Download How to be an Innovative Organization?

How to be an Innovative
Organization?
A Presentation made to
Executives and Managers of
Blue Star Ltd.
Prof. Vidyanand Jha
IIM Calcutta
September 9, 2005
Creativity and Innovation
• What is creativity?
• What is innovation?
• Any names? From what you know? From
Blue Star?
Creative Organization
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Growth Strategy
Competitive Strategy
innovative scanning
structure to facilitate innovation
control to facilitate innovation
culture building for innovation
motivation
conflict resolution
Creative Organization
• External Factors
– Turbulent environment
– unexpected change
– sophisticated and demanding customers
– vulnerable
– ambitious and conflicting goals
– organization doing very well
Creative Organization
• internal factors
– ambitious and high operating targets
– conflicting goals
– desire to make organization unique and
distinctive
– diverse output
– customized products
– preference for new products, sophisticated
and off beat, calculated risks, operating
flexibility, innovative and expert orientation
Creative Organization
• Expertise
– technical
– procedural
– intellectual
• Creative Thinking Skills
– flexible, imaginative, challenging status quo,
persevering through dry spells
• Intrinsic Motivation
– passion and interest
Managerial practices
• Challenge
– matching right people with right assignment
– stretch
– good information
• Freedom
– concerning process not necessarily ends
– stable and clearly defined goals
– false autonomy
Managerial Practices
• Resources
– time and money
• fake or impossibly tight deadlines
• sufficient resources
– physical space
Managerial Practices
• Work Group Features
– mutually supportive
– diversity of perspectives and backgrounds
– shared excitement to team’s goal
– willingness to help others in difficult times
– appreciation of other’s knowledge and
perspectives
Managerial Practices
• Supervisory encouragement
– recognition
– lack of negativity
– no premature evaluation
– acting as role models
Managerial Practices
• organizational support
– leader’s role
– systems and procedures
– recognition and reward
– mandating information sharing and
collaboration
– tackling politics
Mechanisms to Stimulate Creativity
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Creative Overloading
Creative Benchmarking
Parallel Groups
Knowledge Discovery
Creative Thinking Network
Mind Mapping
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Organizational Experiments
Stakeholders’ Councils
Creative Surveys
Reverse Brainstorming
Intraprenuership
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Kaizen
Multiplication of Change Agents
Creative Scenario Building
Creativity Training
Exnovation
Skills for Sponsoring Innovation
• Risk taking
– Ability to identify what the potential pay off
from an action or venture is.
– Ability to identify the significant risks in the
venture.
– How the payoff fro a venture or its cost or the
risks associated with the venture can be
changed by one’s actions.
– Risk preference.
Skills for Sponsoring Innovation
• Ability to spot opportunities
– Knowledge of high opportunity industries,
markets, technologies, regions etc.
– The ability to spot opportunities in social
adversity.
Design of Creative Organizations
• Creativogenic Management Style
– Japanese Management Style
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Consensual participative decision making
High intra-firm mobility
Lifetime grooming and training of staff
Paternalism and job security
Collaborative relationship with unions, vendors and
financial institutions
• staff compensation tied to corporate performance
via Bonus
• Emphasis on building staff loyalty
Design of Creative Organizations
• Creativogenic Policy Framework
• Creativogenic Organizational Cultures
– Risk taking, proactivity, novelty, path breaking,
traditions, development, results/rules,
experimentation, values, nature, vision of
destiny, pragmatism, providence, fate.
Design of Creative Organizations
• Creativogenic workplace climate
– General encouragement of creativity
• Encouragement of risk taking, idea generation,
valuing of innovation, fair and supportive
evaluation of new ideas, appropriate reward for
creativity and recognition of creativity.
– Supervisory encouragement
• Making goals clear to the subordinates,
encouraging subordinates to interact freely with
each other and the supervisor, and support of the
superior to a team’s work and ideas.
Design of Creative Organizations
• Creativogenic workplace climate
– Workgroup encorgaement to diverse skills in the
group, mutual receptivity to ideas and initiatives of
members of the group, and at the same time freedom
to challenge each other’s ideas; shared commitments.
– Sense of high staff autonomy in day to day work and
a sense of ownership and control over their own ideas
and work.
– Adequate resources.
– Optimal workload pressure and optimal sense of
challenge.
Lessons from 3M
• Innovation doesn't start with recognition
and applause. Dedicated innovators
recognize that they know their own field
better than others do. They keep on with
their work while quietly communicating
their confidence-and knowledge-to fellow
3Mers. The credibility they earn is based
on their consistent honesty and accuracy.
Lessons from 3M
• One way to convey the importance of a
new innovation is through contagious
enthusiasm. Getting fellow 3Mers to
support new lines of research depends
both on hard work and a willingness to
explain the new possibilities you see.
Once support is obtained, persistence can
become a team effort.
Lessons from 3M
• Innovation isn't just a one-time
breakthrough event. The results of
innovation flow from a lifetime commitment
to learning and creative experimentation.
To set the highest professional standards
for oneself is the key to unlocking
innovative excellence.
Lessons from 3M
• True innovators relish the process of
discovery. They know that trial-and-error is
part of the challenge, and that so-called
mistakes can offer vital clues that lead to
success. By focusing their research on
real-life customer needs, the best 3M
innovators make their successes count.
Lessons from 3M
• Sometimes it pays to get out of the
laboratory and into the customer's
workplace to find out about real-world
product needs. By listening to customers,
Shigeyoshi Ishii was able to fulfill a dream.
Lessons from 3M
• One sign of a true innovator is the ability to
focus beyond the original goal and spot
what others might overlook. In 1993, Mark
Ellis, research specialist, Specialty
Materials Manufacturing Division, showed
that talent while he was conducting safety
studies for a 3M pilot plant.
Lessons from 3M
• In order to transform their ideas into
realities, innovators need a variety of
skills—including the ability to build a
committed team.
Lessons from 3M
• True innovators can see the benefits
hidden in technological challenges. They
thrive where others might find confusion
and frustration.
Lessons from 3M
• True innovators can see possibilities
where others see only the tried-and-true.
But seeing the possibility isn't always
enough. Sometimes, an innovator needs
to create the materials and technologies to
turn that vision into a reality.
Lessons from 3M
• Finding new ways to fit the pieces of 3M
expertise together can lead to tremendous
product breakthroughs -- and innovation
Lessons from 3M
• Innovation stems from the ability to face a
problem head-on, assess what is needed,
and then search for imaginative solutions.
Lessons from 3M
• 3M innovation is sparked by the creative
freedom the company grants to gifted
researchers. At 3M, patience and tenacity
combine to develop existing technologies
into breakthrough technological platforms.
Lessons from 3M
• Having the perseverance to back that
good idea -- and ultimately to rally others
to your side -- is the hallmark of successful
3M innovators.
Lessons from 3M
• 3M innovation begins in response to
customer needs. Listening to the
customer, understanding the customer's
business – these are key starting points
for transforming the basis of competition.
Lessons from 3M
• 3M innovation thrives on tenacity and
ceaseless experimentation. It is "handson" in the ultimate sense – with 3M
researchers using all means at their
disposal to test their ideas.
Lessons from 3M
• 3M listens to its customers. And when
employees discover an important
customer need, they have the freedom to
pursue a solution.
Lessons from 3M
• At 3M, innovation is everyone's job, and it
is a job that's never finished.
Lessons from 3M
• 3M innovation is fueled by the needs and
ideas of its customers. To fulfill customer
needs, 3M dedicates itself to finding
practical solutions.
Lessons from 3M
• At 3M, innovative freedom stems from
confidence in the future.
Lessons from 3M
• 3M's flair for innovation isn't always
predictable – to 3M's competitors, or even
to 3M itself. But 3M always can be
counted on to provide its innovations for
the maximum benefit of its customers,
partners and the public.
Lessons from 3M
• In its International Operations, 3M takes a
long-term perspective. It likes to enter a
market as soon as possible, then grow
with the economy. When 3M establishes
operations in a new location, it expects to
participate in the economic, cultural and
social fabric of the country.
Lessons from 3M
• 3M innovation focuses on the real needs
of real human beings. It not only changes
the basis of competition, it also changes
the quality of life for the better. It can even
save lives.
Lessons from 3M
• The course of innovation is often spurred
by chance events. 3M not only dedicates
itself to innovative products, but also to the
ongoing improvements of those products.
Lessons from 3M
• 3M works by understanding the specific
needs of customers and markets.
Innovation consists not only in developing
new products, but in finding new markets
for them – wherever in the world they may
be found.
Lessons from 3M
• The 3M dedication to innovation is always
a team effort. Innovators learn that it's
better to ask for forgiveness than for
permission.
Lessons from 3M
• At 3M, innovation comes from questioning
the accepted wisdom as to how a product
should work. The 3M commitment to new
ideas means giving employees the
initiative to turn their ideas into reality.
Lessons from 3M
• Both creativity and innovation involve an
element of luck. Well-prepared companies
like 3M tend to be the luckiest.
Lessons from 3M
• At 3M, innovation is everyone's job. Those
who show talent, initiative and creativity
will be given a chance to pursue their
research dreams – regardless of their
formal training and background.
Lessons from 3M
• 3M is willing to back long-term innovative
research because it is confident that
breakthrough ideas will lead to practical
solutions for customers. 3M also is willing
and able to innovate "overnight" to satisfy
urgent customer needs.