T
he practical power of values-centered innovation never fails to amaze me. When I conducted an “Innovation Search” for the DuPont corporation to develop new business concepts for a material called Nomex, the fi rst day seemed very creative — 300 or so ideas — but there was no fl ash of brilliance, and I drove home puzzled. After refl ecting on why there had been no spark to the idea-generation, I returned the next morning and asked the participants to share one thing in the world situation that genuinely concerned them. Instantly, the room became alive as they shared their sincere concerns for real-life, passionate issues: hunger, drugs, crime and resource depletion.Then I said, Now that you’ve heard each other’s concerns, form groups with people you resonated with. As the participants brainstormed ways that Nomex might contrib-ute to solving their deep concerns, their creative energy rose exponentially. Ultimately, they produced more than 1,000 ideas. They then organized those ideas into the top 50 key concepts, of which 10 were assessed for technical and market feasibility.
What was the lesson thus far? I saw that while generating their ideas, they anchored their creative energy in something personal, compelling and emotionally real. That creative energy sparked innovative business ideas, and eventual success, based on deep, personal values.
Two months later, we presented our fi ndings on technical and market feasibility to approximately a dozen top executives in the division. We ranked the concepts accord-ing to the potential size of the new business.
After hearing our presentation, an executive wisely said:
There are some very promising business concepts here. But we know our product managers have a lot on their plate. If this executive team decides which to go after, and then assigns a concept to some manager or another, if that manager has a mediocre commitment to the concept, it will become, at best, a mediocre venture. And we’re not in business to be mediocre. So instead, let’s publish this list internally and invite managers to step forward to claim a concept they feel committed to, and have them tell us what they would remove from their plate to make room for the new.
And so they did. I followed the progress of development and implementation over the following two years. Surprisingly to some people, the fi rst concept to achieve a signifi -cant profi t and market share was only number eight on the Top 10 list. The opportunity of protecting precious art during shipment from museum to museum was made into a profi table new business by a manager whose own values made him passionate about preserving art. We knew the story behind this success — the personal values invest-ment alongside the business investinvest-ment.
The Completion Stage of the Creative JourneyTM
Some people really enjoy meetings where they can generate ideas, but they quickly get disinterested when the time comes to act. Just because a great idea has been conceived doesn’t mean the work is done. Action takes the value of determination, and for your team to be successful, you must act on the ideas and innovative solutions you’ve decided upon.
Here is where good project planning comes in. But planning alone is not enough. Any realistic plan of action depends on keeping agreements — for due dates, resource allocations and other aspects of implementation. When what we promise is what we deliver — when we’re committed to practicing a unity of our thoughts, words and actions — then we build trust and implementation occurs more smoothly.
The DuPont executives were looking for this kind of integrity when they published the list of new business opportunities and waited to see who stepped forward to claim a concept they were committed to. They knew that when their managers made commit-ments based on what they believed was important to them, aligned with their personal purpose and values; it gave an innovative new business the best chance of success.
Once the innovation process has completed its cycle, we then need a point of comple-tion where we experience our results, even if they are not what we expected and/or wanted. The purpose of celebrating results is to give a full sense of completion. This completion experience starts by assessing not only the tangible achievements, but also what has been learned during the process: What new knowledge have we gained that will make a difference the next time around? You renew your energy for the next chal-lenge by talking about what you did or didn’t achieve, and what you have learned that can make a difference to you and others in the future.
TASK 7: Implement the solution
The seventh task of your Creative Journey is to implement your solution. How can we best implement our solution?
For many people, making their idea work in the real world is the toughest part of the Creative Journey. If your idea calls for sweeping changes, it may be threatening to the status quo. If your idea is unusual, it may be diffi cult for others to understand it. If you are unusual, you might fi nd it diffi cult to get people to listen to you. So to get your great idea off the ground, you’ll need to plan how to do it, and how to involve others in its successful implementation.
Take the time to develop a detailed plan, schedule and budget for your implementa-tion. Make sure your plan includes both tangible and intangible resources, such as, time, money, equipment, people and information. You may not get all the resources you want, but it helps to identify what you need up front so you don’t fi nd yourself halfway through your plan having to make unacceptable compromises.
A commitment to quality is most needed at this point. If you believe in it, then your solution deserves to be implemented in the best way possible. Since you are going to have to persevere through thick and thin, keep asking yourself and others, How can we implement this solution in a high quality way? Before you fi nalize your plan, take a long, hard look at whether it accommodates your need for high quality implementation.
Although you are going to need to be fl exible, don’t let your dream die by making too many compromises along the way.
Remind everyone that the true nature of commitment is to free you rather than restrict you. For example, dancers must commit themselves to learn the skills that allow them to express movements that most of us can’t even imagine ourselves doing. In the same way, the discipline of commitment and keeping your agreements frees you to make your plan come true.
Overall, link your plan with your personal purpose and values, and make agreements only when you’re sure that everyone is ready to walk their talk — to practice a unity of thought, word and action. Throughout implementation, uplift and encourage everyone in how they stay true to their values and practice that kind of integrity. Then, you can be sure that a well-thought out plan, properly resourced, has the best chance to succeed.
Asking questions to implement your solution
Here are a few questions to supplement the basic question, How can we best imple-ment our solution? You can use these to broaden the discussion and bring out the meaning and motivation that will carry you throughout implementation:
HOW CAN WE BEST IMPLEMENT OUR SOLUTION?
• What plan of action is aligned with our values?
• What is the wisdom in others’ objections?
• What do we need to let go of to succeed?
• What is the right timing for action?
• Where will we need to be fi rm or fl exible?
One technique: Mid-Course Correction
There are a great number of methods for project management, useful even for very small projects. Then, there are the complex tools for much larger-scale projects, such as up-scaling prototypes into full production.
In both cases, you will probably need to make mid-course corrections to adapt to chang-ing circumstances you didn’t anticipate. By analogy, durchang-ing any plane fl ight, the pilotchang-ing and navigation systems are constantly interacting, whether done automatically, or by the pilot. Perhaps for as much as 95 percent of the fl ight, the plane can be at least slightly off course due to variations of winds, pressure areas, and other factors. A plane must constantly make mid-course corrections, yet the sum of all these corrections results in a successful landing at the planned destination.
To do the same with your implementation plan, you also need piloting and navigation systems. Before you begin implementation, consider the following:
• Identify what circumstances you might not be able to control that might affect your plan — workloads of key people, etc.
• Identify how to monitor and keep up-to-date about those conditions
• Identify the key milestones for your plan, and how each might be affected by those circumstances
Then, as you progress through your plan:
• Periodically meet to track progress and get updates about any uncontrollable circumstances
• Use these meetings to proactively generate creative mid-course corrections as needed — adjusting your plans and resources accordingly
A case in point
Let’s return to your hypothetical team that aims to achieve positive morale and high sat-isfaction. Your next task is to plan how to meet both short-term and long-term achieve-ments:
Key Question: How will we best implement our solution?
Focus Issue: How to foster clear communications between employees and managers
Component of the plan First phase milestones Second phase milestones
1. Invite families to Develop the agenda for the Hold the meeting.
participate in a meeting meeting. Make sure to include Document what was on where the company activities to engage all family discussed and concluded.
is going members. Plan to get input Send out the results and buy-in from spouses to all families. Include about what the future holds. commitment to follow up.
Get executives prepared to be candid and down-to-earth.
2. Conduct an “idea fair” Get buy-in from top Conduct fair. Collect results for employees to management. Send out notice from managers. Report to present ideas to to all employees inviting their top management. Get any managers ideas. Set up the idea fair site. needed approvals and Develop ways to document resources.
the managers’ interests.
Invite managers.
Checkpoint
As we’ve seen throughout, every task of the innovation process has a checkpoint to ensure that it’s been well done. This seventh task calls for unity of thought, word and action to ensure a high quality implementation. The evidence for this readiness and commitment is a sincere statement: We keep our commitments.
Checkpoint: Congruence of thought, word and action
• Have we met time, performance and budget agreements?
• Were we unifi ed in what we thought, said and did?
TASK 8: Celebrate the results
The eighth task of your Creative Journey is to take the time out to assess, recognize and celebrate your success. What achievement and learning have we gained? How are we better off because of our efforts?
You might think that every innovation project naturally ends with some kind of evalua-tion. But that’s not true — many times they end and people go on to the next project wondering, How did we really do? What did we get out of that experience? How well did we really meet the goal?
When evaluation sessions are held, they can be quite cold and analytical — sometimes they’re even referred to as post mortems (“after the death”) for a project — not exactly an inspiring way to think about them. This kind of feedback might be mentally satisfy-ing, but without an emotional sense of completion that relates back to our purpose and values, we keep taking on new challenges without ever fi lling up our energy tanks. We get more and more run down until we burn out and feel, I’ve put everything I have into this work and feel like I’ve gotten nothing back.
Thus, this eighth task includes not only your assessment of results, but a celebration of your results.
Let’s fi rst examine an innovative approach to assessing results. With the innovation process, the results to evaluate are twofold: What did we actually achieve — did we meet our purpose or goal? and What new knowledge and learning did we gain that we can transfer and use going forward?
Why, you may ask, should we assess learning as well as achievement? First, in knowl-edge intensive work, new knowlknowl-edge is what fuels new innovation (recall from Chapter 1 that learning is like inhaling, while innovating is like exhaling). When we gather what we learn from one Journey and apply it to the next challenge, we continue to grow.
Second, by assessing new knowledge gained as well as achievement, you give indi-viduals and teams who set aggressive goals the chance to succeed on two possible fronts. 3M demonstrated this approach in one of their ads: 3M has made a lot of mistakes. We’re very proud of them. The ad goes on to say, Everyone who is alive and moving makes mistakes. The trick is to learn from your mistakes and move on. [If venture risks are reasonable], we tend to be willing to make an investment and learn.
Still, it takes more than assessment to provide a sense of real completion to an innovation process. It takes celebration. By celebration, I don’t mean big hurrahs and pats on the back, although those are just fi ne. Something my clients have taught me over the years is that the deepest sense of completion comes with the opportunity to express gratitude — to say, “Thank you.” Giving thanks reconnects us to everyone else who contributed to the achievement and the learning.
Celebration provides the moment to gain a deep sense of satisfaction and express sincere feelings of gratitude. It also allows the opportunity to acknowledge any
emotions, even sadness at the ending of a special experience shared with colleagues.
To move on, we must leave things behind. A celebration marks our passage. It applauds what we have learned and accomplished in the past, and puts it to rest.
It frees us to move forward.
So take time to look at all you have gained, and emphasize the value of appreciation:
How can we appreciate and celebrate what we’ve achieved and learned? Share this with others; it will inspire others and yourself to move on to greater challenges with a renewed sense of purpose and energy.
For example
A company’s appraisal and reward process can make or break its efforts to ensure that innovation thrives. Frank Douglas, former head of R&D at Marion-Merrill-Dow and then Hoechst-Marion-Roussel, is a living example of how to do this. He once sponsored a major research effort to develop a certain drug, and as the research progressed it looked like a potential blockbuster.
But a lab technician noticed something suspicious in their research, and a supervisor followed up. They found that the compound was depositing cholesterol in the liver, which could lead to extensive liver damage. The project was canceled and the research
team was crestfallen. As Frank later told me, they were very anxious that management would see them as failures. He addressed the team by saying,
First of all, I’m really very happy that the environment we have here is one where a technician can make an observation, and a supervisor can pursue that observation and come out with an answer, rather than ignore it.
He then repeated to them his three priorities for any research project. His top priority was to develop compounds that addressed unmet medical needs while also advancing science. If he couldn’t do both, his second priority was to meet the unmet medical need. And if that wasn’t possible with the project, he at least wanted to advance science.
He went on to tell his team:
Your work on this compound is in the third category. It advances science, because nobody knew that this type of compound would stimulate specifi c cells to ingest cholesterol. I bet you anything that somebody will fi gure out how to use this com-pound to do other things without the side effects of getting trapped in the liver.
So, this is a signifi cant contribution to science. The team ought to be congratulated.
It has saved the company a lot of money by discovering this now, and has also prevented potential side effects to patients. I’m going to celebrate what others would consider a failure, but what for me is a signifi cant success.
Frank made a point of publicly recognizing them for their contribution and concluded by saying:
I think when you do that in this environment, then people don’t worry about failing, and you create an atmosphere in which they are more likely to make breakthroughs.
Frank acted as a true sponsor of innovation. He appraised his research team and rewarded them for both their science achievement and new learning they could transfer to other projects. That, I have found, is the key to encouraging people to set stretch goals and take the risks required for innovation.
Asking questions to celebrate results
In this last task in the Completion stage, think about how you appraise and celebrate the results from your Journey: The main question is: What have we achieved and learned?
Here are a few more questions you can use to broaden your team discussion, and bring forth the values and meaning that will help you complete your innovation process:
WHAT HAVE WE ACHIEVED AND LEARNED?
• What results are consistent with our values?
• How can we share the credit with those who deserve it?
• What important new knowledge have we gained?
• How can we celebrate and move on?
• What do we feel most grateful for?
One technique: SATISFIERS
I once conducted research at the Pillsbury Co., with brand managers from the U.S. Foods Division, asking them to rank the following rewards (SATISFIERS) for innovativeness:
S Self-determination — autonomy, fl exibility in job assignments A Advancement — promotions
T Training and development — gaining greater expertise, personal growth I Intrinsic — doing what you most enjoy
S Social — being able to work with the people you most want to work with F Financial — salary increases, bonuses
I Impact — having an impact by achieving meaningful goals, serving customers E Environment — good working conditions, hours, nice surroundings, equipment R Recognition — public or private recognition by bosses, peers, or subordinates S Security — confi dence in a specifi c job assignment or overall employment
I Impact — having an impact by achieving meaningful goals, serving customers E Environment — good working conditions, hours, nice surroundings, equipment R Recognition — public or private recognition by bosses, peers, or subordinates S Security — confi dence in a specifi c job assignment or overall employment