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Issue a Declaration of Innovation

Paul Sloane — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:59:20 +0000

Many CEOs and leaders talk about the importance of innovation in their organisations. But often their words are bland and vague – just a form of management-speak. If you want people to really believe then why not explain exactly what you mean with a Declaration of Innovation. The Declaration of Innovation is a statement of commitment and intent. It should contain the following elements:

a) An explanation of why innovation is critical for the organisation.

b) A list of some of the key areas where innovation is needed – e.g. launching new products or services, breaking into new markets, replacing processes with better ones, finding new ways to source materials, reducing costs, recruiting and motivating people, partnering and so on.

c) A request for every employee to contribute his or her ideas.

d) A commitment to listen and respond to all ideas.

e) A commitment to allocate resources – in particular time, training and money – for creativity, idea development and innovation.

f) An idea management and evaluation process.

g) A determination to look for ideas from all sources including outside the organisation.

h) An affirmation of a positive attitude towards risk and failure. In particular employees will not be criticised or blamed for honest innovative endeavours that do not succeed.

The Declaration of Innovation becomes a manifesto for change in the organisation. It endorses the vision, culture and processes of innovation. It is made available to all employees. New starters get it as part of their documents of employment. It is available on the intranet. It is a powerful reminder to everyone that innovation is not just a buzzword; it is part of the DNA of the organisation.

Taken from The Innovative Leader published by Kogan Page

Paul Sloane

A Leader’s Role Model – The Sat Nav

Paul Sloane — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 11:14:59 +0000

If you want to be a better leader then take a look at the satellite navigation system (GPS or Sat Nav) in your car. Here is what it can teach:

1. The Sat Nav stays focused on the destination. Regardless of blocked roads, obstacles, traffic and diversions it continues to focus on finding a way of reaching the strategic goal – the destination. In the same way a great leader continues to focus on the vision and the strategic goal despite short-term tactical difficulties.

2. The Sat Nav is flexible about how to get there. It is not committed to one way of reaching the destination; it is quite happy to find a different way when necessary. Likewise the leader should be committed to the goals but open-minded about how to achieve them.

3. The Sat Nav stays calm no matter what. Even if the driver and passengers screw up all the instructions the Sat Nav remains unemotional and supportive. It never gets angry or loses its temper. A good leader is calm and reassuring with his or her team even when they get things wrong or hit problems.

4. The Sat Nav updates the driver on progress and directions. A good leader continually communicates with the team to emphasise the importance of reaching the goal, what the next steps are and how they can play their role in getting there.

Of course there are many other skills and attributes that a great leader needs. But staying focused on the goal, being calm, being flexible and communicating well are absolutely essential. Become a Sat Nav Leader and take your team to its destination.

Paul Sloane

Do you want the people who work for you to be happy?

Paul Sloane — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 09:53:29 +0000

It is a common fallacy among managers that they want their staff to be happy because happy people are more productive. This may be true, but it is only part of the story. Of course, as a manager, you do not want your people to feel unhappy about coming to work. People who are miserable at work will most likely be unproductive and sooner or later they will leave. But that does not mean that your number one objective should be to make them happy.

Let’s look at the happiness issue. What if people like to work in your organization because it is comfortable, easy work and a friendly environment where they can chat with their friends, drink a cup of coffee and browse the internet? Under these circumstances they would be contented and glad to come in to work but what are they motivated to achieve there?

Instead of happy people, what you want are passionate people. You want your staff to come into work because they believe that what they are doing is really worthwhile; they believe in the goals and mission of the organization. In this way they will be motivated to work harder, to find better ways to help customers and to be more entrepreneurial in their approach. The ideal is when people are committed to the vision of the organization and can see how they can contribute to reaching that goal.

It follows that as the leader you should focus on two things. First, you should clearly communicate the vision and objectives for the organization and discuss with each individual how their role fits in and why it is important. This should be a dialogue in which you assess whether they are really committed to the vision and where you ask for their ideas about how they, you and the team can work together to make it happen. Secondly you should try to remove all the issues, great and small, which make their work more difficult or make them unhappy Eliminate the obstacles and give them the support they need so that they can achieve their objectives.

Is summary, you do not want unhappy staff but you do not want happy and complacent staff either. You want people working for you who are satisfied with the day to day aspects of their work environment and who are passionate about achieving the long-term goals of the business because they agree that they are worthwhile. You should work with them to help them clearly see how their work contributes to reaching these goals.

Paul Sloane

Success can be the Enemy of Innovation

Paul Sloane — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 15:09:34 +0000

When thing are going well we can become blinded. Success becomes a prophylactic against disruptive ideas. Why should we change a winning formula? Don’t mess with success! These are the sorts of things people say. And yet the business cemetery is littered with companies that were shooting stars – a brilliant success for a while followed by an inexorable fall to earth. Gary Hamel says, ‘Success breeds stewards, not entrepreneurs.’ People want to conserve and nurture what they have. In this way business success can deter risk and entrepreneurial action.

Clayton Christensen in his book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, gives cogent explanations for this process. He gives examples drawn from fields as varied as steel mills to disk drives. He shows that as new technologies come along the leaders in the previous technologies fail to make the switch until it is too late. They make the classic mistake of listening to their customers! The customers tell them that they like their products and want bigger better, faster, slicker versions of the same. They see the new technologies as risky and lower quality and they fear cannibalization of their mainstream revenues. Consequently it tends to be the newcomers who develop the new technologies and then eventually win over customers.

The political forces within the business tend to be inimical to new ideas. There is considerable revenue associated with the current successful model. Careers have been built on its growth. Any change to a new model threatens those revenues and those reputations.

The innovative leader has to vigorously fight the complacency of success. What is needed is a restless hunger for experimentation and change. The current success is temporary and a useful platform for the greater things ahead. We can only find those things by constantly testing new ways of doing things.

Paul Sloane

Two Thinking Tips for Leaders

Paul Sloane — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:34:13 +0000

If you run a company then you are probably burdened with a plethora of troubles. You have all sorts of headaches, problems and surprises to sort out every day. It is hard to stand back and focus on the big strategic issues – but that is exactly what you have to do. Here are a couple of thinking exercises to help you approach the challenge afresh.

Imagine it is your first day. This method is recommended by Andy Grove, CEO of Intel. Imagine that tomorrow is your first day as CEO. The previous incumbent has been fired by the Board and it is your job to move in and sort things out. If you were starting from scratch what would you say to the staff? What vision and direction would you give them? Who would you hire and who would you fire? What projects would you prioritise or cancel? What would your primary focus be? If these things are critical for a new starter then surely they are critical for you. This thinking exercise encourages you to forget about the short-term problems, history and legacy issues – and to focus on the major strategic priorities instead.
Imagine that you have been diagnosed with a very serious condition. The doctor has said that you must leave your job in two months and take retirement. What would you do? Who would you delegate tasks to? How would you transfer your day to day responsibilities? Plan your own exit and legacy. What are the key things to complete in the next two months? If you could do this and set the company on the right course then why not do it now and so free you to add value in some new and strategic way? This method was suggested by Oren Harari and Tom Peters. It will help you to delegate more, build a succession plan, focus on key issues and liberate your time for new ventures.

We tend to think that a CEO’s job is about execution – and it is. But it is also about thinking, imagining, envisioning and communicating. Take more time for these activities and you will be a better leader.

Paul Sloane

Innovation needs Passion

Paul Sloane — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:00:57 +0000

People will not follow an unenthusiastic leader. They will follow someone who has a vision and is passionate about it. Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela showed great passion for what they believed – it was what made them great leaders.

The sales training expert Robin Fielder says, ‘Never, ever forget that people are more persuaded by your convictions than by your arguments.’

Jim Collins puts it like this; the good to great companies did not say, ‘Okay folks, let’s get passionate about what we do.’ Sensibly, they went about it the other way round entirely: We should only do those things that we can get passionate about. Kimberley-Clark executives made the shift to paper-based consumer products in large part because they could get more passionate about them.

Here is an exercise that we sometimes conduct on leadership courses. Think for a moment about a key component of your vision for what you want to achieve for the business this year. Choose a single important goal that you as a leader want to accomplish. Now imagine that you expressed that goal to your people in a dull, boring, unenthusiastic way. What would happen? Now consider how you could communicate the goal again, but this time with passion, with energy, with commitment, with enthusiasm. If you were receiving those two kinds of messages how would you react? Which message would inspire you to change your behaviour, to do something extraordinary, to go the extra mile?

Focus on the things that you want to change, the most important challenges you face and be passionate about overcoming them. Your energy and drive will translate itself into direction and inspiration for your people.

It is no good filling your bus with contented, complacent passengers. You want evangelists, passionate supporters; people who believe that reaching the destination is really worthwhile; people who are on a mission to make the world a better place. This drive and enthusiasm starts with the leader. If you want to inspire people to innovate, to change the way they do things and to achieve extraordinary results then you have to be passionate about what you believe in and you have to communicate that passion every time you speak.

Paul Sloane

Allocate Time for Innovation

Paul Sloane — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:43:38 +0000

One of the commonest barriers to innovation is lack of time. People are just too busy doing their day job to spend time trying new things. The common assumption is that working hard and working long hours are good things and sufficient for success. The mantra is – ‘Focus on delivering this quarter’s results.’

It is as though we are so busy building rafts to cross the river that we never look up to consider building a bridge, or a tunnel or a dam or fording the river or building boats or planes or all the other things we could do. We just focus on producing those rafts.

If you want people to be creative then set the goal (e.g. crossing the river) and then challenge them to come up with ideas. Give them time and some resources to test their ideas – to build prototypes, or to investigate what people elsewhere are doing.

Google allows its people to spend one day a week on innovative ideas. Is this a wasteful luxury? No. It has led to remarkable innovations such as Google Earth, Froogle and Gmail. Genentech has a similar provision for its people. Most organizations could not afford to give up as much time as Google or Genentech but the same principle still applies – you have to create some slack time in which people can experiment. You do not get innovation for free – you have to allocate time, money and people.

For many years 3M has allowed its scientists and engineers to spend up to 15% of their time on any project that interests them. They do not have to ask their manager’s permission but they do have to keep them informed of what it is they are doing. This permission to be free has resulted in countless ideas and innovations for 3M which is regularly rated as one of the most innovative companies.

The message is clear. The leader has to free time for innovation in order to empower people to come with great ideas and to explore them. Whether it is one day a week or one day a quarter, time for innovation is critical.

Paul Sloane

Empowering for Innovation

Paul Sloane — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:49:50 +0000

A great leader can turn people into entrepreneurs who are hungrily looking for new opportunities. The key is empowerment. By empowering people you enable them to achieve goals through their own ideas and efforts. The leader sets the destination but the team chooses the route.

People need clear objectives so that they know what is expected of them. They need to develop the skills for the task. They need to work in cross-departmental teams so that they can create and implement solutions that will work. They need freedom to succeed. And when you give someone freedom to succeed you also give them freedom to fail. Above all, empowerment means trusting people. It is by giving them trust, support and belief that you will empower them to achieve great things.

Empowerment is more than managers setting objectives and then leaving people alone. It is about encouraging and enabling people to solve problems, meet customer needs and seize market opportunities on their own initiatives – either individually or in groups from different disciplines.

The goal is to have everyone think of themselves as an entrepreneur who has the right and the duty to solve problems and seize opportunities – not to offload them to others. In many organizations problems are passed up and down a long chain of command. They are postponed, delegated, transferred, ignored and eventually handled by some remote manager who cannot avoid the issue any longer. In the empowered organization they are handled by the first employee who encounters the problem. They have the authority to solve problems and take initiatives fast. They do not do this in isolation – they communicate. The senior team knows what is going on – but because they trust people to do the right things they find out later – after the fact in most cases. This involves risks but it pays back in a much more agile, effective, creative and dynamic mode of operation.

The leader strives to change the business from a routine group of people who are doing a job to a highly energized team of entrepreneurs who are constantly searching for new and better ways of making the vision a reality. We want to use creative techniques to drive innovative solutions to reach the goal. But just encouraging innovation is not enough. You need to initiate programs that show people how they can use creative techniques to come up with new solutions.

Paul Sloane

Put Your Best People on Innovation

Paul Sloane — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:30:28 +0000

Many businesses make the mistake of giving innovation projects to junior executives. It seems natural to hand innovation opportunities to enthusiastic and promising upstarts. But generally it is the experienced heavyweights who can overcome all the process and political obstacles that will occur.

In September 1999 Lou Gerstner, CEO of IBM, read a line buried deep in a report which said that current quarter pressures had forced a business unit to cut costs by stopping efforts in a promising new area. Gerstner was incensed and wanted to find out how often this happened. He asked J. Bruce Herrald, IBM’s senior VP in charge of Strategy to find out. Herrald found a similar pattern in at least 22 other cases. IBM had plenty of new ideas but it had a remarkably hard time turning those ideas into businesses. IBM had produced many crucial inventions, such as the relational database and the router, then watched while others, such as Oracle and Cisco built huge companies around them.

Herrald investigated the causes and found that IBM rewarded short-term results and was reluctant to devote management attention and resources to rolling the dice. IBM’s leaders did not spend much time on new businesses and they did not tap their ‘A-team’ of executives to run them. ‘We were relegating this to the most inexperienced people,’ said Herrald. ‘We were not putting the best and brightest talent on this.’[i]

Gerstner and Herrald reversed this approach. They deliberately put their most experienced and talented executives in charge of Emerging Business Opportunities (EBOs). Their mission was to find areas that are new to IBM that can yield profitable billion-dollar-plus businesses in five to seven years. The programme has been a remarkable success. Between 2000 and 2005 IBM launched 25 EBOs. Three failed and were closed down but the remaining 22 produced annual revenues of over $15 billion and growth of over 40% per year.

More importantly than their revenue impact, the EBOs helped change IBM’s culture. ‘We’ve become more willing to experiment, more willing to accept failure, learn from it and move on. Now being an EBO leader is a really desirable job at IBM,’ says Herrald.[ii]

The lesson from IBM is clear. If you want to change the culture of an organisation so that it values innovation and new business start-ups then get your most senior and best people involved in these activities. Don’t delegate it to lower level staff and hope for the best.

Paul Sloane

(This is an excerpt from The Innovative Leader)

[i] Fast Company, March 2005, Alan Deutschman, p 69

[ii] Fast Company, March 2005, Alan Deutschman, p 69

Empower your People

Paul Sloane — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:06:15 +0000

Set the Destination and let Your Team plot the Route

The challenge with innovation is finding products and services that are easier to use, easier to maintain and more appealing to customers. Where can you draw the creativity and drive to make this happen? Often the best source for innovation is the team within your business. A great leader can turn them into entrepreneurs who are hungrily looking for new opportunities. The key is empowerment. By empowering people you enable them to achieve goals through their own ideas and efforts. The leader sets the destination but the team chooses the route.

Your challenge is to change the business from a routine group of people who are doing a job to a highly energized team of entrepreneurs who are constantly searching for new and better ways of making the vision a reality. We want to use creative techniques to drive innovative solutions to reach the goal. But just encouraging innovation is not enough. You need to initiate programs that show people how they can use creative techniques to come up with new solutions.

Paul Sloane