Champions Fax Archive

A new book from Harper Business entitled Innovation: Breakthrough Thinking at 3M, Dupont, GE, Pfizer and Rubbermaid features a lively conversation between leading thinkers in business innovation. The conversation of Rosabeth Moss Kanter, John Kao and Fred Wiersema concerns the nature and nurture of innovation.

First, to maintain pace in a world of accelerated change, Champion organizations must constantly stay innovative. What does this mean? "Innovation is the process of bringing new ideas into productive use." (p.20) Ideas can come from team members, customers, the business world, the non-profit world or practically anywhere. The key is bridging from a good idea to a good product or practice. Don't make the mistake of focusing only on idea generation. That's the easy part.

Evaluation Question: What is the one idea your organization has taken from conception to launch this year?

Secondly, innovation is messy and creates conflict. It is hard to manage. Innovation means constant headaches for the leader who must balance the concerns of core customers who are satisfied with existing offerings and the need of the organization to develop new services and customers. These tensions inevitably lead to conflict. Expect it.

Evaluation Question: What was the last conflict your organization experienced over an innovation?

Third, innovation is usually found at the fringes. It occurs in the outposts removed from the center. Often it is driven by a lack of resources which often accelerates improvisation.

Why does this occur? Because the central office can't interface with what they can't see; "headquarters" gives permission to those far from them to have more autonomy and independence. The challenge for a leader is to keep the margins alive and create nurture systems to bring the innovation to the rest of the organization.

Evaluation Question: Do you know what is going on in the fringes?

"Curiosity is the soul of innovation." Admit it. There are days when you have seen it all. You've been there and done that. Revitalize your mind by asking questions even if you think you know the answer. Bring in someone from the outside to ask questions about a new idea. Gather a focus group of young leaders to respond. Re-discover your natural curiosity about how things work or don't work.

Evaluation Question: When was the last time you spent two hours asking key questions to (a) customers, (b) fringe people within your organization (c) leaders in other organizations?

Coming next time in: Stages of Innovation – Part 3.

In addition to the conversation with the three leaders, there are case studies of the companies mentioned in Innovation: Breakthrough Thinking at 3M, Dupont, GE, Pfizer and Rubbermaid. The book is from Harper Business, copyright 1998.