Making Innovation Happen
Sunday, April 25, 2010 at 11:08PM Building organizational capabilities, such as leadership development or lean operations, is a top priority for most companies. However, many of them have not yet figured out how to do so effectively. The odds improve at companies where senior leaders are more involved.
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Monday, April 5, 2010 at 10:38AM · Research shows group members equate creativity with conformity. Creativity is a much coveted asset for a very simple reason: an idea that transcends orthodoxy has the power to bring wealth, fame and status. Commercial, scientific, educational and artistic organisations, therefore, often talk about how they want to foster creativity. Unfortunately groups only rarely foment great ideas because people in them are powerfully shaped by group norms: the unwritten rules which describe how individuals in a group 'are' and how they 'ought' to behave. Norms influence what people believe is right and wrong just as surely as real laws, but with none of the permanence or transparency of written regulations.
Friday, April 2, 2010 at 11:33PM History is rife with stories of how people bursting with creativity were forced to take traditional safe jobs in deadening organizations while they toiled at creative pursuits on the side. Early American writer Nathanial Hawthorne was a customs agent. The ultra creative Franz Kafka worked for insurance companies. I had a relative who became one of Holland’s greatest regional writers, but spent his entire life working as an office manager. He would get up at 4 am each day to write before he went to work. This imperative to take a safe but boring job popped into my head during a recent discussion with someone who was tasked with reinventing a business operation that has been running sleepily in well-grooved tracks for some time.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 11:37AM Many large-scale phenomena are the sum of individual actions — sometimes millions or even billions of them. Apple's recent celebration of 10 billion songs downloaded represents 10 billion choices made by consumers to download a song rather than buy it in other formats. In the healthcare space, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported a 50 percent drop in respiratory infections in children, a drop attributable (in part) to the group's campaign to educate millions of children to change their behavior: To wash their hands. But what does it take to bring about such mass behavior shifts? Are there approaches that businesses could use, too, to influence behaviors on a micro level, and gain benefits on a macro one?
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at 09:22PM Here is a piece from Gary Hamel's web site. It is genuinely interesting reading about an organisation W. L. Gore who has developed a unique DNA, recognised it and continues to innovate around it. This is a highly successful formula just like Apple. Yet, I have to ask you the question, could you use any their management concepts and techniques in your organisation. If not what might your organisational DNA look like. Here is Hamel's blog from the Wall Street Journal. As a management researcher, I’ve had the opportunity to peer inside a lot of organizations. In doing so, I’ve learned that most big companies are pretty much the same, at least when it comes to the way they’re managed. The rituals of goal-setting, planning, budgeting and performance appraisal differ only slightly from firm to firm. There’s even less variety in the architecture of power. Hierarchical authority structures, top-down leadership appointments and order-following employees have come to nearly every organization I’ve studied—nearly. One amazing exception is W.L. Gore & Associates.
