Spotlight on Innovation

Copyright © 2010, Personnel Decisions International Corporation, d.b.a. PDI Ninth House. All Rights Reserved.

Spotlight on Innovation

Mr. Adam Walz, M.Ed., PDI Ninth House

Mrs. Véronique-Sophie Bounaud, Axa

May 18th, 2010


What is Innovation?

“Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship…the act that endows

resources with a new capacity to create wealth.”

— Peter F. Drucker


Climates for Generating Innovation Still Need Work

— Mary O’Hara Devereaux, Human Resource Planning Society, April 2006

Generating Radical Ideas

Getting Diverse

Input

Refining New Ideas

Funding Small

Experiments

Killing Losers Fast

Enough

My Organization Is Very Good At:(Percent Strongly Agree)

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10%

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40%

Generating Radical Ideas

Getting Diverse

Input

Refining New Ideas

Funding Small

Experiments

Killing Losers Fast

Enough


0%

10%

20%

30%

40%


0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

* Percent Strongly Agree


The Need for Innovation

“What’s likely to kill you in the new economy is not somebody doing

something better, it’s somebody doing something different.”

─BusinessWeek, Michael Bloomberg


Innovation Prevention: Organizational Hazards

Culture/Mind-Set:

“Let me just play devil’s advocate for a minute…”

Initial negativity smothers ideas and opportunities before they can develop.

Structure/Hierarchy:

“We have to get buy-in from all levels before taking any action...”

Too many stakeholders can kill greatness.

Recognition/Rewards:

“This isn’t on your list of goals; we need you to focus.”

People learn very quickly which behaviors are rewarded in any system.


The Aztek Story


Barriers to Innovation

What are your organization’s biggest challenges to innovating?


Three Specific Questions

What makes innovators different from other employees?

How can we increase our workforce’s innovative capacity?

How can enterprise 2.0 tools support the people-side of innovation?


What makes innovators different from other employees?

Innovators have developed and honed a strong set of discovery skills.



The Innovator’s DNA

Source: Dyer, Gregerson, & Christensen, The Innovator’s DNA. HBR December, 2009


"Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had an idea. It's the person who gets out of the

shower, dries off, and does something about it that makes

a difference.“ —Nolan Bushnell


How can we increase our workforce’s innovative capacity?

1. Engage the masses 2. Adopt innovation-friendly practices2. Leverage individual differences3. Align talent to your innovation cycles


1. Engage the Masses

Source: McKinsey 2010 Global Survey. What successful transformations share


2. Adopt Innovation-Friendly Practices

Dress code: “You must wear clothes”.

An organization that is flat, transparent, and non-hierarchical.

A company-wide rule that allows developers to devote 20% of their time to any project they choose.

“Keep the bozos out” and reward people who make a difference.

Source: Gary Hamel, “Management à la Google,” WSJ, April 26, 2006.


ROWE – “Results-Only Work Environment”

Productivity is up an average 35% in departments that have switched

Factoid: It wasn't imposed from the top down.

Created CultureRx – subsidiary to help other companies go clockless.

Next Challenge: Implement ROWE in stores.

Source: Michelle Conlin, “Smashing the Clock,” BusinessWeek, December, 2006.



Workers set own hours, pay, and hire boss

All jobs are 6-month temporary assignments.

Employees elect the corporate leadership and initiate moves into and out of new/existing businesses.

No org charts, no five-year plans, no dress code, no titles, no offices, no administrative assistants, no HR department.

Source: Ricardo Semler, “The Seven-Day Weekend,” Portfolio Hardcover Publishing, 2004.



3. Leverage Individual Differences

High

Risk Taking

Low

HighLow Creativity

Challenger Innovator

Practicalizer

Sustainer

Modifier Synthesizer

Planner

Dreamer

The Creatrix® Model

— Creatrix®. A Richard Byrd Company, 2005.


Know what YOU are good at.


4. Align Talent to Your Innovation Cycles Source: Geoffrey Moore, Dealing with Darwin

Deploy

Invent Offload

Core Context

Mission Critical

Non-Mission-Critical

Manage

ManageMission-critical

ProcessesAt Scale

ExtractResources

To RepurposeFor Core

InventDifferentiated

Offering

DeployDifferentiation

At Scale

Fund next innovation

IV

IIIII

I


How can enterprise 2.0 tools support the people-side of innovation?

Enterprise 2.0 tools are capable of creating greater transparency, knowledge-sharing,

community, and accountability.


Case Study: Proctor & Gamble

Copyright © 2010, Personnel Decisions International Corporation, d.b.a. PDI Ninth House. All Rights Reserved. 23

Case Study: Qualcomm

Our goal was to deliver an innovative learning program that would instantly engage participants and develop strong leadership skills. One of our challenges was to create a program that participants would find immediately valuable and that would be highly relevant for their roles.

15,500 EMPLOYEES, WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS

SCALABLE, ENGAGING, BLENDED LEARNING DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM FOR HIGH-POTENTIAL LEADERS RESPONSIBLE FOR MAJORITY OF REVENUE, AND CRITICAL TO BUSINESS SUCCESS

52% INCREASE IN SKILL LEVEL AND/OR KNOWLEDGE FOLLOWING COMPLETION OF PROGRAM; SCALED TO FIT GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT NEEDS; LEVERAGED TECHNOLOGY TO CONTROL COSTS

Copyright © 2010, Personnel Decisions International Corporation, d.b.a. PDI Ninth House. All Rights Reserved. 24

Emerging Leaders Program


Yammer


Community Site


Questions / Comments?

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Spotlight on Innovation