Commentary by Jack Hipple

$140 a Barrel –

By the time you read this, it may be higher. If you’re in Europe, the price has also gone up, but no where near as much. Why? Because we currently price oil in dollars and with the huge US budget deficit and growing inflation, our currency is declining against virtually all of the other world’s major currencies. So does that mean that other people in the world shouldn’t be trying to conserve? Of course not, but you have to admit that their perspective is different, and when we ask others to “help us out”, it’s not surprising that one of the responses we hear is “fix your own problem”.

Perspective in interesting, isn’t it? And that includes when we consider it in the area of innovation. One person’s “cool” thing is a yawn to others because they don’t have a need for whatever the cool thing does. Do suppliers and customers see things the same way? Sometimes, if there’s a long standing strategic partnership in place. But how often does that occur? I like my insurance agent, and he saved me some real money when I first switched, but I went on the web this afternoon to the Progressive web site to see if his insurance was still a good deal.

When we’re innovating, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of liking ourselves and not understanding what a customer is actually doing, or might do, with our invention. I heard a talk a while back from a researcher at a large OTC drug company discussing how they actually went into the homes of sick children to see what the consumer actually did with the bottle they bought—how they stored it, how they opened it, how they used it—the whole environment in which the medicine was used. (You do read all those directions supplied with cough syrup, don’t you?). They videotaped in the home so that their researchers, packaging designers, and marketing people could actually see what was done with the cough syrup. How often have you actually visited a customer, not to have lunch, factory tour, or golf outing, but to actually see how your products are used? Talked to the people (not the purchasing agent) who actually uses your stuff? What kinds of “workarounds” are being done to use your materials? Do your customers actually know and use all the features you have built in? Is there some feature that is being included indirectly because you don’t supply it? If not, I’ll bet someone is going to come along with something simpler and cheaper and impact your business (think cell phones that only receive calls, cell phones that recharge with a hand crank, call phones that only call and receive with big numbers). Or they are adding a feature you didn’t know was needed. Why doesn’t someone in the TV business figure out how to make a truly uiniversal romote? How many do you have? How many would you like to have? Do the engineers designing these things ever use them? Are they more intested in features or what is needed by the customer?

Getting back to the oil price—is China’s perspective on this the same as ours? They are financing our debt, and then turning around and buying their oil with it while we pay them interest. While we fret about our debt, they see it as a way of increasing global leverage. Innovators with coal based technology are salivating at the prospect of having a price sufficient to support their efforts. They have no infrastructure investment in conventional refineries, so they have more freedom. The same difference in perspective was there for wireless suppliers vs. land line phones.

Perspective is an interesting word in innovation. One perspective may be totally different than another. Before you invest a fortune, make sure you see your innovation through the eyes of all those who might be affected—customers, suppliers, and future competitors. Challenge yourself and your people to get outside the box and look at your breakthrough and your innovation potentials through different eyes. Role play as many eyes as you can imagine and your ideas will have more substance and be able to stand up to commercial challenge.

Using Negatives as Positives for Innovation Strategy ---

Frequently, we get caught up in “reacting” to what we believe is bad news or negative trends. We spend huge sums of money and divert resources from other activities to head off what we consider to be a disaster. When this has to do with business ethics, a steep economic downturn, a surprise piece of legislation, or a surprise merger or acquisition, then these efforts may be appropriate. Sometimes, however, we get caught up in the bad news and don’t use an interesting technique of thinking how we could use a negative as a positive, both in the short term and the long term. Let’s look at a few examples.

Remember the Tylenol® scare of many years ago when contaminated over the counter (OTC) bottles of McNeil Pharmaceutical’s brand of acetaminophen threatened the survival of the business? Millions of dollars was spent on a voluntary recall. There are many similar situations where the “brand” simply disappeared from sight. The makers of Tylenol® decided to stand by their brand and used this incident to validate their corporate responsibility and to enhance their “uniqueness” in a generic brand market. Acetaminophen can be purchased at less than half the price of Tylenol® in most drug stores, but the ads on TV tell you very clearly that they don’t make “store brand” pain relievers.

This decision to use bad news as a basis for strengthening a product brand was not made lightly, I am sure, but it certainly did take a different view of the situation than is taken by most other manufacturers of defective products.When we use various quality tools, we use product and service defects to tell us what customers don’t like and we use this information to improve our products and services. Consumer product and grocery suppliers use purchases of competitors’ products, as determined by checkout bar codes, to automatically generate coupons on the back of sales receipts to change your buying habits.How can we use this kind of thinking in our innovation strategy? What big KNOWN negative things are we aware of that are currently causing migraine headaches and “whoa is me” discussions, which if thought about in this alternative way, could present major opportunities?

Let’s take global warning. I don’t want to start a political or religious debate about this subject, but there is broad agreement that the earth’s climate will be warning steadily through the next 50 years. Politicians and scientists are discussing techniques and funding programs that might alleviate changes beyond then. What if we think about global warming as a business opportunity instead of a paralyzing threat? What trends would we expect? There are projections of which parts of the US and the world will become very much hotter and drier, specifically the Great Plains and southern Canada. Who will supply the increased water demands of these regions? What kind of opportunities exist in improved filtration and water purification/reuse systems that will allow sustainable living? What genetically engineered versions of wheat and corn can survive on one third as much water? How can Canadian farmers take advantage of a warmer climate that they always wished they had for a longer growing season? What kind of technologies could be developed for carbon dioxide sequestration (we see ads about this already).

The world is highly dependent upon precious rare earth elements for many high technology devices. Many of these sources are limited and in unstable regions of the world—an analogy to oil supply. If you are a user of hafnium, for example, instead of hiring 4 more purchasing agents who can speak more languages (maybe a good short term thing), begin to ask yourself how could the function of the rare metal be performed in an alternate way? How could you do without? That would certainly provide a powerful competitive advantage.Inventory your biggest “Excedrin” headaches and approach them as innovation opportunities.

What’s dynamism? It’s the changing of a product, system, or service in response to "something" or a pro-active management of a product, service, or organization in response to both anticipated or unanticipated conditions. In my opinion, it is one of the most powerful and least utilized innovation thinking tools. First of all, if we look at the history of products, technology, or services, we see a constant movement toward a more dynamic state. Examples:

1. Table saws. There’s a series of patents from 1991 to 1995 (to three different companies!) showing the transition from a 180 degree linear table saw to one that tilts at a 45 degree angle to one that rotates in a 360 degree fashion, allowing the cutting at any angle.
2. Airlines. The price of a seat, on most airlines, is now a function of not only when you book, but where you want to sit and what competitors are doing at any instant in time. A few airlines change their meal selection on longer flights based on average airfare on the plane (I.e. Dallas to Orlando vs. Dallas to JFK--what’s the difference?).
3. Shavers. Norelco has come out with a electric shaver that, for the first time, rotates all blades in a 360 degree fashion.
4. Outsourcing. Numerous companies now outsource what they believe to be variable needs and positions to protect their paid staff from layoffs and downsizings.
5. Soda/pop machines. In a short lived, but famous, example, Coca Cola was planning to change the electronic pricing on their soft drink machines at the Atlanta Olympics to change in response to outside temperature--the hotter it is, the more you pay. The Wall Street Journal got wind of this, published an article, and that was the end of that idea, but an interesting concept, don’t you think? Not exactly supply and demand pricing, but a version of it.
6. Laptop power cords. It used to be one charger for any laptop and if you lost one, very expensive. Now Targus and others have one charger with 10 different adopters to fit virtually any laptop.
7. Pants and luggage. It was not too long ago that expandable waists in pants and slacks became widely available and also the built in expandability of luggage size through the use of a temporary zipper.
8. Automobile systems. Wipers change speed based on car speed. Radio volume changes with speed. Braking light intensity changes with brake pedal pressure. Seats automatically adjust to user based on key entry.
9. Software. Most word processing software that we use has the capability to recognize the style in which you typing a document and begin to indent, etc. automatically.
10. Call centers. The speed with which your call is answered is a function of your status as a card holder.

I could go on and on, but you get the point. Dynamism or the ability of a product or service to change---automatically, if possible, is a well known successful ideation stimulant. When I look at the many of these example, I ask myself the question, why so long? Sometimes we wait for a customer to complain and that’s long after the need is really there. Don’t wait! Take every product or service you are involved with and ask yourself--how could we make it more dynamic? More responsive? To what? When? And think about dynamism from many different perspectives--engineering design, product functionality, different users, different time and conditions. If you don’t make your product or service more dynamic, someone else will! Don’t wait for a customer to tell you--they may not as they don’t know how to do it. You probably do.

I was asked recently to contribute to the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Management Division newsletter and thought I would share a modified version of it with all of you.

A Recession is Coming, A Recession is Coming….

Is the sky falling or is it just a false alarm? Who knows right now, but it’s amazing how a crisis focuses our minds. We all of a sudden do things we should have been doing all along and just put off. A few examples:

1. Planning. The Wall Street Journal has published a recent article on how good (and bad) various companies do this. But when you offer early retirement buyouts to a huge number of people, with the expectation and plan that a large number will accept, how is their function (note I did not say job!) going to be done? Is it really that the function was not necessary? Why have you been doing it this long? Shouldn’t planning be done ahead of time and not in a crisis? Succession planning is a particular area of concern.

2. Customers. Do we treat them differently in an economic downturn? Why? Aren’t they valuable all the time? Do we treat them special only when they tell us they are exploring "other alternatives"? Should we all of a sudden stop worrying about their long term needs and instead focus on the short term price reductions that the market forces upon us?

3. Innovation. Boy, have we turned the spigot on in the last 5 years after having drained the swamp totally in the previous ten, and having had the spigot on the previous 10 years. It's like a long term sinusoidal wave. Everyone’s all excited. Now, things are getting tough. We can't afford innovation in a downturn, can we? Just cost cutting, downsizing (or is it "right sizing" nowadays), and focusing. Shut down those programs, stop asking customers what they want 5, 10 years from now. Stop asking what and who is going to replace your products and services. Get surprised at the answers you see elsewhere in a few years in exactly the same time frame.

3. Technology. Should we stop investing in new areas? New applications? It sure would save money, and in a few years we can see what others are doing and decide what we shlould have been doing. Then we play catch up...if it's possible.

4. People. They’ve been so hard to get lately. Hiring bonuses, retention bonuses. Things slow down and we think we don’t need so many. Stop being nice. Stop those extra attention efforts. They won’t notice because they’re now insecure and you hold the upper hand (finally!). You’re right, they won’t notice until the next time… Aren’t they the same people?

Let's think about our on and off switches and whether they should be variable dials instead. And let's also think about the response of those dial settings and maybe what their hooked to. This current situation reminds me of the reverse of the panel discussion I heard about 5 years ago at an IIR conference where someone said, "we're done with all the downsizing and restructuring, and it's now time for innovation". It was as if there was an assumption that the memory banks were suddenly wiped out by Cylon Borgs and people would have no memory of the massive layoffs and the "focusing" of activities, and we'd all be happy again and playfully march off into the new exciting world of innovation. If that's where you started a while back, think long and hard about your assumptions of peoples' perceptions and reactions.

In the last column, we reviewed and analyzed the benchmarking IBM study of corporate innovation. The aspects we discussed were the strategic look at innovation, the barriers, and the CEO’s role in overcoming these and leading this ongoing effort. In addition, this study discussed the organizational aspects of innovation. Let’s review and discuss these.

This study showed a positive impact at the bottom line of BOTH utilizing teams and recognizing individual contributions. This is really hard to do in practice, which is why so few organizations do it well. Google was specifically mentioned as an example of both communities of practice as well as the respect for individual input and contribution. There are few other companies that can match the growth in Google, its sales, its profits, and its stock price, so maybe there is something to this. The other closing observation was the frustration CEO’s face in integrating technology and business. Those who had managed to do this successfully cited improved benefits in cost reduction, greater customer satisfaction, increased sales, and faster time to market. But how do you do these things?

I haven’t talked to anyone at Google, but my own experiences at Dow, Cabot, Ansell Edmont, and the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences have taught me a few things. In 2001, I was responsible for leading a study for the Association of Managers of Innovation regarding failed corporate innovation programs. This study began without any pre-conceived notions of the results. The #1 key finding on the personnel side was that there was a huge gap between people styles of corporate management and innovation leaders, ultimately resulting in the loss of many talented innovators most of whom left and joined startups or became consultants and seemed to do just fine. I have continued this study informally and continued to make presentations on the updated information and find no exceptions to its findings. Everyone has their own favorite measurement tool and I don’t want to get into a debate about this (use the ones you think are appropriate). We used the Myers Briggs and the Kirton KAI. There was a 90% correlation between Myers Briggs “N’s” and a KAI profile above 125 with the innovation disconnect. This really shouldn’t surprise us if we think about it for a minute. 80% of corporate managers are STJ’s. An “N” is a disruptive person, asking all kings of “intuitive”, open ended questions and willing to think and operate in a fuzzy zone. But they do ask questions (sometimes to a fault!) and see things not seen by others. A high KAI profile indicates someone who generates a lot of unfiltered ideas, is comfortable with lack of structure, and is not possessed by deadlines and schedules. Another major conflict with a typical CEO who is looking for closure, facts, and data. It is unlikely that either style is going to want to do the job of the other, so both extremes in styles need to understand each other and use each others’ strengths. One of the scary things about the phrase that I despise the most in corporate America right now (“team player”) is the implication that difference in ideas are not appreciated. We also like to clone ourselves in the hiring process. My days as a college recruiter also taught me how easy it is to hire someone just like yourself instead of hiring someone who might question, push back a little, and lead you in new directions

On the integration question, it is critical for CEO’s to clearly define and understand what business they are in so the innovators have some kind of structure within which to innovate. Are you in the phone business or the communication business? Are you in the copy machine business or in the business of providing information storage? Are you in the car business or the transportation business? Are you in the food business or the nutrition business? Are you in the fabric business or the clothing business? No right or wrong about any of this, but if the business objectives are not matched with the technology work going on, a lot of time and money will be wasted, not to mentions peoples’ frustrations. Innovators need to push this envelope they have a least a little to present to their CEO’s possibilities. And they need to do this with facts and data since they are talking to STJ’s. I don’t have much sympathy for a high KAI, “N” Myers Briggs person who simply suggests to their management that they look at this “new thing” without having spent some time doing their homework and knowing something about markets, sales, competition, etc. This area of innovation/business management is the single biggest difference between innovation today and that of 15-20 years ago, and the innovators need to understand that. And CEO’s need to listen and think a bit more about possibilities the way that Google, Skype, and Amazon have.

The IBM Innovation Study--What Does It Say?

The recent pioneering global study and interview of corporate CEOs regarding innovation and its importance provides many insights into not only the world of innvoation, but the competitive nature of it. If everyone but you believes that innovation is the number one focus of business right now and you don’t, a serious pause for thinking is due. This study involved over 700 corporate leaders from arond the world. What does it say?

First, that innovation needs to be CORPORATE activity, not just an R&D activity. There are just as many opportunities in operations, finance, marketing, and services as there are in research and new product development. The business model used was cited as one of the most significant areas and had a payback twice that of innovation in operations. This raises the question again of deciding what business you’re in. If you’re supplying computer hardware, is your business building and selling computers or is it supplying a methodology for people to run calculations and store data? Is there a different business model? You bet! Consider the recent Forbes article (Feb 11, 2008, p37) entitled "The Death of Hardware". It describes the case of a major web business (Zillow) that provides up to date home pricing information to consumers. Doing this nationwide for 67 million homes takes up 4 TERABYTES of memory. Updating this for the recent housing price collapses in most parts of the country was going to cost a million dollars and take six months--unacceptable to its customers. Zillow ran the data over the internet using rented computer space from Amazon (are they in the book business or the information business you should be asking now) for $50,000 and it took 3 weeks. If you’re the IBM or Dell salesperson calling on Zillow, how do you feel? Were you calling on the right customer? Who was?

65% of respondents to this survey indicated that organizational structural change was the most common business model innovation, followed by 50% indicating major strategic partnerships. Not new product development. What does this mean? That HOW we do business is just as important as coming up with the next whiz bang thing. Consider the example above. If you’re Dell, is it time to rethink the focus on PC’s? Why not rent programs and storage space that is accessible over the web with a very inexpensive home device? What’s the impact on Microsoft of renting software vs. selling millions of copies of something that is used only once in a while? This is being done, but not by the major PC players. Computer data entry without keyboards is another intersting example. It will be interesting to see what happens long term. The study shows that business model innovation’s impact on the bottom line is at least 5X that of innovation focus on products, services, or operations.

The most significant barriers to innovation cited by these global executives were government/legal restrictions and economic uncertainly (external) and unsupported innovation culture and limited funding (internal). This is truly an amazing response as we know so much about these issues (except the government!). The culture and funding are determined by the CEO’s and their business managers themselves. If a CEO turns the innovation spigot on and off frequently and downsizes innovation at the first sign of uncertainty, this memory stays around a long time. We’ve been a part of and led studies on this and we keep reinventing the wheel and our knowledge. This key finding suggests that we have met the enemy and it is us. A leader can control funding and support. A CEO and the managers that report to him or her can question the hiring processes and the type of people hired. Are we cloning ourselves when we need to change ourselves? There are many psychological typing instruments that will accurately assist in assessing problem solving styles. Do we use them in team formation? Do we use them for career counseling?

The bottom line of all this is that business and people are the key concerns in the innovation area. You did know that, didn’t you? And your business practices reflect that, don’t they?

More on this study next time.

It’s the New Year. What’s new? Innovation is still the "buzzword", but I go to many presentations at meetings where the talks are not about innovation, but about astute business choices (plant locations, etc.). I’m afraid that innovation is becoming a buzzword without focus, in part captured by conference organizers who know it will get people’s attention. YOU need to decide what innovation is to you. Other than being something significantly different and a bit radical from what you are doing now, let’s consider some of the options. Traditionally we tend to think of innovation in a product or business sense--how can we get into a new business? Sell a new product? This focus may take us in the direction of analyzing how our R&D budget is allocated, acquisitions to be able to deliver a new technology to the market, a review of our hiring process and who we hire, how we physically locate our new efforts, or how we manage the reporting structure of the new "business". How much innovation can you afford? Do you want? I’ve seen this latter question answered without thinking at all about the consequences to the existing core business. Not a good idea--lots of internal conflicts develop. Have you thought about the reaction and morale of the parts of your businesses that have a focus on "core" businesses? How do you keep their enthusiasm up while you’re celebrating all the new stuff? Is your reward and compensation system going to be the same for the more risk taking folks? Have you promised that their jobs will be there if the new venture doesn’t go? Are they potentially going to be rewarded with new venture ownership if the new venture goes? Can this risk be traded for compensation? Look at the Thermoelectron (recently acquired by Fisher Scientific) model.

Innovation isn’t always about new products or businesses. It IS always about dramatic positive change. If you’re a leader in a commodity materials business like paper or chlorine, and you want to maintain your position, there are lots of paths for innovation. The most obvious is cost reduction. A second is a fundamental new process, protected by a patent firewall that can generate significant royalty income. There is nothing that can’t be done cheaper, better, and faster. What’s the process you use to collect ideas for process improvements throughout the entire organization, including the midnight shift operators? You’d be amazed at how many really neat ideas people have, but they’ve never been asked! Make them feel important and recognized for their contributions and see what happens! What about your legal and accounting functions? We generally tend to tolerate these functions and just deal with them, but people like Fidelity and Schwab have made a fortune by optimizing the simple business of collecting money, providing customers and potential customers the information they need, and reselling other firms’ products at no cost to the end customer. As was once said in the famous Watergate case, "follow the money" and see where some opportunities might be. What about distribution? If you could save a cent a pound on shipping a billion pounds of commodities, what’s that worth? We talk about "open innovation" nowadays, another new buzzword. Use other people’s brains. Have you talked to the shipping companies you use? The packaging and shipping functions? Are you supplying your customers an over engineered package that takes time and energy to disassemble and throw away? The possibilities are endless! The term “open innovation” has come to characterize our rediscovery that we don’t know everything.

Parallel universes are some of my favorite topics. Who else, or who else’s products, perform or produce the same FUNCTION that you do (NOT the same product or business area). For example, in a recent innovation session, the connection between air traffic control displays and software/hardware interfaces was discussed. How many computer display conferences do you think the ATC designers had been to? How many FAA conferences on ATC displays did the computer display people attend? You guessed it--ZERO! Think of your own parallel universes to stimulate your innovation this year.

Innovation takes many shapes. Don’t let buzzwords and the most recent books warp your brain about what innovation is to you. Make sure it’s semi-radical, don’t downsize it because you’re not sure how to do it at first, and get input from others. Make sure you’ve thought about innovation in the context of YOUR business and what you want it to be. Don’t have blinders on when you do this thinking.

What about your people? If you’ve decided that an "innovation" effort is required, are you assuming that you can just send out an office memo? Remember that these may be the same people who have spent years streamlining and downsizing. What’s their profile as measured accurately by tools such as Myers Briggs, Kirton KAI(TM), or some other tool that you may have used? Can you really expect Myers Briggs ESTJ’s to think like N’s? Not possible!! How are you going to change this culture? How are you going to convince your people that your new found interest in innovation won’t disappear during the coming recession? How are you going to convince them that the effort will continue and only its focus may change? Memories die hard from your last downsizing. Have a plan as how you are going to build your credibility.

Have fun this year making innovation real and sustainable to you and your people.

What Have You Done in the Past Year?

It's nearing the end of 2007 and it's been a turbulent year for many businesses and organizations. Everyone seems to recognize the critical role that innovation plays in the long term survival of an organization. It's time for an audit.

What did you do and accomplish in 2007? Did you encourage anyone in your organization to step outside their normal box and evaluate an opportunity that looks a little risky? What happened to them? Have you thought about what you are going to do to sustain your innovation effort when the inevitable recession occurs? Are you preparing outplacement plans or are you asking people right now how you could reduce your costs by 50%? That's no less an innovation challenge than a glamorous new product!

Do you know what your FUNCTIONAL core competencies are? What else can they be used for? Have you identified the biggest threat, not to you, but to your customer? What can you do to assist them? What materials do you use and buy that could be eliminated, but their function still performed? What scarce or unique raw materials are going to get caught up in the global surge for the same materials (rare metals is an example)? How are you going to react to a dramatic increase in price or non-availability? How will your business change?

Your business is focused to a major extent on helping a customer achieve a desired function, NOT to supply a product--a major mistake in focus we frequently make. How else could that function be achieved? If your product or service was suddenly unavailable to your customer, what would they do? If you don't know the answer to that question, you're in a lot of trouble long term.

Many of these questions, which should drive a major part of our innovation efforts, are independent of the world economy. China's need for platinum for catalytic converters for the millions of its cars that don't exist yet will have a dramatic impact on users of platinum for high volume, low volume commodity chemicals and plastics that we take for granted. I realize that this assumes this requirement will come, and I bet it will sooner or later. Innovation is about the future. Given this opportunity or threat, depending upon how you want to look at it, there's a huge incentive to develop an alternative way of eliminating exhaust emissions. A basic change in car design is one, and if you're a supplier of platinum, you have huge incentive to understand all of this. There's also a huge incentive to develop alternative chemical processes. Think about the parallels in your businesses.

Do your people now believe you and your organization are serious about innovation? The audits that I've been involved with frequently show a hug gap between senior management's views and those of the troops in the trenches. Regardless of what you plan, what do your people think you are going to do with the innovation efforts when business goes sour? Refocus it, or eliminate the "program"? It's time to sit back for a few minutes and reflect on the past year and ask if you have poured the foundation for innovation or just a sand pile that will collapse when the sea of change (in whatever form) comes.

Managing Innovation--A View from the Experts

The September 24 edition of the Wall Street Journal contained a special section focusing on their annual innovation awards. A panel discussion (including IDEO, Packer Design, Cisco, and Google) was held. Both the questions and the answers are enlightening in the light of the current surge of interest in innovation. I loved the analogies drawn and want to share them with you and suggest you think about them in the context of your own innovation efforts.

The very first question asked by the WSJ editor Scott Thurm was,"How do you get people to think beyond 18 months if the whole company is focused [only] on 18 months?" Two answers and analogies were truly enlightening to me, even though I've been in this business a long time. Doug Solomon from IDEO said "it's tough to do and very few big companies do it well...... corporate anti-bodies arise and try to envelop and kill any innovation". Let's think about this in a parallel universe. How do we kill invading viruses entering our bodies? We inject antibodies (dead ones typically, or sometimes below the threshold level) and the bodies' natural defenses produce their own antibodies. How does the virus deal with this over time? It mutates! We now have strains of staphylococcus virtually immune to any anti-biotics. How can we "mutate" an organization so that it survives the attack of the anti-bodies? What is mutation? It's converting something into a new form that is unrecognizable and allows the "disease" (innovation?) to sneak into the body (organization?) unrecognized. How would we do that? We frequently try to introduce innovation into an organization with big new programs accompanied by bells and whistles, kick off celebrations, and widespread new training in some technique or process ("shot"). The antibodies (the old timers who have seen all this before) wait it out, knowing that time will kill the newly injected virus. And they are confident because they've seen it before--many several times. A big executive launch and no follow up on a daily basis. Nothing really changes in the business, how people are rewarded, or how new ideas are treated or evaluated. When business goes sour, the interest in innovation wanes, the risk takers are "downsized", and the budgets reallocated. The anti-bodies are vindicated. So maybe we should mutate into a slowly propagating organization (host) whose changes are too subtle for the antibodies to recognize. Maybe some simple steps such as discussing on a daily basis with those who report to you and with whom you work--"What did you differently today? Have you read anything new that might be interesting for our business? Did you see anything on your last trip that struck you as unusual? What was our customer talking about that had nothing to do with what we sell to them? What was unusual about it? What did you read in the daily paper that got your curiosity up? Did you follow up? Make a phone call? Do a Google search? Do ANTHING about it? What is the biggest threat to our business that isn't our #1 competitor?

If these kinds of conversations began at the top and worked down in a slow, subtle, but methodical way and people were reinforced for getting curious and thinking differently (and being recognized for doing so!), they wouldn't notice that their antibodies were being attacked. This can work both ways--there's no need to kill an innovation effort when business sours. It's just the target that changes. Reducing costs dramatically takes just as much breakthrough innovation thinking as coming up with a new product or business idea, and it may be even easier to implement. We just need to mutate the effort slowly so that the skepticism and doubt is planted into the DNA to be remembered when the next innovation program starts.

The second comment made by Doug related to an agricultural analogy for corporations. He said, "when you're trying to grow corn...you don't want surprises....you change things very slowly". That's because your livelihood can go down the drain with one major false move (lack of rain, insect invasion). Then he made the innovation analogy with a greenhouse where you nurture small plots and surprises are fun, interesting, and not irritating. It's tough to monitor greenhouses and row crops at the same time or in the same way! You don't see greenhouses in the middle of thousands of rows of corn. Doug made the analogy of transplanting to cause us to think about how difficult it is to transplant something new from the greenhouse into the field. It's fraught with peril. Maybe we ought to keep it (the new businesses?) separate for a while. If we do decide to transplant, Doug asks us to think about soil (organizational?) preparation. We don't do this very well. If you are transplanting, you need to know when is the right time, the best conditions, the competitive nutrient environment, the root system,the soil condition, etc. If you fail, do you just give up? Or do you learn from the failure to improve the next time? A few companies (Thermoelectron comes to mind--recently acquire by Fisher Scientific) have done this very well. All major new ideas are treated as separate businesses and then spun off with a stock offering where the original parent still controls much of the stock. Everyone involved has the feeling they are involved in a start up at all times.

How would you make your people feel like they were involved in a start up at all times? What questions should you be asking every single day of your employees and co-workers to slowly, but surely, mutate? How would you change your compensation system? How would you manage parallel greenhouses without interfering with your row corn? What are YOUR ideas for "back mutating" when the economy goes south in the next few years?

In a Business Week issue last year (Special Report,12/11/06) there was a fascinating article about Best Buy (the giant electonics retailer) pushing the limits of workers not being required to be at their workplaces. This follows trends established by AT&T, IBM, and Sun Microsystems, allowing--and in fact encouraging--employees to work at home or wherever they want to. Sun, for instance, reported they were saving $300million/yr. in real estate costs by not needing to pay for office space. The Best Buy manager who manages this program described it as "..like TiVo for your work". It's also part of their recruiting pitch, certainly attractive to the "baby boomers" worrying about eldercare and "yuppies" worried about child care issues. All these "positives" relate to cost savings and employee convenience and morale. These seem to be the primary drivers and little thought has been give to the impact on other oraganizational actitities and strategy.This trend is still growing, as evidenced by a parallel Boston Consulting Group study of CEO's expecting a big rise in the number of "unleashed" workers over the next five years.

We might ask, unleashed to do what? Have we thought about the affect of this on organizational innovation? There are certainly pros and cons. First, not everyone at work on a team is physically there at all times for meetings and discussions. Many traditional meetings will be held and decisions will be made by teleconference and video style meetings. This might make it easier to have meetings whenever we want them (or maybe not?), but if we are discussing a radical new idea or business concept, will we be able to read between the lines? See the facial expressions that might tell us that someone is not really comfortable with a decision and feels inhibited in expressing? What if their role is critical? Suppose we have a large number of Myers Briggs "introverts" overwhelmed by a few "extroverts"--will the remote discussions be as effective? Will more decisions be made by edict? Will we make a special effort to gain input from someone whose views we know are different, but is hard to find that day? Will certain meeting and decisions be scheduled for times when we know "disagreerers" are not likely to be able to attend? ("we know they'll be picking up kids at that time").

On the other hand, people not chained to their office furniture 8 hours a day might be exposed to trends and things they'll never see at their workplace. They might see some interesting trend material on CNN while taking a break while working from home, a new product at the mall, a curiousity in a newspaper or publication they didn't have time to read before, etc. This certainly has happened to me! Any of these might prompt some new product or business ideas they didn't have before. Injecting these into their normal work situations might be a real positive. How do we make sure this happens? How about asking those "remote" workers, "what did you see that was different today?"

What will happen to teamwork? Will it be the same? Will we make what will now be a special effort to understand others' styles and approaches to problem solving and idea generation? Will the constructive dialogue be the same over the phone or a video conference? Can you really tell where someone is coming from in an EM? Maybe if you have gotten to know them well, but what if you don't actually spend some physical time together? Can you imagine what Ideo does being done remotely? On the other hand, consumer product research might improve with added external insights.

I find, as a TRIZ consultant working out of a home office situation, that the lack of contact with others for any significant length of time, begins to build frustration after a while and I just have to get out in the real world and talk to people other than EMailing. After 3 or 4 EM's where we discuss something that has a disagreement or misunderstanding, I just have to pick up the phone. I'm considering changing my phone plan away from unlimited minutes as it is used so seldom any more! What are your experiences with this new trend and its effects on innovation? Positive? Negative? In what ways? How can we have the best of both worlds? Are such tools as Microsoft Live Meeting and Webex adequate substitutes?

You’ve probably heard these expressions before, but have you spent some serious time thinking about what they mean? How they relate to innovation? Your organization? I’m going to oversimplify here given the space limits we have, and there’s obviously more, but this will at least get you thinking. Welcome your comments!

When we say "left-brained" thinking, or say someone is "left-brained," we ususally mean that they are very logical and structured in their thinking. They are "in the box" with most of their innovation ideas. It doesn’t mean they are not innovative! They want to understand the details and practicality of an idea, not just its concepts. They have a concern for timing, schedules, standards and deadlines. They have a tendency to want to understand the "chain of command" and the approval structure within an organization to turn an idea into a practical business concept. An extreme "left-brainer" would be someone who believes that an organization should never do anything that’s not in the handbook or relate to an existing business or technology competence. The last manufacturer of vacuum tubes was extremely left brained. A famous cartoon describes such a person showing several Conestoga wagons in a circle with flaming arrows coming from the Indians outside and the leader of the pioneer group saying, "They’re lighting their arrows - can they do that?"

When we say "right-brained thinking," or say someone is "right-brained," we usually are describing someone whose ideas are unstructured and not necessarily connected with the status quo. They tend to think "out of the box," or in extreme cases, not know where the box is. This means that all their innovative ideas may not be practical or not thoroughloy thought out. They are willing to wink at deadlines to achieve a change they think is necessary. They are less concerend about chains of command, agendas, and timing commitments. They may have trouble getting across their ideas to senior management, who is most likely more "left-brained" than they are. An extreme "right brainer" is characterized in a cartoon showing a sheepherder preaching to a herd of sheep, "Wait, wait, you don’t have to be sheep!?

And of course, there are shades in the middle where most people are as in a bell shaped distribution curve. It is worthwhile pointing out that these tendencies, whatever they are, are pretty hard wired. It’s not that someone can’t be like the other for a while, but it’s not easy and may require Valium if attempted for a long period of time. (I know, I’ve tried - not the Valium, but trying to be someone different than I am!)

Are either of these types or tendencies "good" or "bad"? Absoutely not! How would you like to know that your pharmacist or airline pilots were extremely "right-brained"? A prescription? I think I know a better medicine. Flight plan? What’s that? Let’s try something different today! How would you like your emergency response team leader, faced with a new situation, to be totally "left-brained"? An emergency that’s not in the training manual? Let’s wait until we get instructions before we do anything. A major business unit manager may need to be in the middle when contemplating either a major product recall, or possibly a newly issued competitive patent that threatens a major busines. We need both within an organization. Consider a breakthrough new product created by a team of right brainers. How is it to be manufactured? At high efficiency? Shipped? Labeled? Certified? Patent protected? All those detail things necessary in the real world of today’s business. Like the sheep, it’s difficult for a new product to change its basic nature in that it still requires a large number of "left-brained" steps to bring it to market. If you have a large majority of left brainers in your organization, how easy is it going to be for them to think of a new product that’s going to replace yours, using a totally different type of technology? A totally new marketing approach that’s never been tried before?

The point here is that we need, and need to understand, both types of thinking in the normal running of an organization and in its attempts to be more innovative. Do you know the characteristics of your organziation? Your team leaders? Your teams? Are there natural capabilities a match with their assignments? What if theyu aren’t? What are you missing? How are you going to find out? What might be the positives if you knew and could use these cnaracteristics pro-actively in establishing teams and assigning people to them?

You are probably trying to "innovate" in the context of your organization's business and product line. I'll bet you have all kinds of special phrases and jargon that you use to simplify the communication among people working in the same area. I've never been on a company tour or attended a meeting when I didn't have to raise my hand and ask "what does that stand for?" On a recent tour of a Verizon fiber optic installation training facility here in Tampa, I wrote down 20 "phrases" and acronyms before I ran out of scrap paper. One of my favorites that I have run into in my recent innovation experiences in the human factors and ergonomics areas is "GUI". You do know what that means, don't you? If you worked in this area all the time, you'd know that it was an acronym for "Graphical User Interface". GUI is a lot quicker (3X) to say, isn't it? But we're talking in general about how a user of a piece of equipment interacts with graphically displayed information. Now this is semi-important if you're making copies, but it's deadly critical if you're an air traffic controller. Take a minute now and open another browser screen and type "GUI" into the search box. You should see around 50 M hits (that in itself may tell you how important this topic is OR what else this acronym could stand for!). But that's not as impressive as the 160M hits you'll get if you type "computer data display" into the search box. The main reason we get more hits is that we are not presuming that the interface has to be graphical. Why is this so? What if we just said "information display"? Well, we'd get 670 M hits! That's ten times as many as using GUI. Lots more raw material for ideation. Try this on your own and type in your favorite jargon phrase and then a broadened definition of the function (not the process) you want performed. Think of a middle school child vocabulary.

There are lots of examples of this sort I could point to from my own experience. Here are a few:

Industry Specific	Parallel	Why/Function
Bi-focal contacts	Semi-conductors	Large functionality/small space
Ball bearings	Caviar	Separation of hard/soft globes
Baggage handling	Groceries	Bar coding for inventory and location
Baggage handling	Farm processing	Large volume, low cost handling
Surgery accuracy	Air traffic control	Absolutely critical control
Diabetes	Acid resistance	Edible diabetes drugs
Diamond dust	Agriculture seeds	Dust from large particles

I could go on and on with my own examples, but the message for us is to talk about the innovation you desire in terms of its FUNCTIONALITY. What do you want your miracle thing or process to DO? What is its FUNCTION? Then, in addition to your own internal and industry experts, ask yourselves, "Where else is this FUNCTION performed"? This will take some mental energy, but use the examples above to get you started. Then do two things. First, do a literature/web search using the most generic terms you can think of and see what you find. Second, go to a convention or technical meeting in the parallel universes you identify and just sit in the back of the room and listen. Third, pretend you are a visitor from another planet and had this FUNCTION to do with absolutely no preconceived notion of how you might accomplish it. What are your thoughts?

Love to hear your own examples and stories!

When we are “innovating,” it is seldom that all the people we work with and interface with are the same as us from virtually any perspective. They have different backgrounds, experiences, motivations, and styles of behavior. These different type styles are measurable by any number of psychological assessment tools such as Myers Briggs and its spin-offs, Kirton KAI, DISC, Fyro B, and many others. Have you ever thought about this latter point in some depth? It’s hard to separate an idea from its source because ideas always come from people and innovative ideas can come from very different people. The working relationship you have with others can complicate this even more. Your role as a peer, a supervisor, indirect manager, subordinate, senior or junior in experience will all affect how you react to a new idea.

I’ll ask you to draw a four square box and label the Y axis “Do you like the person?” and the lower box is no (or you dislike) and the upper box is yes (or you do like). Now label the X axis according to the novelty of the idea presented to you. The left box is “low” or maybe just a simple invention without much impact and the right box is “high” meaning a breakthrough idea of significant magnitude.

Now, let’s consider how we react in these four different situations. What do you do in the situation in the lower left hand box (a trivial idea presented by someone you don’t care for)? Probably just ignore it, right? What if it’s a really neat idea presented by someone you really despise or are jealous of? Does sabotage come to mind? All kinds of creative ways of doing this! Now what if this same situation involves a co-worker you truly like and respect? If it’s a small idea, you’ll probably help (to the extent you can) and encourage them. Tell them where else to go for assistance. Ask them to check back with you and let you know how it’s going. And if it’s a home run of an idea, you might even ask to change jobs to help them. Maybe at least ask for some time to join their team. This is interesting isn’t it?

Should your behavior toward a new idea be affected by anything else other than the characteristics of the idea? Of course not! But that’s not the real world in which we live and work.So here are some suggestions for dealing with these situations: 1. First, no matter what, LISTEN before you talk. Then rephrase what you heard and say it back to make sure you have understood what is being said. This turns the first dialog into a technical, non-personal discussion. 2. Rephrase the novelty of the idea in your words and then ask, “Have I understood the concept correctly?” 3. Ask who this innovation impacts. Is it internal? New product? New business concept? New process idea? Product or process improvement? Make sure this is mutually agreed upon. If there’s not agreement, define where you don’t agree. That at least gets things out on the table, but doesn’t start a fight or turf war. 4. Talk through the next few steps. Who has to do what? Who has to give approval? Make it a technical discussion and not a personal and emotional one. 5. If you really don’t like this person and you suspect that they are coming to you as a “braggart,” you should still ask, “How can I help you?” If it is truly a breakthrough idea, there will be plenty of glory to be spread around and the fact that you swallowed your pride will not go unnoticed. If you attitude toward this innovator is so bad that you can’t do any of the above, at least say something like, “You know we disagree on a lot of things and have major differences in ……. But this really is a novel idea and I wish you the best".

Sabotaging a breakthrough innovation can come back to haunt you in significant ways when your reputation is discussed in the cafeteria and restrooms and your next new idea is considered by others.What have been your experiences when encountering novel ideas from people you don’t like? What did you do? What were the results? What was the impact? What did you learn? What did they learn?

Comments at meetings by senior executives such as "now that the cutbacks are over, we can get on with innovation" really concern me. Research and Technology magazine’s recent annual surveys show innovation as a #1 issue, but five years ago, it wasn’t in the top ten. Fifteen years ago, it was also #1. Cost pressures, over diversification, Six Sigma and Lean have also been factors. We have created organizational cultures focused on doing things without variance and at lowest cost. It’s tough to reconcile difference and variation with that culture. How has this changed your management style and the type of people you hired compared with 10 years ago? Do they ask as many questions? Do you?

We now have "Fuzzy Front End" conferences. While we are trying to bring science to the early stages of innovation, we need to pay attention allow "accidents" one in a while. That’s how we got Teflon™ and Post It Notes™. When did you last praise an unusual idea? Visit a client who’s not your current customer? Went to a trade show having nothing to do with your business? Studied your customer’s customer’s business? Can we really treat innovation as a spigot that we turn on and off? Patience is needed. Remember the footprint of the past 10-15 years. It’s deep and wide, and trusting that you are REALLY, SINCERELY interested in innovation will take time. What will your innovation "program" look like when we have our next recession? Our need for innovation will not disappear, only change form. Think about this now! What are YOUR historical and organizational barriers? How have you dealt with them?

Jack is principal, Innovation-TRIZ Associates, which provides training and consulting in breakthrough problem solving and organizational innovation. He is a chemical engineering graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with 30 years of industrial experience with Dow Chemical, Ansell Edmont and Cabot Corporation. At Dow he was responsible for both the corporate chemical engineering laboratory and was its Discovery Research director.

Since 1999, he has been consulting on the “TRIZ” (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) methodology. He has led the evolution of TRIZ thinking and application into non-traditional areas such as organizational and management issues, as well as into unique technical areas such as human factors and consumer product design. He has also pioneered the combination of TRIZ with other creativity techniques such as CPS and Edward DeBono’s tools and teaches a course at the University of South Florida on industrial creativity and innovation techniques. He also teaches inventive problem solving for both the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers

His clients include BP/Amoco, S.C. Johnson, Dow Chemical, GAF Roofing, National Starch, Mobil Chemical, Air Products, Bank of Montreal, Siemens (both in the U.S. and in Mexico), the U.S. Navy, Lockheed Marti and M&M Mars. He has taught TRIZ courses for the Altshuller TRIZ Institute, the European TRIZ Association, the American Creativity Association and the World Future Society.

He is a certified TRIZ specialist and is also a certified DeBono (Six Hats™ and Lateral Thinking™) user and certified MBTI™ and Kirton KAI™ trainer.

™Six Hats and Lateral Thinking are registered trademarks of APTT
™KAI is a registered trademark of M.J. Kirton

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