contents of the most popular books on innovation, the same topics show up again and again: strategy, systems, process, leadership, customer focus, risk, speed to market, prototyping, metrics, mass collaboration, market intelligence, technology, and creative thinking. Clearly, all … Continue reading
