How can a large and old company like 3M maintain a strong ethos of innovation? Larry Wendling, vice-president of 3M’s corporate research labs at its St. Paul (Minn.) campus, thinks he knows. In fact, Wendling, an engineer who joined 3M right out of graduate school in 1977, has boiled it down to a seven-point list. You might call it “The Seven Habits of Highly Innovative Corporations.”
The seven habits include:
1. “From the chief executive on down, the company must be committed to innovation.†Â
2. “The corporate culture must be actively maintained….The philosophy of William L. McKnight, its inspirational leader from 1929 to 1966, is passed along by old-timers like Wendling to every new scientist or engineer. In a nutshell: ‘Hire good people and let them do their job in their own ways. And tolerate mistakes.’â€
3. “Innovation is impossible without a broad base of technology.â€
4. “Talk, talk, talk. Management at 3M has long encouraged networking — formal and informal — among its researchers. Wendling calls this 3M’s secret weapon.â€
5. “Reward employees for outstanding work.â€
6. “Quantify efforts. 3M tallies how much of its revenue comes from products introduced in the past four years to judge whether its R&D money is being spent wisely.â€
7. “Research must be tied to the customer. Employees spend a lot of time with customers to understand what their needs are so they can go back to the labs to come up with valuable products.â€
Here is the full article in Businessweeek.
