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Filed Under: Innovation

Published on: Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Innovation and the Workplace

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There are many ingredients to innovation, and some of the most important are those that define the workplace — culture, mission, leadership and identity.

However, if today's employers view their workforces as static or homogenous resources to be dialed up when opportunity knocks and dialed down when the economic outlook presents unforeseen challenges, they're missing out on the potential of innovation and really failing to recognize all the segments of their employee population.

 

Published on: Thursday, October 13, 2011

Is the Shower the Final Frontier for Great Ideas?

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There are few places left to escape the growing mountain of obstacles that prevent great ideas from being created, and even more roadblocks impeding their execution. Scott Belsky, CEO of Behance and author of Making Ideas Happen, said creative people have to find "windows of non-stimulation" to focus on thinking, research and implications on strategy.

In an intimate "unplugged" setting among a smaller invited audience at the 2011 World Business Forum, where ExecuNet exclusively reported, Belsky said "The more creative we are, the more unlikely we are to take ideas to completion," that we're suffering from "idea to idea syndrome."

 

Published on: Friday, September 23, 2011

Opening Innovation, Creating Opportunity

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What if you were charged with delivering $100 million per week in growth with a staff of 9,000? And the only way you could reach your goals was to add more than 1.8 million people worldwide to your team and enlist them to work for free?

That's the challenge Larry Huston faced while serving as Innovation Officer at P&G. The company needed to maintain 7 percent organic growth per year — $5 billion — but when sales started to flatten, Huston had to find solutions to what P&G saw as an innovation problem.

 

Published on: Monday, September 19, 2011

Scientists, Designers and their Role in Innovation

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As senior curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, Paola Antonelli strives to promote a deeper understanding of design's transformative and constructive influence on the world and how designers help bridge the path to the future.

Designers, as she sees them, are interpreters. They help companies sense needs and preferences and understand consumer behavior. Their work is deeply intertwined and mutually dependent on science and scientists, Antonelli said, because new discoveries and ways of unleashing their potential and connectivity with the human experience hinge on creativity, exploration, imagination and the innovation that results.

 

 
How are people motivated to be innovative and creative and energized to come up with breakthrough ideas?

From that simple but deeply resonant question, bestselling author and former White House speechwriter Daniel Pink moved delegates at the 2011 World Innovation Forum, where ExecuNet exclusively reported for attendees, to step outside the corporate hierarchy and business texts and consider what social scientists have learned about what motivates people.

As developed as today's companies and economies have become, however, today's employers remain bound by what Pink termed "the physics of behavior." It's very simple, he said. "If you reward behavior, you typically get more of it, and if you punish behavior, you get less of it," he said. It's the old carrot and stick routine.

 

Published on: Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Innovating Against Unprecedented Risk

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How would you feel if the person you cared about most was trapped a half-mile underground somewhere? That's what Greg Hall's company, Drillers Supply International, faced and what drove his high-pressure innovation to help rescue the 33 Chilean miners more than 2,000 feet below the surface.

 

Published on: Friday, August 26, 2011

Chief Eccentric Officer

Posted By: Anthony Vlahos
Filed Under: leadership, innovation, anthony vlahos, eccentric, creativity
Comments (14)
 
Eccentric. Derived from the Greek: ek—out of + kentros—center.

When you're off-center, when you're one step ahead of the curve, stray from the norm, you're eccentric — and quite often, superbly successful.

Next month marks the 45th anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek, which followed the interstellar adventures of Commanding Officer James T. Kirk and the crew of an exploration vessel of a 23rd century galactic "United Federation of Planets" — the Starship Enterprise. The show was not just fantastic, it was strange and somewhat off. It lives on in endless reruns and multiple remixes.

Eccentricity in the corner office here on planet Earth? Hardly unusual. There's the headline-making:

 

 
World-renowned Harvard Business School professor, consultant and best-selling author Clayton M. Christensen knows the power and potential of what he calls "disruption innovation," but he also knows that unlocking it requires the courage to ask the simple questions competitors simply fail to consider.

"What causes successful companies to fail?" Christensen inquired at the 2011 World Innovation Forum, where ExecuNet exclusively reported for attendees. The revelation, he suggested, is resident in organizations' and leaders' respective capacity to risk failure and all that is required to explore disruptive innovation and their willingness to effectively envision business failure if they do not connect with customers' real needs.

 

Published on: Monday, July 25, 2011

Handmade

Posted By: Anthony Vlahos
Filed Under: innovation, anthony vlahos, marketing, business, individualism
Comments (8)
 
There is some essential beauty in your hands.

A local pie maker bakes all his pies himself using organic ingredients from local sources. He makes all of his dough from scratch, mixing and rolling his pie crusts by hand. He distinguishes his business by delivering his pies to your door rather than selling them out of a shop. The fact that the man who makes the pie is the same person as the man who sells and delivers it makes the transaction fundamentally different than buying a pie at the supermarket.

A CEO pours his heart into his company...educating customers, one by one, about what great coffee can be through the romance and showmanship of a handmade latte. The barista who's hurrying and scurrying around, fiddling with her arsenal of machines, whipping this or drizzling on that, is part of the fancy beverage's appeal: It's being handmade, right in front of you. It seems better simply because you've watched somebody take the trouble to make it.

 

Published on: Monday, June 06, 2011

Sure-Thing-Taking

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Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the bird is?

We can risk curiosity. In fact, business leaders have to. Without curiosity, our thinking gets small and our vision narrows. With it, real innovation and growth can happen.

We forget to hire for curiosity. The employee who asks "why" a lot; who is inner-directed and develops her own ideas; who is always doing that which she cannot do, so she may learn how to do it; who explores first and then considers whether she will accept the ramifications — that cat often winds up in lockdown.

 

Published on: Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Innovation Library

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Once again, ExecuNet was invited to partner with HSM at their World Innovation Forum as key members of the Bloggers Hub, reporting the powerful insight and thoughtful commentary from the global leaders and business icons onstage — and backstage.

 

Published on: Friday, April 15, 2011

Breaking Away to Innovate

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I recently went to a reception announcing the release of Breaking Away, a new book on "how great leaders create innovation that drives sustainable growth — and why others fail." There are many books on innovation, but this one is a keeper. It was written by the Jane Stevenson, Chairman, Board and CEO Services at Korn/Ferry International and Bilal Kaafarani, who has been a "serial" innovator at P&G, Kraft, Pepsi and Coca-Cola.

Stevenson's and Kaafarani's main purpose is to clarify what innovation is and how companies can consistently succeed in making the breakthroughs in innovation that lead to transformational change, revolutionizing an industry, a market or a company itself — the payoff being activating profitable and sustainable growth.

 

Published on: Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Uncertainty Breeds Success

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Did you hear the story of how seven million American children vanished overnight and the IRS employee who was behind it all?

At the 2010 HSM World Business Forum in NYC, where ExecuNet exclusively reported, Steve Levitt, author of Freakonomics and a professor in the University of Chicago's economics department, asked the delegates this question. He went on to tell the story of one IRS employee's idea to require taxpayers to report the Social Security numbers of children they claimed as dependents on their tax forms that not only outed a lot of tax cheats, but also added $20 billion into the United States Treasury.

"He didn’t get a raise. Didn't get a promotion. Didn't get a parade," Levitt said. "He had a great idea…but he got no rewards, either social or financial."

 

Published on: Thursday, February 10, 2011

Innovating When Trapped in Hostile Territory

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"'Design thinking' bridges analytical thinking and intuitive thinking to invent the future," said Roger Martin, during his HSM Online Seminar, Design Thinking: The Next Competitive Advantage.

But finding a company with balance is rare. Companies want to be more innovative but are stymied by analysis as they search for reliability and proof. The counterbalance is intuitive thinking — "knowing" without thinking — which can't be proven and therefore can't be replicated, leaving leaders scratching their heads about what caused success or failure.

"Analytical thinking and intuitive thinking are opposed to each other in organizations," said Martin, almost preventing any movement at all. "Innovation is about advancing knowledge."

 

 
President Obama's declaration in his State of the Union address: "This is our generation's Sputnik moment," sent me rushing to Wikipedia, where I learned it was his call to action for innovation. Just as NASA mobilized resources and energy to intensify efforts and be first in the race to space, he said so should Americans take on the challenge to out-innovate the rest of the world.

In this short video interview with ExecuNet's President and Chief Economist Mark Anderson, he explains how our "Sputnik moments" can be tied to individual BHAGS, and three ways to innovate in this job market.

 

Published on: Friday, January 07, 2011

Robert Brunner on Innovating Ideas into Objects

Posted By: Robyn Greenspan
Filed Under: world innovation forum, robyn greenspan, innovation, risk, brand, design, robert brunner
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What draws diehard Microsoft users toward some Apple products? Or tempts someone with little interest in cooking to purchase a Fuego grill? Why, when we have a choice between similar products, are we often more likely to have a stronger feeling for one over the other? To Robert Brunner’s mind, it is the design. But what is design?

Design is the interface between a company and its constituents, and Robert Brunner, who has partnered form and function for Apple Computer and now runs Ammunition Group, a brand and product design firm, integrates emotional connection into his work. Brunner stressed that "Design is ideas, not objects," and reminded that while "Objects are important, there needs to be more." Design is "about an experience and what we feel." "Why do you care if Apple goes out of business? It's because of how the company makes you feel. Would your customers shed any tears if you were gone?"

 

 
"Green" is evolving from a regulatory or moral requirement to a business strategy. Companies have different drivers for adopting green initiatives, but collectively we're moving toward a third era. Joel Makower, author of Strategies for the Green Economy: Opportunities and Challenges in the New World of Business, defined these eras at the 2010 World Innovation Forum, where ExecuNet exclusively reported for attendees.




  • The Compliance-Driven Era: Do no harm

  • The Environmentalism Era: Companies can do well by doing good

  • The Business Value Era: Green creates value by providing better products


 

Published on: Monday, November 22, 2010

Follow the Leader: Michael Porter

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Michael Porter did a Q&A session with Bloomberg TV's Eric Schatzker at the World Innovation Forum where ExecuNet was reporting exclusively for attendees.

The biggest problem on Wall Street?
"I think that fundamentally what happened on Wall Street is a disconnect between what they are doing and what we need in a real economy. Wall Street is supposed to serve the real economy. The real economy creates wealth in the long-term -- not in a year or a quarter. Most stock used to be held for a decade, and loans were held to maturity. What's happened in the last 10 or 20 years is a disconnect and shortening of horizons. The average stock is held for less than a year, and the average loan is packaged and sold to someone who doesn't even know why the loan was made. As things got more short-term, we saw more trading, more volatility, more hedging. Wall Street began creating products for itself and not its customers. It created products with little value and lots of destructive possibility."

 

Published on: Monday, October 04, 2010

Follow the Leader: Seth Godin

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Business leaders create value for organizations either through obedience or risk, and one is at a surplus and no longer needed, said author and marketing expert Seth Godin at the 2010 World Innovation Forum, where ExecuNet exclusively reported for attendees.

Those who generate ideas and "work without a map" are the real high-value leaders, according to Godin, but many companies don't encourage employee innovation nor do they build a culture that fosters creative thinking for fear of failing.

But failure acts as a double-edge sword: "Doing what you're told is a sure way to failure," said Godin of obedience; however, corporate innovation is guaranteed in a culture of failure.

 

Published on: Friday, September 24, 2010

The Customer is the Driver

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"Leaders do not lead innovation. Leaders have to facilitate it. Leaders will impinge on everyone else's innovation," said Michael Howe at the 2010 World Innovation Forum, where ExecuNet exclusively reported for attendees. Howe, described by Forbes as one of the top 10 innovators of the past decade, believes the goal of businesses should be to create the right environments and support to foster innovation, and to align innovative ideas around business strategy and customer needs.

Howe explored the pace of innovation through the approach he mastered as chief executive of MinuteClinic, pioneer of the retail healthcare concept.

 

Published on: Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Management Today is Outdated

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Why have there been advances in virtually every technology invented in the last 100 years, yet management is woefully out of date? At the 2009 World Business Forum, where ExecuNet exclusively reported, strategist and innovator Gary Hamel asked the delegates, "Could technology management change in this century the way it changed in the last century? Almost all organizations are running on 19th century management systems."

Management was created, the author and co-founder of the Management Innovation Lab at the London Business School said, to "get people to show up every day and do the same job over and over again like robots."

 

Published on: Friday, August 20, 2010

Do the Impossible - Ignore the Lizard

Posted By: Robyn Greenspan
Filed Under: world innovation forum, robyn greenspan, innovation, marketing, seth godin, cmo
Comments (10)
 
"Innovation means doing stuff that is impossible, otherwise people would have done it already," said author and marketing expert Seth Godin at the 2010 World Innovation Forum, where ExecuNet exclusively reported for attendees.

Marketing, Godin said, has largely been about advertisers trying to figure out ways to get consumers to buy more, and, while never a great approach, that is even less effective now. "Mass marketing is to bombard people over and over again. That model — 'I'm going to interrupt my way to success' — is flawed and will stress you out."

 

Published on: Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Follow the Leader: Joel Makower

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"Green" is evolving from a regulatory or moral requirement to a business strategy. But, green will only succeed, said Joel Makower, author of Strategies for the Green Economy: Opportunities and Challenges in the New World of Business, when green equals better.

Makower, executive editor of GreenBiz.com and co-founder of Greener World Media, has tracked the greening of corporations over 20 years and seen it evolve from isolation in the environmental function to spread nearly enterprise-wide. At the 2010 World Innovation Forum, where ExecuNet exclusively reported for attendees, Makower talked to executives about how green innovation can fit into their organizations and careers.

 

Published on: Tuesday, August 03, 2010

When Failure Means Success

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In baseball, if a player averages three hits every 10 chances he's good player; if he averages four hits per 10 chances he's a first ballot Hall of Famer and the stuff of legend. Many call baseball the ultimate failure activity, but the pharmaceutical industry is much more challenging where else is a 1-in-10,000 success rate is considered acceptable?

One would think it's a challenge simply to get out of bed every morning knowing more failures surely await you in the office, but not so, said Pfizer CEO Jeff Kindler at the 2010 World Innovation Forum, where ExecuNet exclusively reported for attendees.

 

Published on: Wednesday, July 21, 2010

To Do List: Change Your World

Comments (9)
 
Small goals first; then move on to the entire planet.

No generation, political party or movement has the exclusive on change; it can start in our very own small spaces, and you'd be surprised how far the ripples reach. Everybody at every level, in every career stage, has the ability to change their world.

 

Published on: Monday, July 19, 2010

Chip Heath and the Elephant

Posted By: Joseph Daniel McCool
Filed Under: world innovation forum, joseph daniel mccool, innovation, change, motivation, chip heath
Comments (2)
 
Troubled times set the tone for change in business and in life. Yet, there remains some fairly depressing cultural wisdom about change that suggests it's hard to teach the proverbial old dog new tricks, said Chip Heath at the 2010 World Innovation Forum, where ExecuNet exclusively reported for attendees.

Heath, Stanford University professor and the co-author of Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, contends that mastering change is a task that forces us to recognize the two warring sides of our brains: emotional and analytical.

 

Published on: Friday, June 18, 2010

Innovation Where You Least Expect It

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My head physically spins after two days at the World Innovation Forum from all the untapped possibilities that are out there just waiting for me to think of. For the last couple of years, just as we've done for several years at the World Business Forum, ExecuNet was invited by HSM to capture insights from the intellectual powerhouses on stage and produce thoughtful commentary for attendees and our members.

Without a doubt, the array of speakers challenged me to think in a different way; sometimes radically, like Michael Porter's reinvention of the healthcare delivery system; and sometimes incrementally, doing something to "earn my seat" at work every day, as Seth Godin said.

 

Published on: Monday, June 14, 2010

Some Underpinnings for a Positive Market Tone

Posted By: Mark Anderson
Filed Under: leadership, mark anderson, the economy, innovation, strategy, expert insight
Comments (0)
 
We saw a great deal in the media about the threat of a "double dip" in our economy.

Bernanke's remarks before Congress this week, expecting 3 percent growth for the rest of this year into 2011, shows we continue to be in a slow growth environment with lots of "noise" but probably not a "double dip."

Anecdotal evidence we received this week also suggests a positive outlook. A team of ExecuNetters covered the HSM's World Innovation Forum that was held in NYC this week. They reported that the world actually was alive and well and returning to basics. With over 900 attendees, the attendance was at an all-time high — more than doubling the prior year. The vibrancy of the discussions and this increased attendance really speak volumes about how business has refocused on innovation and growth — after a hiatus.

 

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