Driving

Creative

Innovation

by Steve Massi

Overview

•Today’s brand environment is more challenging than ever

•Brands are looking for ways to drive business impact faster and more efficiently

•The needs to access, integrate and activate new capabilities and platforms are growing rapidly

•The advent of social media has accelerated this demand

•This presentation will lay out the foundations of creative innovation, what it is, why it is important, key elements and must do’s for success

What is Creative Innovation& Why?

•Reynolds Wrap packet cooking

–A new use for an existing product that drove profitable revenue and established a cultural framework for explosive new product development

•Apple’s iPod

–A combination of existing elements/technologies, brought together in a usable, beautiful way that exploded a category (MP3 players)

What is it – some examples

Photos courtesy of: Reynolds/Alcoa, Apple

•Old Spice communication campaign

– Revitalized an old brand name by shifting target customer (male to female) and changing typical development and approval processes to create personal customer engagement and excitement

What is it – some examples

Photos courtesy of: Old Spice

•What is Innovation?

– Change that creates a new dimension of performance. Peter Drucker (Hesselbein, 2002)

What is innovation?

•Innovation is not invention

– Invention can be an idea, a great idea

– Most inventions or ideas fail because they do not drive profitability of ROI

– Most companies focus on ideas or inventions

– Innovation drives economic value*

•In economics the change (innovation) must increase value, customer value, or producer value**

•The term innovation may refer to both radical and incremental changes to products, processes or services. The often unspoken goal of innovation is to solve a problem**

*Knowledge@Wharton-Sirkin**Wikipedia

What is innovation?

•Any aspect of our business requires direct or indirect sensitivity to creativity

•Knowledge, insight, skills and motivation should embrace the driving concept of creativity

•All areas must strive not just to ideate or invent, but to innovate

Why creative innovation?

Expertise/knowledge

Motivation

Creative thinking

skillsCreativity

Harvard Business School

The elements of creativity

Key Elements of Creative Innovation

•Creativity and innovation start with knowledge and insight*

– More than topline knowledge, which can drive idea generation

– Must be deep customer insight that reveals true need

*Knowledge@Wharton- Huston

It starts with knowledge and insight

•Tacit knowledge has been found to be a crucial input to the innovation process. A society’s ability to innovate depends on its level of tacit knowledge of how to innovate.*

•Most service industries driven by “tacit interactions, activities and tacit knowledge”

– By definition, tacit knowledge is knowledge that people carry in their minds and is, therefore, difficult to access. Often, people are not aware of the knowledge they possess or how it can be valuable to others. Tacit knowledge is considered more valuable because it provides context for people, places, ideas, and experiences. Effective transfer of tacit knowledge generally requires extensive personal contact and trust.*

*Wikipedia

The role of tacit knowledge

Where marketing fits

McKinsey

Various industries and levels of tacit knowledge

•Companies boost productivity by improving the efficiency of transformational activities (such as the extraction of raw materials) or of transactions (for instance, the work of the clerks in the accounts-payable function)…

•But the productivity of marketing managers and lawyers can’t be raised by standardizing their work or replacing them with machines*

•Companies can analyze work done in processes and root out wasteful activities so employees do more in less time. But companies don’t improve tacit interactions by forcing salespeople (or other tacit workers) to follow a uniform procedure.*

*McKinsey

Improving tacit interactions

•Managing for effectiveness in tacit interactions is about fostering change, learning, collaboration, shared values and innovation*

•Consistent, high-quality tacit interactions have a dramatic impact on innovation and economic value

*McKinsey

Improving tacit interactions

McKinsey

For highly tacit, better interactions = better results

Managing tacit interactions has dramatic financial impact

High performer

Low performer

•Top performers have figured out that by managing tacit interactions more effectively, they can create competitive advantages that rivals in their sectors find hard to match…*

*McKinsey

Improving tacit interactions

•To enable and encourage an environment where tacit interactions and knowledge sharing can flourish and grow

– What needs to be done?

– What incentives are needed?

Managing tacit interactions for creative innovation

What Needs To Be Done

We need to move from this

Working off the same knowledge pointsBut With A Silo’d, Diffuse Effort

Knowledge/insight

Digital

Technology

Research

Sales

PR/Media

Account

Creative

Product

Dev

To this

Digital Technology

Research

Sales

PR/Media

Account

Creative

Product

Dev

Knowledge Insight

Powerful innovation driven by disciplined collaboration

Collaboration – A Key Behavior for Innovation

•A key enabler of tacit interactions is Collaboration

– the recursive interaction of knowledge and mutual learning

– between two or more people working together

– toward a common goal, typically creative in nature (Wikipedia)

Cooperation Coordination Collaboration

Lower Intensity Higher Intensity

Short term, Informal relationships Longer term effort around a project Durable and pervasive relationships

Shared information only Some planning and division of roles Common structure and commitment to

common goals

Separate goals, resources, and

structures

Some shared resources, rewards, and

risk

All partners contribute resources and

shared rewards and leadership

*AFRL

*

Collaboration - a key behavior for innovation

•There are four working types of collaborations*:

–Progressive collaboration •Communities of practice, knowledge-sharing sites, inter-

organizational networks

–Self-Organizing collaboration•Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yahoo groups

–Remedial collaboration• Innovation or problem-solving teams, task forces, informal

workarounds

–Oppositional collaboration •Electronic caucuses, rumor mills, external associations

*Accenture

Collaboration - a key behavior for innovation

•And each brings different value*:

–Progressive collaboration •Produces value indirectly, largely by adding depth to the

understanding of a process or an activity that directly creates value

–Self-Organizing collaboration•Helps people discover the common interests that often serve as the

precursor to value creating activity

–Remedial collaboration•Helps achieve value when a system is incapable of monitoring and

correcting itself

–Oppositional collaboration •Usually destroys value or dissipates it

*Accenture

Collaboration - a key behavior for innovation

•Enabling and encouraging a Collaborative Work environment has many benefits:– Creates tacit interactions– Improves tacit knowledge transfer– Broadens capabilities and expertise – Helps overcome locked-in ways of approaching problems– Encourages team participation– Improves morale and a sense of belonging– Utilizes human capital more effectively– Creates an innovative work environment and culture

Collaboration - a key behavior for innovation

Creating The Right Environment

•Creating an insight driven, collaborative culture

– Successful collaboration is based on three key principals –inclusion, motivators/incentives, alignment

• You can’t collaborate if you don’t include

• Create incentives supporting the right motivators

• Alignment in/of decision making is crucial

Formalizing collaboration

•Diversify by responsibility and personality at different points in the process

–Encourages flexibility and imagination, discourages Groupthink

–Include to make better decisions, provide better quality implementation, speed implementation of decision making

•Experiment with the numbers

–In research of Broadway musicals, seven is an optimal number for musical creation*

–Different situations will require different resources

Include the right people

* Brian Uzzi, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management (Edward Boches , 10 rules for modern collaboration )

•Most organizations use the “carrot and stick” reward system only to find it ineffective*

•Knowledge workers are driven by higher order motivational needs*:

–Purpose•Driven by a common cause or greater unifying purpose

–Mastery•Desire for continual learning and improvement

–Self-sufficiency/autonomy•Ability to perform at a high level and take responsibility for one’s

actions

Create incentives to encourage collaboration

*Daniel Pink: Drive, The surprising truth about what motivates us

•Increased collaboration requires disciplined decision making

•Must establish criteria:

–What is the decision to be made•Frame and split into sub-decisions if necessary

–Who will play what roles•RASCI, RAPID, etc.

–How will decisions be made•Voting, Directive, Consultative, Alignment

–When must the decision be made•Consider execution and resource implementation as well

Establish effective decision making

Summary

Driving creative innovation

Collaboration to improve

tacit interactions

Deep insight

Identify challenge or

problem

Alignment towards

common goal or purpose

Establish parameters for

decision making

Development skills/tools SCAMPER,

brainstorm, etc.

Implement or

Prototype/test

Implications for brands

•Team members must know the business reasons for collaboration - improve the frequency and quality of tacit interactions to drive innovation and economic value for clients and company

•Consider investments that foster insight gathering, collaboration and tacit interactions

– Information gathering and sharing tools/platforms, including social platforms

– Employee training for improved collaboration and engagement

– Behavior and outcome based benchmarks and measures for success

Thanks

Please feel free to share or contact me

• Steve Massi• stevemassi@verizon.net• linkedin.com/in/stevemassi• twitter.com/stevemassi• stevemassi.posterous.com