GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

The innovation book Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival hammers the point home that innovation is the key to your company’s survival—in other words, “innovate or die.” The recently published Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation teaches readers how to implement an organized work culture of innovation in their organization. This process is critical to innovation in business success as mastery of the art of implementation is necessary to ensure that your innovation process and program clicks on all cylinders, all the time.

Sure, having a brilliant idea for a new product or service coupled with the top talent and resources may give you a rocket-propelled push at the starting line for the innovation process. However, unless your organization has a culture of innovation in place, progress on the innovation front will most likely be stymied. Think of a culture of innovation as the rocket fuel that drives innovation implementation forward. Keeping with the same analogy, remember that when a rocket runs out of fuel, there is no more thrust force and with gravity still acting on the rocket it will fall back to earth.

To create a culture of innovation ripe for propelling the innovation process and program, clear and consistent communication is key. The following is a high-level summary of the communication strategies and tips discussed in Robert’s Rules of Innovation and Robert’s Rules of Innovation II:

• Formally establish multiple communication channels reaching across the business. When it comes to changing your corporate culture to make it more accommodating for innovation, you will want to plan a cohesive and consistent communication strategy. To reach the widest audience and create variety, use multiple communication channels. For example, consider using channels including but not limited to: newsletter (digital and/or paper copy), corporate magazine, email campaigns, CEO webcasts or podcasts, and visual signs such as a notice board posted in the office’s high traffic and common space areas.

• Ensure that your innovation efforts and initiatives are cross-referenced with your organization’s marketing efforts. Both your internal and external communications, which also includes your public relations communications, should reflect both your organization’s innovation-minded orientation and initiatives and highlight innovation milestone achievements.
• At many organizations, internal and external communications are mismatched. It’s imperative to make sure they are consistent since mismatched messages often negatively affect employees’ perceptions of their company’s integrity as they may feel that they are being told one thing by company management while seeing that a different message is going out to the public.
• Effective communication leads to collaboration among innovation teams, which leads to optimal performance outcomes for the new product development process and innovation To bring about the most successful collaborations, you must be able to marshal the forces of your innovation collective. A key tool in this process is communication—if “location, location, location” are the three keys to success in real estate then the equivalent in innovation implementation is “communication, communication, communication.” Regular and consistent communication is required for innovation teams to be in sync, trust each other, and collaborate in a meaningful way. As the innovation implementation leader, the manner in which you communicate establishes the structure and tonality that propels thinking and leads to new innovation.
• Keep employees in the loop with constant communication. If employees aren’t kept in the loop—if they don’t understand your company strategy and shift toward implementing a culture of innovation, they often will worry, gossip, or come up with their own stories about company’s leaders’ decisions, actions, and plans. This is an unproductive use of time, chipping away at the employees’ efficiency, passion, and commitment. Ensure that employees are sufficiently and accurately informed of the company’s strategies, goals, objectives, and the like. It follows that when it comes to the ideation and innovation process, it’s imperative that you both proactively and effectively communicate with your employees the learning experiences that come with the company’s successes and failures, the ideation outcome (i.e., number of ideas and the next steps to be taken), opportunities, milestones, and celebrations. Since it’s a highly individualized consideration, your company will have to test out which communication mechanisms and channels work best.

For more “from the trenches” personal insights and practical guidelines about creating, nurturing, profiting from, and sustaining a new product development process and innovation program as well as implementing an organized work culture of innovation, check out the innovation books Sign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

Google is widely considered, by both the general public and business experts, to be one of the most innovative companies in the world. So how does Google promote a culture of innovation and ensure that innovative ideas are properly implemented, creating profitable new products that position the company for long-term success? Google’s “recipe” for driving innovation is no carefully guarded secret sauce. Rather, Google has openly shared this information with the public. In 2013, Google codified a new set of “Nine Principles of Innovation,” which updated the version first unveiled by former Google executive Marissa Mayer in 2008.[1]

While your organization likely does not have the Google-sized resources (in terms of both financial capital and human capital) to be able to do everything suggested by the Nine Principles of Innovation, these principles are nevertheless highly instructive and useful as guiding principles that can help foster innovation in business. The innovation book Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation discusses each of Google’s Nine Principles of Innovation and suggests that we all think about them, in the context of our own companies.[2] Implementing relevant parts of Google’s Nine Principles of Innovation at your company is not “cheating”; but rather, it’s smart and efficient to use the Principles as a framework for fostering innovation in business—after all, innovation doesn’t have to be about reinventing the wheel.

This instant blog will cover the first four principles from Google’s Nine Principles of Innovation. A second blog to be published on this site, entitled “Learn from the Best: Google’s Nine Principles of Innovation (Part 2 of 2)”, will cover the remaining five principles from Google’s Nine Principles of Innovation.

From the Mind of Google: Google’s Nine Principles of Innovation (Principles 1–4)

1. Innovation comes from anywhere. At Google, this principle emphasizes that innovation is in nobody’s job title, but is everyone’s responsibility. Moreover, ideas can come from anyone in the organization, regardless if they are top-level executives, employees who work in roles or departments not typically associated with innovation, or employees on the “bottom” of the company’s totem pole. For example, at Google it was their Google Health product manager who suggested that the company optimize information on suicide prevention hotlines whenever a related search was conducted. As a result of this innovative suggestion, Google’s search information results will automatically give a suggestion of where to call for help (i.e., the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and its free, 24/7 phone hotline) when a user makes a Google search seemingly focused on suicide.[3]                               As discussed in a previously published blog on this site, a popular innovation myth is that innovation only happens within a company’s engineering and R&D departments. To the contrary, it is often the employees on the front lines who come up with the most innovative ideas. Professional expertise alone doesn’t lead to innovation and new product development; life experiences are just as valuable, if not more valuable to the innovation process. For example, AT&T’s exceptionally popular Drive Mode app (a mobile app that can be set-up to automatically send a customizable reply to incoming messages when the vehicle starts moving at 25 mph, in order to reduce a driver’s temptation to look away from the road at his or her incoming text messages) was the innovative brainchild of an AT&T call center employee who had been personally affected by the dangers of texting-while-driving.

2. Focus on the user. A long-standing Google principle is that the company encourages its employees to build products with the user, not profits, in mind. By doing this, Gopi Kallayil, Google’s Chief Evangelist for Brand Marketing, said “revenue issues take care of themselves.”[4]
3. Think 10x, not 10 percent. This Google principle is about striving to improve something by a tenfold difference rather than just improving it by 10 percent. In other words, making a revolutionary change rather than an evolutionary change. This innovation driver comes from Google co-founder Larry Page’s preference for radical innovation over incremental innovation.[5] At Google, this 10x principle is what drove revolutionary projects such as Project Loon, where Google used high-altitude balloons to bring Wi-Fi connections to remote areas.Keep in mind that whereas this lofty think 10x principle may be appropriate for mega-companies such as Google, it’s not necessarily appropriate for all companies. Revolutionary innovation is a great thing to strive for, but it’s not the only successful type of innovation. As discussed in a previously published blog on this site, innovation doesn’t always have to be about reinventing the wheel, it can also be about simply improving the wheel. Incremental innovation—small-scale improvements that make a product better or more marketable—can drive successful, profitable innovation at your company. Also, incremental innovation—as opposed to revolutionary innovation and massive step-change innovation—makes the idea of innovation considerably less daunting and more accessible to a wider range of people.Some examples of incremental innovation include Gillette’s razors, which began with just a single razor blade. As time passed, Gillette then incrementally innovated its razors by adding additional blades and different features that better met customer needs and improved the product. Another example of incremental innovation is Coca-Cola’s brand-line extensions such as Coke Zero and more recently, Coca-Cola Life.Most companies stick with focusing on incremental innovation because it requires less risk and less investment. Especially when there is a proven track record of a company’s product working in the market, incremental innovation is the safe choice. However, keep in mind that many companies are potentially missing out on massive rewards because they refuse to innovate beyond incremental innovation.
4. Bet on technical insights. Every organization has its unique insights—and betting on these unique insights can lead to major innovation. It was Google—not the automotive industry—that came up with the idea of the self-driving car. Google was able to make this major innovation because they already had the unique insights and building blocks in place to engineer a self-driving car. Google was able to tie its various information assets (data gleaned from its existing Google Maps, Google Earth, and Street View cars programs) to create the all new product entity of the self-driving car.At your business, think about whether your business has any unique insights or information assets that can be used and combined to innovate something new.
5. Ship and iterate. This innovation principle is the updated version of former Google executive Marissa Mayer’s 2008 “innovation, not instant perfection” innovation principle.[1] “Ship and iterate” means to ship your products out to market early and often rather than waiting until they are absolutely perfect to take them to market. Your product’s users will help you “iterate” it by providing you with feedback to make the product better. Google first launched its Internet browser Chrome in 2008 and then every six weeks, launched improved versions of Chrome based on user feedback. “Today, using that approach, Chrome is the Number One browser in many countries,” said Gopi Kallayil, Google’s Chief Evangelist for Brand Marketing, “You may not have perfection in your product, but trust that your users will get back to you.”[2]This “ship and iterate” principle directly ties in with the “analysis paralysis” principle discussed in the innovation book Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation and in this previously published blog on this site. While careful analysis, reasoning, research, and due diligence are important parts of innovation in business and running a successful company, you must not let these actions turn into a crutch and ultimately an innovation In a quest for perfectionism, business leaders often stubbornly insist on revisiting over and over again things that have already been determined. This perfectionism makes it difficult for business leaders to actually “hatch the eggs” and ultimately can lead to missing out on significant market opportunities. To avoid analysis paralysis, you must create a culture of innovation in your business where there is freedom to fail and a lack of cultural self-consciousness surrounding failure.[3]
6. Twenty percent time. Twenty percent time refers to Google’s long-standing principle where employees are encouraged to spend 20 percent of their work time pursuing projects they are passionate about, even if these projects are outside the scope of their job description or the company’s core mission. If you give your employees this twenty percent time, Kallayil promises that “They will delight you with their creative thinking.”[4] At Google, the results of their “20 percent time” program include Google News, Google Alerts, and off-road Google Maps Street View. According to corporate folklore, a Google mechanical engineer was planning a trip to Spain but became frustrated when he couldn’t view a close-up view of his hotel in Spain on Google Maps Street View because the hotel was located on a road that was too narrow for the Google Street View car to enter. This prompted the engineer to innovate product improvements to Google Street View that helped widen its scope of coverage: he adapted the Street View camera to fit on specially-made Google bicycles, tricycles, and backpacks that would be able to enter places too narrow for the Google Street View car or enter tourist locations that ban cars from approaching the premises.[5]While your company may not be able to offer its employees Google’s “20 percent time”, it should strive to offer employees more freedom to choose projects that interest them and do what they love as well as more autonomy to experiment and make decisions.
7. Default to open. Back in 2008, it was Marissa Mayer’s original goal to promote innovation at Google by sharing information on Google’s intranet and facilitate collaboration among Google employees. Now, the updated version of this principle incorporates Google pulling ideas from the general public. As Kallayil said, “There are seven billion people…. The smartest people will always be outside Google. By defaulting to open, we’re tapping into the creativity outside of Google.”[6]Examples of Google “defaulting to open” include the company encouraging non-Google developers to create apps for its Android platform. After all, when Google created its Android platform, they did so with the knowledge that it would be impossible to hire all the best developers in the world and therefore would have to “default to open” to get the best apps developed for their platform.[7]
8. Fail well. Google believes that there should be no negativity or stigma attached with failing. According to Kallayil, failure at Google is a “badge of honor.” Moreover, Kallayil said, “There is a belief in the company that if you don’t fail often enough, you’re not trying hard enough. Once we realize a product is not working out, we kill it, but the thing with products is they morph—we take all the best ideas and redeploy them.”[8] For example, Google Plus—which is Google’s social networking platform—incorporates elements of failed Google products such as Google Buzz, Wave, Orkut, and OpenSocial.[9]
9. Have a mission that matters. This new principle for Google is, according to Kallayil, “the most important one.” Kallayil says, “Everybody at Google has a very strong sense of mission and purpose. We seriously believe that the work we do has a huge impact on millions of people in a positive way.”[10]What is your company’s mission? Is everyone on the same page? Do your employees care about the mission?

image credit: google.com; 2-Principles-of-Innovation.jpg

For more information about how to promote and implement innovation at your company, check out the innovation books Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival and the recently published Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation.

[1] Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation (See p. 35)

[2] https://www.fastcompany.com/3021956/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/googles-nine-principles-of-innovation

[3] Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation (See pp. 25-27)

[4] https://www.fastcompany.com/3021956/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/googles-nine-principles-of-innovation

[5] https://www.fastcompany.com/3021956/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/googles-nine-principles-of-innovation

[6] Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation (See pp. 35-36)

[7] https://www.fastcompany.com/3021956/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/googles-nine-principles-of-innovation

[8] Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation (See p. 36)

[9] Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation (See p. 36)

[10] Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation (See p. 36)

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/google-has-updated-its-9-principles-of-innovation-here-they-are-and-the-products-they-have-enabled-2013-11 [2] Sign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

One of the biggest reasons why the actual implementation of innovation can become such a formidable, if not the insurmountable process, is because of people-related issues. A key element to successfully implementing innovation is finding and keeping the right people. While it goes without saying that financial capital is critical for innovation implementation, it’s not the organization that has the most money but rather the organization that best utilizes its human capital that will have the best shot at “winning” the innovation race. Ten years from now, Millennials are projected to make up around 75 percent of the global workforce.[1] The Millennial Generation represents the future of your business; accordingly, recruiting and retaining top Millennial talent must be an organizational priority. The above is discussed in my new innovation book Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation.

Talkin’ ‘bout my generation: Who are the Millennials?

Millennials (also known as the Millennial Generation, Generation Y, Gen Y and sometimes derogatively referred to as the Selfie Generation or Generation I/Me) are the demographic cohort that falls in between Generation X and Generation Z. While there are no set-in-stone, precise dates for when the Millennial Generation begins and ends, researchers generally use the early 1980s as the beginning birth years and the early 2000s as the ending birth years for inclusion in the Millennial Generation. However, the Pew Research Center specifically delineates Millennials as people ages 18-34 in 2015.[2] After tabulating the recently released U.S. Census population estimates, the Pew Research Center stated in a April 2016 article that Millennials (who now number at 75.4 million) have surpassed the Baby Boomers (people ages 51-69 in 2015, who now number at 74.9 million) as this country’s largest living generation.[3]

As mentioned earlier, Millennials are projected to make up around 75 percent of the global workforce by 2025.[4] Now that’s a staggering statistic! So love ‘em or hate ‘em, they are coming. This demographic shift in the workplace is an absolute game changer and “companies that do not take this transformation into consideration and begin to reinvent themselves will hit serious speed bumps before long.”[5]

For your business to get ahead and stay ahead, you will have to be successful at recruiting and retaining the best Millennial talent. Here are some tips to help accomplish this goal:

• Change is required. Maintaining the status quo and doing things the way they were always done (because that’s company tradition; or that’s how it was done when you were a new-hire) is not going to cut it. To compete for the best Millennial talent, organizations will have to change. Look at Goldman Sachs as an example. At the majority of the premier investment banks and financial institutions—the white-shoe titans of Wall Street—it has always been part of company culture and Wall Street traditions that the newbies work around-the-clock, seven days a week, often pulling all-nighters or even double all-nighters, sometimes only returning home to quickly shower and change clothes. While this grueling schedule was a deeply ingrained part of Goldman’s organizational culture and essentially considered a rite of passage, in the past few years, Goldman as well as other companies have announced programs to improve their junior associates’ work environment by having them work less and improving their work-life balance. To keep these top Millennials from bolting to greener pastures (a.k.a., going to work for a start-up), they’ve had to dangle carrots such as a faster promotion path, work-life balance initiatives (i.e., no working on Saturdays, no new projects assigned on Fridays, and mandatory vacation time-off), assign less of the typical newbie grunt work, and convening town-hall style meeting to address their junior bankers grievances and suggestions.[6]
• Corporate culture must be compatible with what Millennials value most in a business and in their future workplace. According to Deloitte’s 2013 Millennial Survey, which surveyed nearly 5,000 Millennials from 18 different countries, “78 percent of the world’s future business leaders believe innovation is essential for business growth.”[7] “Innovation at the institutional level is needed to sufficiently shift an organization’s mindset to allow new ideas to truly emerge and thrive,” said Deloitte Global CEO Barry Salzberg. “While our current business leaders can debate how and where to innovate, it’s clear how much importance our future leaders place on innovation—not just as a driver of business growth but also as a catalyst for solving society’s most pressing problems.”[8]
• Offering a better work-life balance is not always enough to recruit and retain the top Millennials. We’ve seen top talent at companies like Goldman Sachs lose their top Millennial talent to start-up companies despite the fact that start-ups typically offer the same long hours but for less pay and less stability. This suggests that simply providing more time off and a better work-life balance is not enough for recruiting and retaining top Millennial talent. Millennials are willing to work hard, but they want to work hard for a business that has an innovation-friendly environment where they feel they can contribute and make their mark. As discussed in Robert’s Rules of Innovation II, “Organizations that foster a culture of innovation will outhustle their competition in retaining tomorrow’s top talent and create the next game-changing innovations.”[9] Moreover, “if corporate cultures don’t align with the transparency, free flow of information, and inclusiveness that millennials highly value—and that are also essential for learning and successful innovation—the competitiveness of many established business will suffer.”[10]
• Offer freedom. Instead of the old-school “command and control” model, talented Millennials will be attracted to companies that offer them more freedom to choose projects that interest them and do what they love as well as more autonomy to experiment and make decisions.[11]
• Offer frequent feedback. Millennials typically desire more frequent feedback and reassurance than older generations in the workplace. However, most Millennials feel that they are more than just a number and as such, dislike quantitative performance reviews where their performance is gauged on a numerical scale (i.e., a 1 to 5 scale where a rating of “3” would mean “average performance”). Instead, offer Millennials more qualitative feedback and replace or supplement the annual review with more frequent reviews such as quarterly or even monthly reviews and also offer on-the-spot feedback when appropriate.[12]
• Create a millennial-friendly workplace that proactively tries to prevent or mitigate intergenerational conflicts. The two demographic groups that typically have the hardest time working together are Millennials and Baby Boomers. For a discussion of introductory tips for patching the rift between these two groups, check out the previously published blog entitled “Can’t We All Just Get Along: Innovation and Bridging the Generational Divide.”

For more information about how to promote and implement innovation at your company, check out the innovation books Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival and the recently published Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation.

[1] Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation (See p. 157)

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/25/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers/

[3] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/25/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers/

[4] Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation (See p. 157)

[5] Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation (See p. 158)

[6] https://www.wsj.com/articles/goldman-sachs-brings-back-junior-banker-program-1446753898

[7] https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/business-must-encourage-innovation-for-growth.html

[8] https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/business-must-encourage-innovation-for-growth.html

[9] Sign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

How to Fine-Tune Working Relationships between Boomers and Millennials to Create Harmonious Innovation Teams

The innovation book Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival lays out a step-by-step framework of 10 Key Imperatives that an organization must take to achieve profitable business growth through innovation. While a structured, repeatable innovation process is critical to create and sustain innovation in a competitive, dog-eat-dog marketplace, it alone is not always sufficient to turn a great innovative idea into a profitable “on-the-store-shelves” reality. The recently published Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation, provides practical techniques to break down many of the barriers to innovation in business. Innovation requires more than just idea generation. After all, innovation cannot exist in a vacuum; but rather, an organization must build a culture of innovation to catalyze and sustain the creation of new ideas and then ultimately actually implement the ideas that make it out of the initial starting gate.

Innovation implementation often appears as a daunting, overwhelming process due to people-related issues and resultant roadblocks.[1] Successful business growth strategy and innovation implementation requires building an optimal innovation team. When finding and keeping the right people on your innovation team, remember that diversity is key—you should strive to be gender-neutral, take advantage of generational opportunities, and include a variety of profile types. While a diversity of backgrounds, ages, profile types, and work styles can lead to stimulating new perspectives and viewpoints that result in moving the innovation needle, diverse team members must learn to work in harmony in order to maximize their idea generating potential and see their ideas all the way through to implementation.

A notorious clash among innovation teams is the rift between boomers and millennials.[2] The older generation of workers are often frustrated and perplexed by millennials who are overeager to take on big projects and responsibilities right off the bat, instead of first paying their dues. Boomers often lament that their millennial coworkers are impatient and have short attention spans. On the flip side, millennials can become increasingly irritated and turned off by the boomers who “are seen as selfish (for having lingered in the workplace for so long, taking up those increasing rare plum spots), IT challenged, and at worst, believed to be guilty of the ruination of the American dream, the environment, the health-care system, Social Security, and so much more.”[3]

Multigenerational challenges and conflicts are not isolated incidents in today’s workplaces. While organizations can benefit from a diverse, multigenerational workplace, they must also have a game plan to overcome potential conflict and challenges. A 2014 survey by ASTD (the American Society for Training and Development) and Joseph Grenny, author of Crucial Accountability (McGraw-Hill, 2013) as well as Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking when Stakes are High (McGraw-Hill, 2011), “found conflict among generations that result in wasted time and lost productivity. In fact, 90 percent of all survey respondents agreed that generational conflict was a time waster. According to the study, over one third of respondents said they wasted five or more hours of work weekly (12 percent of the work week) because of chronic, unaddressed conflict among different generations. The two generations who have the most difficult time working together are Baby Boomers and Millennials, according to survey respondents, but it appears that each generation has some problem with one or more of the others.[4]

As referenced in Robert’s Rules of Innovation II, in a multigenerational workplace, the authors[5] of Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High bestow the following four introductory tips for starting to patch the rift between the two groups:

1. Start on the Same Page: In order to achieve the innovation team’s mutual goals, begin the process with s statement of respect for fellow innovation team members and intent to achieve team goals. Current company culture is typically one where people don’t confront each either but rather go silent and let the problem escalate. Finally, when the upset person speaks up, they are speaking out of built-up festering anger. An effective communication strategy among innovation teams would be to let the leader speak for 30 seconds maximum and then give other team members sufficient time to respond and communicate. As a leader, reinforce to your team that you are not standing between them and their goals, but rather you have the same intent as they do to reach mutual goals.
2. Lead with the facts: Instead of starting a conversation with a team member with judgments about their age or competency or your assumptions about their behavior (i.e., they are a lazy, coddled jerk), be as specific as possible and stick to the facts. Tell your team member what it was your expected to see (i.e., a deliverable turned in by a set deadline) and what you actually saw (i.e., a deliverable that was turned in two weeks post-deadline). Starting a conversation with the facts is a more effective communication technique than starting with conclusions, which can often be inflammatory, incorrect, and cause defensiveness and resentment.
3. Remain nonjudgmental and don’t become hypercritical: Once you’ve stated the facts (see Tip #2, above), you’ve likely reached your half-minute of speaking time (see Tip #1, above). You’ve had your 30 seconds to state your case using the facts of the situation and now it’s time to stop talking, start listening, and turn the monologue into a productive dialogue. In the case that your innovation team member becomes defensive, mitigate these feelings by reassuring him or her of your positive intentions and mutual goals.
4. Invite a Response: After sharing your concerns with your team member, encourage your team member to share his or her perspective on the matter. Make sure to listen. Remember, you are on the same team as this person and share the same intent to achieve the same mutual goals. As stated in Crucial Conversations, “Inviting a dialogue will result in greater openness, especially if that person has less authority, power, or age than you do.”[6]

For more information about how to promote and implement innovation at your company, check out the innovation books Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival and the recently published Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation.

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[1] For more information about the “People Aspects” of innovation implementation, check out this previously published RROI blog entitled “Innovation and the Art of Implementation (Part 2).”

[2] Who are millennials? Who are boomers? According to a April 25, 2016 article by Pew Research group, “Millennials have surpassed Baby Boomers as the nation’s largest living generation, according to population estimates released this month by the U.S. Census Bureau. Millennials, whom we define as those ages 18-34 in 2015, now number 75.4 million, surpassing the 74.9 million Baby Boomers (ages 51-69). And Generation X (ages 35-50 in 2015) is projected to pass the Boomers in population by 2028.” See Pew Research Group’s “Millennials overtake Baby Boomers as America’s largest generation.”

[3] Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation (See p. 163)

[4] Managing the Multigenerational Workplace, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School

[5] The authors of Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High (McGraw-Hill 2011) include Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler

[6] Sign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

Today’s business world is buzzing with talk about innovators and innovation. While it’s a good thing that innovation is on the forefront of people’s minds, popular thinking about innovation and the culture of innovation in business is often substantially misguided. There are widespread myths about innovation and innovators that lead to significant misconceptions and can ultimately even hinder or destroy the innovation process. In the previously published blog on this site, entitled “”, the following four myths were discussed and then debunked:

• Innovators are born not made;
• Innovation is about the newest thing;
• Innovators work alone; and
• Innovation is a matter of luck.

This instant blog will present (and then debunk) the following additional popular myths about innovators and innovation:

High-tech companies drive all new innovation. Since we are living in a fast-paced technological era, many people mistakenly believe that all innovation is technology-based and assume that only high-tech companies (i.e., Apple, Google, Hewlett-Packard Company, IBM, and etc.) are the only companies driving innovation in the world. False! You don’t have to be a technologist or a technology-based company to be innovative.

Innovation can come in my forms; for example, there are currently companies in industries including but not limited to retail, services, publishing, and crowdfunding that have driven innovation in unexpected but highly successful ways. An example of businesses in the retail industry who tried something new would be the subscription box-based model where subscribers pay in advance to receive curated boxes of products. Popular names in this industry include Birchbox (the early pioneer in this innovative ecommerce model), BarkBox, Dollar Shave Club, and ipsy). In the publishing industry, BuzzFeed is often credited with inventing and reinventing embeddable features for their published content such as sliders. Crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo are companies that are not in the technology space, but still successfully came up with and drove forward many impressive new innovations, which weren’t even always technical innovations either.

While high-tech companies often develop many innovations, innovation is definitely not limited to technology-based companies. Any company, regardless of its size, location, or industry, can drive innovation; such innovations may relate to the company’s services and products and to it internal business procedures. The closed-minded myth that innovation is for technology-based companies alone, discredits the importance of all the different functions that a company needs in order to effectively implement an innovation and ultimately transform the innovation into a profit-making product or service for the company.

Within companies, innovation only happens in the engineering and R&D departments. In some companies, top leadership delegates innovation responsibility to only their Engineering and Research and Development (“R&D”) departments. While the company may see productive innovation activity arise out of these departments, this narrow approach often fails to identify valuable innovations that originate in other areas of the company. Sometimes the most creative and innovative ideas come from employees that do not have any formal scientific or engineering training because they are not burdened and biased by rigid scientific education and training. Thus, they are free to analyze problems and come up with new ideas from completely different angles that are not limited to pre-existing systems and products.

As discussed in a previously published blog on this site: product experts, corner-office execs, and R&D teams don’t always come up with the most innovative ideas; but rather, it’s often the employees on the front lines who do. Professional expertise alone doesn’t lead to innovation and new product development; life experiences are just as valuable, if not more valuable to the innovation process. Just consider the case of telecommunication giant AT&T. Have you heard of  AT&T’s exceptionally popular Drive Mode app (a mobile app that can be set-up to automatically send a customizable reply to incoming messages when the vehicle starts moving at 25 mph, in order to reduce a driver’s temptation to look away from the road at his or her incoming text messages)? Did you know that this app was the brainchild of an AT&T call center employee (not a scientist, engineer, or member of the R&D department) who was personally affected by the dangers or texting-while driving?

Innovative ideas arrive in a “eureka” moment. Great innovation—often considered the pinnacle of human imagination—is frequently romanticized in the business world. Part of this romanticizing includes the idea of the the “eureka moment”—the moment of almost divine clarity and inspiration where a breakthrough innovation is made. The idea of the eureka moment is deeply ingrained in the folklore of innovation in business. By the way, the word “eureka” comes from the Ancient Greek word “εὕρηκα heúrēka”, which means in English “I have found (it).”[1]

There’s the story of Archimedes life-changing discovery in the bathtub that supposedly caused him to shout, “Eureka! Eureka!” His eureka discovery was the principle of hydrostatics, which is the science of how solid bodies behave in liquid. Similarly, we still tell the story of how in 1589, Italian scientist Galileo is said to have dropped two balls of different masses off the Leaning Tower of Pisa to disprove existing beliefs about the way objects fall and to instead demonstrate that their time of descent was independent of their respective masses. And of course, one of the most famous (and embellished) stories in the history of science is the tale of a young Isaac Newton who was simply minding his own business and sitting in his garden when an apple fell from a tree and hit his head. And then, in a stroke of brilliant eureka insight, Galileo suddenly came up with his theory of gravity.

The eureka myth—the notion that all creative ideas come suddenly in a flash of a brilliant eureka moment—is certainly seductive; but for the vast majority of innovations, it is completely untrue. The problem with the eureka myth is that glosses over the tireless work and concentration required of the vast majority of innovative ideas. If innovation was easy, everyone would do it—but it’s most definitely not. Even genius inventor Albert Einstein is reported to have said, “Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.”[2]

Innovation is random. Myth: innovation is random. Reality: innovation is usually structured and disciplined and can be measured and managed. As discussed in both Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival and Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation, To prevent getting infinitely stuck in the ideation phase wasteland, remember that innovation typically doesn’t fail due to a lack of creativity but rather due to a lack a discipline.

Innovation without implementation is mere ideation. And “mere” ideation can often be expensive, morale-killing, and potentially business-imploding. To keep from getting perpetually stuck in the quick-sand wasteland that is the ideation phase, remember that innovation typically doesn’t fail due to a lack of creativity but rather due to a lack a discipline and structure. Innovation is both an art and a science; as such, in order to get results, your organization must both follow a structured, repeatable process for innovation and have a plan in place to actually implement the innovation plans. Structure doesn’t stifle creativity but rather it lets it germinate and grow in a manner most likely to be successful.

[1] https://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=eureka

[2] See Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, edited by Gyles Brandreth (p. 167)

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GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

Innovation is a huge buzzword in both corporate and popular culture. As discussed in a previously published blog on this site, even President Obama, in his final State of the Union address, said one of the big four questions this country needs to address is: “How do we reignite that spirit of innovation to meet our biggest challenges? The President continued, “America is every immigrant and entrepreneur from Boston to Austin to Silicon Valley, racing to shape a better world. That’s who we are.”[1]

But for all the buzz-worthy chitchat and media and corporate attention given to innovation, there is nevertheless a massive amount of misinformation concerning innovation—as if innovation is a secret society shrouded in mystery and only accessible to the elite or those lucky enough to be in the know. This has led to the perpetuation of many popular myths about innovators and innovation. Not only are these myths leading to the spread of false information but also these myths are slowing down innovation and holding back would-be innovators and innovation in business.

The following are some of the most popular myths about innovators and innovation—debunked:

Innovators are born not made. Many people mistakenly believe that being innovative and creative is something that’s embedded in your DNA—you’re either born with it or you’re not. And as a result, it’s a skill that can’t be improved upon or taught. False! False! False! According to the Harvard Business Review article “Creativity with a small c”, the article’s author states, “We unconsciously tend to believe that entrepreneurial flair is a matter of genetics; a recent ESCI [“European Centre for Strategic Innovation”] survey I conducted found that 68% of business leaders firmly believe that great innovators are born and cannot be made.”[2] However, science has shown this to be false. This famous study about identical twins separated at birth and their respective creative abilities, found that although 80 percent of the variation on IQ tests is attributable to genetics, only 30 percent of performance on creativity tests can be explained that way. As discussed in the book “The Power of Why” by Amanda Lang, “In other words, 70 percent of creativity is related to environment, which means that it’s entirely possible for just about anyone to learn to think more innovatively.”[3]

While some people may be gifted with a naturally more creative and innovative brain, that doesn’t mean that innovation in business and creativity is a skill that can’t be taught or improved. As discussed in the business entrepreneurship book “Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival”, innovation can be taught by implementing 10 simple and practical steps your business must take to achieve profitable growth, through innovation. And as discussed in “Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation”, and mentioned in this previously published blog on this site, if you’re not a creative, big whoop! It’s time to focus on what it is that you can do, which is to build an innovative team at your business that is inclusive of creative types.

Innovation is about the newest thing. Of course there have been great innovations throughout history that have been massive step-change innovations—the type of new-to-the-world innovations that create a totally new market; for example; a motorized vehicle replacing the horse-and-buggy mode of transportation. However, in the vast majority of cases, innovation is not about the newest thing but rather more about incremental innovation—small-scale improvements that make a product better or more marketable. Innovation doesn’t always have to be about reinventing the wheel, it can be about simply improving the wheel. When you realize that innovation does not have to mean inventing a completely brand new idea or object but rather simply improving something old and familiar, the idea of innovation becomes considerably less daunting and more accessible to a wider range of people.

Innovators work alone. A common innovation myth is that innovators work alone—that innovators are recluses or wild-haired mad scientists working alone in their basements. While there are some lone wolf innovators out there; most solo innovators need other people to help them implement their innovations—whether that be an IP attorney, a marketing team, or outside investors. As an added bonus, these outside people usually end up incrementally improving upon the lone wolf’s innovation. As reiterated multiple times in the innovation in business book “Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation”, you need more than just a great idea to find innovation success. After all, innovation without implementation is mere ideation.

Innovation is a matter of luck. While luck sometimes does play a role in innovation (for example, sometimes you just get “lucky” and the first new chemical formulation out of thousands that need to be tested just happens to be the right one), innovation is never all about luck. Thinking that innovation is about being lucky undervalues the importance of making good choices, doing experiments and quickly and frugally culling failures, working within a repeatable, structured innovation process, and working alongside a carefully cultivated innovation team. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Moreover, if you want to get “lucky” then work harder: the harder you work, the luckier you’ll get.

There are so many myths about innovation and innovators out there that we couldn’t fit them all in just one blog post. Check back on this blog soon for the second part of this blog series where we will debunk even more myths about innovation and innovators.

For more information about how to promote and implement innovation at your company, check out the innovation books Sign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

In today’s workplaces, multigenerational challenges and conflicts are all too common. In addition, many companies are also in a state of generational flux as the median employee age at most companies is rapidly dropping and throngs of baby boomers are now eligible and potentially gearing up for retirement.

According to an April 2016 Pew Research Center article, “Millennials have surpassed Baby Boomers as the nation’s largest living generation, according to population estimates released this month by the U.S. Census Bureau. Millennials, whom we define as those ages 18-34 in 2015, now number 75.4 million, surpassing the 74.9 million Baby Boomers (ages 51-69). And Generation X (ages 35-50 in 2015) is projected to pass the Boomers in population by 2028.”

Here’s another game-changing statistic for you: by 2025, millennials will make up around 75 percent of the global workforce, which will lead to massive workplace changes as millennials step up while baby boomers and gen Xers step back.[1]

While many baby boomers are preparing to leave the workforce; organizational leadership at most companies are not prepared to lose them. As reiterated in a McKinsey Quarterly Survey, the baby boomer generation is “the best-educated, most highly skilled aging workforce in U.S. history. Although they’re only about 40 percent of the workforce, they comprise more than half of all managers and almost half of all professionals, such as doctors and lawyers.”[2]

Despite tension and workplace inefficiencies caused by generational conflicts, when the baby boomers finally blow out the candles on their hard-earned retirement cakes and exit the building, executive leadership will face a daunting task. The loss of business intelligence and corporate knowledge these baby boomers possessed—especially in R&D-focused companies—could amount to billions of dollars of lost intellectual capital. To mitigate this potential massive loss, leaders must act fast. Even in organizations with younger employees who experience much smaller baby boomer attrition rates, such organizations must still consider knowledge management issues. After all, institutional knowledge loss can also occur when key employees resign or are lost due to illness, tragedy, or being poached by another company.

Robert’s Rules of Innovation II posits this key question: “How do leaders keep the older generation actively engaged so that the process of extracting and and archiving key information is interesting, challenging, and rewarding?”[3]

The following eight techniques (which are discussed in greater detail in Chapter 8 of Robert’s Rules of Innovation II) have been found to be effective[4]:

1.  Establish and share rules of and rationales of engagements. Determine how information gathering will be accomplished (i.e., via questionnaire, survey, online system, etc.). For example, will a salesperson enter into the client management system a key nugget of information that is critical for fortifying key client relationships? Such nugget(s) could include: that the company has a client named Robert Jones who despises being called Bob and happens to love receiving a personal phone call on his birthday. If this the case, make the sure to tell the whole company not only to follow this system but also why they should be doing this.
2. Scan the personnel landscape. Create an electronic database that charts individual or shared “expertise clusters” across the organization and uses relationship software sometimes called ”spiders” to track this knowledge by employee or department. The database should have a high enough level of functionality so that if a key term or phrase were searched either by project or product name, the database would return a specific individual or group of people who share this expertise cluster. To prevent brain drain and knowledge loss, a company needs to keep tabs on which specific employees have specific knowledge on certain products or projects.
3.  Set up a database or system for collecting information. Somewhat similar to the above tip, in organizations (especially larger ones), it is not sufficient to just verbally dump knowledge from one person to another. Since information gets lost in translation (ever play the childhood game of “telephone”?) and these knowledge dumpers/dumpees may not be around in a couple years, you’re going to want a searchable, accessible version of this knowledge dump. Database knowledge solutions vary in terms of complexity and functionality; at the very least, you will want to create a sustainable “knowledge library” system to capture key data, information, and processes.
4. Create a home for—and invite—nuanced information. Some types of knowledge can only be obtained through actual experience. For example, the knowledge that foaming liquid soap bottles will leak during shipment unless the right type of let-off torque (which varies according to bottle size) keeps the bottle in place. If you are in the know about experience-borne, nuanced knowledge, make sure you write down this key-bit of information and pass the critical information along in a reference manual for your colleagues in case of your departure; in other words: “Don’t make your coworkers reinvent the wheel.” Encourage other employees to do the same thing if they are in possession of this special type of experience-borne knowledge.
5. Build bridges early on. Encourage interaction between different generations of coworkers (for example, a mentor/apprentice relationship between new millennial employees and baby boomers). Ideally, this can foster a feeling of camaraderie among employees, avoid conflicts and bottlenecks on innovation teams, and lead to the transfer of key knowledge across ranks and age groups.
6. Hosts events to bring people together. Whether it’s a company-sponsored happy hour or biweekly donut and coffee chats in the office break room, informal exchanges can often lead to opportunities for verbal or hands-on knowledge sharing across ranks and generational groups. It is also worthwhile to hold an organization-wide seminar in effective knowledge-sharing principles and practices.
7. Use social media and online tools. Use social media and online tools—such as a a closed LinkedIn group, a subscription based online whiteboard or collaborative application, an editable Google Docs document or spreadsheet, blog, forum, company intranet, and etc.—where company retirees have a “virtual” place to go and enter insights they may recall after leaving the company. Likewise, don’t be afraid to crowdsource, via email blasts or group messaging tools, from company retirees. Just because retired employees are no longer on company payroll, doesn’t mean they don’t feel allegiance to their former company and the often want to help out current employees with their years (if not decades) of on-the-job obtained knowledge.
8. Make knowledge sharing a continual, perpetual habit, not a one-time act. Make knowledge sharing a part of of your company culture. You want people to share (and meticulously document) what they know; after all, being tight-lipped about your specific knowledge is counterproductive and anti-innovation. So do whatever it is you can to invite and incentivize knowledge sharing among all ranks and generations in your company.

image credit: masspay.net

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GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

The innovation book Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival establishes a foundation of 10 Key Imperatives intended to help everyone from beginners to seasoned innovators. These 10 simple and practical steps create a structured, repeatable innovation process to Create and Sustain Innovation in order to Innovate and Thrive in an intensely competitive marketplace. Building upon this fundamental framework, the newly published Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation shows how to permanently implement a culture of innovation in one’s work environment and break down the barriers to successful innovation implementation.

“Innovation—which is not itself an object, but rather a key tool used to reach strategic objectives—can only succeed if the CEO can create a delicate chemistry that results in a ‘top-down, bottom-up’ culture of innovation, rich with initiatives, engagement, and participation that includes participants at all levels of the organization.”     [1]

As an organization builds its top-down, bottom-up structure, a whip is surely needed.

So What’s a Whip?

Whips are the “innovation enforcers” within an organization. Within this context, the term whip is borrowed from politics—where a whip is an official whose primary purpose is to ensure party discipline in legislature. The whips are a political party’s enforcers who both ensure that party members vote in accordance with official party policy and that a party’s elected representatives are actually in attendance when important votes are taken. The etymology of the term whip also extends back to the hunting term “whipping in” or “whip in”—which involves using a hunting whip to keep hounds from wandering away from the pack.

Why Your Organization Needs a Whip

To permanently implement a successful culture of innovation, your organization is going to need a whip (or even several whips, depending on the size of your organization) to stay on track. On the innovation journey from “best intentions” to “implementation”, distractions and deterrents are overabundant, and innovation has many places to lose its way. As discussed in a McKinsey study on innovation, 35 percent of responding executives report having ten or fewer full-time employees dedicated to innovation.[2]

Why is this number so low, especially if top C-level executives say innovation is a top priority? As discussed in , Nicolas Bry, the innovation-oriented president of Orange (the mobile carrier of France Telecom), believes that even “the whip” needs a whip. This is so because, as Bry says, “Often, the CEO commits to the plan, selects the leader to lead the strategic experiment, and asks a member of the senior corporate staff to shepherd it. And then, ‘the CEO makes a big mistake: the CEO moves on to other matters.’”[3]

According to noted innovation-thinker, bestselling author, and business professor Vijay Govindarajan, “Organizations are almost always more powerful than people. Further, corporations serious about building a capacity for strategic innovation cannot simply hope that they have a few intrapreneurs somewhere inside that can save the day on their own inspired initiative. They must re-examine how their organizations are constructed. Only through careful redesign can organizations excel at both efficiency and entrepreneurship.”[4]

So what will it take to pave the way to acceptance of a “new world order” within the organization and diminish the fear that a company can feel towards innovation? According to Bry it will take both your whips, through their force of will, and these four key levers[5]:

1. Detachment of resources coming from the parent company;
2. Creation of a network of decision makers;
3. The investment of the parent company; and
4. A portfolio that reflects shared innovation goals

Innovation enforcers can help whip your organization’s culture of innovation into shape. They are an integral part of an organization’s innovation team and due care should be used to carve out and implement this “whip” role within your organization.

For more information about how to promote and implement innovation at your company, check out the innovation in business books Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival and the recently published Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation.

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[1] Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation (See p. 59)

[2] Making innovation structures work: McKinsey Global Survey results

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GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

To Successfully Implement Innovation in Business, You Must Fight Organizational Culture of Fear and Innovation Assassination

The new innovation in business book Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation explains that the main reason even the most promising innovative ideas fail is due to the organizational failure to implement the innovation plans. Why is it that organizations shy away from innovation implementation? As discussed in Chapter 2 of Robert’s Rules of Innovation II, innovation implementation is frequently impeded by an organization’s deep-rooted culture of fear and subsequent innovation assassination.

An introduction to this topic was provided in the previously published blog entitled “Roadblocks to Innovation Implementation: Organizational Culture of Fear and Innovation Assassination.” This blog described many of the reasons why organizations are riddled and ultimately handicapped by a culture of fear and resultant innovation assassination. But this previous blog wasn’t all about doom and gloom, it also presented a potential way to fight back against the culture of fear and innovation assassination and come out on top. Specifically, the blog discussed that one practical step an organization can take to promote risk-taking among their employees is to encourage “creative error.”

In this instant blog, you will learn that encouraging creative error is just one of the ways an organization can fight back (victoriously!) against an organized work culture of fear and innovation assassination. Don’t take the cowardly route and accept the same old, same old; rather, mercilessly fight for change, disrupt the status quo, and stop debilitating innovation assassins in their tracks. Create a trusted company culture of innovation rather than a paralyzing culture of fear. The following strategies are some powerful weapons to keep in your arsenal in the fight against a culture of fear and innovation assassination:

Winning the Battle of Innovation vs. Operations

Within many organizations, there is a dichotomy between innovation and operations. Whereas innovation is all about shaking up the status quo, disrupting the norm, and moving processes forward and into the future; operations thrive when every activity and process is repeatable, predictable, and smooth. So what’s the opposite of predictability and repeatability? Innovation. After all, innovation is about walking that tightrope of uncertainty and the unknown. If you’re a savvy, innovation-minded leader at an organization, you must understand the inherent dichotomy between innovation and operations. Innovation thought leaders and executives must be able to identify (and then defuse) potential innovation assassins within their organization by helping such employees accept (or at the very least, learn to deal with) their aversion to innovation. While it’s no easy feat to defuse these potential assassins (they can be sneaky, as they often work under the pretenses of being constructive; however, they’re always actively looking for flaws in anything new and untested), the battle can be won by steadfastly reinforcing a work culture that accepts and furthermore encourages disruption of the status quo.

Analysis Paralysis: Don’t Let the Quest for Perfectionism Become an Innovation Assassin

While analysis, reasoning, research, care, and intelligence are vital parts of innovation and running an organization, these actions can become a crutch and turn into innovation assassins. In an attempt at perfection, leaders often insist on revisiting over and over again things that have already been determined. This need for perfection causes leaders to have difficultly “hatching the egg” and ultimately causes them to miss significant market opportunities. Perfectionism can assassinate innovation, keeping the best and brightest innovations from being successfully implemented. How can an organization avoid this analysis paralysis? Let the Pixar (an uber-successful and innovative animation film studio responsible for box office hits such as Finding Nemo and Toy Story) example show you the way. At Pixar, they start each new movie idea with rough storyboards and no scripts. “Storyboards are then painstakingly refined until problems are resolved and the movie eventually evolves from “suck to nonsuck,” as the studio head so colorfully puts it.”[1] What makes Pixar’s organizational culture so impressive is the studio’s “lack of cultural self-consciousness around failure. The boss readily admits it: the first iteration is going to suck. They don’t care! But the entire team understands that by remaining less emotionally invested in initial failure, they are freer to put the early failures behind them and work, together, toward the common goal: another fabulous hit, another milestone in cinematic entertainment.”[2]

It is also important to note that one way Pixar cultivates ideation rather than immediate perfection and keeps itself from getting irrevocably lost in the endless quest for perfection is by setting firm release dates for their films. These irreversible deadlines help them avoid analysis paralysis and “hatch the egg” as opposed to endlessly sitting on the egg until it metaphorically rots.

Build Trust within Your Organization

An organization-wide climate of innovation “can only thrive when every aspect of the organization promotes the creativity, engagement, and acceptance of change that is required. This climate must be reinforced in governance, function, metrics, rewards, and more. . . . Trust must be earned. Once it is, the stage is set for increased commitment to a culture of innovation, where failure does not mean dismissal.” [3] If your team views your innovation drive as this month’s fleeting fad, the naysayers and the cynics will immediately catch on, and innovation assassins, like cockroaches, will once again infiltrate your organization. To ensure true trust within the organization, leadership must create “the processes that reward contributors and open the doors to participations. Once objectives and reward systems are in alignment, conflicts are mitigated and output is optimized. Such a scenario makes it impossible for assassins to work their counterproductive black arts with impunity.”[4]

To learn more about how implement and promote innovation at your company, check out the innovation books Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival and the recently published Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation.

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GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

Roadblocks to Innovation Implementation: How to fight back

Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival set forth a fundamental framework of 10 Key Imperatives. These Imperatives were intended to help everyone from novices to experts use a structured, repeatable innovation process to Create and Sustain Innovation in order to Innovate and Thrive in this hyper-competitive marketplace. As described in the recently published Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation, the predominant reason that even the best and brightest innovative ideas dim and ultimately go dark is the inability of the organization to implement the innovation plans. After all, innovation without implementation is mere ideation.

As discussed in detail in Chapter 2 of Robert’s Rules of Innovation II, organizations often cower from innovation implementation due to a deep-seeded culture of fear and the resultant innovation assassination.

Why Does This Happen?

“That’s not in our budget!”; “Our clients/shareholders/board of directors will never go for it!”; “But we already tried that once…and failed!”

Do the above workplace sound bites sound familiar to you? If so, you are not alone—such chronic naysayers and the power of the status quo (rather than progressing forward with innovation implementation) are deeply  entrenched and inveterate parts of many organizations’ organized work culture.

There are innovation-obliterating assassins lurking in all parts of your organization. Frighteningly, the biggest innovation assassins are often wearing a disguise.

So many high level executives will earnestly (and with a straight face) wax poetically about how important it is to change the organizational culture, catalyze innovative thinking throughout all ranks of the company, and dismantle the power and comfort of the status quo. Yet when you delve deeper into conversation with such executives about taking action and implementing innovation, they cling to their security blanket—their status quo—as if it they were clinging on to the Titanic’s last life raft in the icy waters of the Northern Atlantic.

So why the discrepancy between what such executives say and what they actually do? They typically aren’t “lying” for the sake of deceit or other callous intentions; but instead, their self-contradictory statements and behaviors are usually due to fear. As stated in Robert’s Rules of Innovation II, “Sometimes, it is pure fear. Fear of failure. Fear of the unknown. Fear of criticism. Fear of change. Fear of being terminated.”^[1] So many people in a wide range of industries “… feel as if they are on the bubble. That is, one false move and—poof!—they’re on the street.”^[2]

Sometimes an organization’s culture of fear can be due to the residual effects of the Great Recession of the late 2000s. When a business team is insecure and in self-preservation mode where they are playing defense instead of offense (or, even worse, playing “not to lose” rather than “win the game”), it is easy for innovation assassination to permeate the fear-based cracks in the organization, effectively gagging all new ideas, impetuses for change, and innovation implementation.

Other times, an organization’s root cause of innovation assassination is not due to a culture of fear but rather purely political reasons. Exciting new thinking can meet an untimely death when it is squashed by people who aren’t team players and suffer from the “not invented here” syndrome, which is the closed-minded belief that, “no one [should] get credit for cool stuff around me unless it is me and my group.”^[3]

Another reason organizations are riddled with innovation assassination is due to the direct results of the organization’s decades of DNA. In such cases, ingrained cultural cues (you could even go so far as to call it “dogma”), lead to resistance to “the other” and new ideas and innovation in business. “Resistance to ‘the other’ will be fierce and often have very little to do with the actual worth of validity of the innovation being proposed.”^[4]

Innovators Must be Warriors

Given the above-discussed information, the chances of successful innovation implementation must appear pretty bleak. Even the terms themselves—“innovation assassination” and “culture of fear”—are incredibly ominous-sounding. But fear not, there are ways to fight back against the culture of fear and innovation assassination and come out on top. One practical step an organization can take to promote risk-taking among their employees is to encourage “creative error.” The different types of workplace errors fall along a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, you have errors arising due to sabotage or intentional concealment of errors made or noticed by employees; with such errors, leadership reaction must be on of strong disapproval and zero tolerance. At the middle of the error spectrum, are errors due to inadequate capabilities, unwillingness to learn, carelessness, and other such reasons. With these types of errors, you will see some organizations build up a healthy tolerance to them, despite not actively sanctioning them. Finally, at the other end of the error spectrum, is a type of error known as “creative errors.”

Creative errors happen due to changing market circumstances, calculated risks and rewards, and bad timing. Attention innovators: these are the type of errors you want to spot and encourage in your organization! There is a right and wrong type of failure; these creative errors fall into the “right type of failure” category. Spotting and encouraging the right errors can catalyze the elusive spirit of risk-taking that organizations should strive for. Encouraging creative errors can be an effective shield against a culture of fear and innovation assassination . A perfect example of an organization that encourages creative errors is the Tata Group Innovation Forum, a company whose brand portfolio most notably includes Land Rover and Jaguar. The Tata Group gives out an award called “Dare to Try.” For this award, employees are encouraged to send in entries for innovations that were attempted, but didn’t get implemented into the marketplace for whatever reason. There are way too many instances where the rewards and awards go to those employees who adopt the typical, safe, and trusted methods to deliver fault-free work. By turning this paradigm on its back and instead rewarding creative errors, the Tata Group is encouraging a culture of innovation and risk-taking throughout its company.

Encouraging creative errors is just one of many weapons an organization can use to fight innovation assassination and a culture of fear. For a discussion of other effective weapons in the arsenal, make sure to check back soon on this blog for a follow-up blog post, entitled “On Guard! To Successfully Implement Innovation in Business, You Must Fight the Culture of Fear and Innovation Assassination.”

For more information about how to promote and implement innovation at your company, check out the innovation books Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival and the recently published Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation.

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^[1] Robert’s Rules of Innovation II: The Art of Implementation (See p. 24)

^[2] Sign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.