Letter from the CEO Greetings Momentum Subscribers,
May is here and about two weeks ago spring finally arrived in my new hometown of Chicago. The creative spirit is blooming!
Nature reminds us of the continued cycles of change and that for every winter there's a spring. Around the globe we are seeing crop devastation and food riots, in the U.S. the deflating dollar is making us nervous, and we're wondering - how long will the so-called "recession/ stagflation/ economic downturn" last. So what can we do to get out of the gloom and into the bloom?
I believe in the power of business to change the world for the better. The solution is tapping our natural ability to INNOVATE.
This Momentum is focused on INNOVATION - what enables the most valuable, most innovative thinking for an organization?
Karlin Sloan
CEO
Karlin Sloan & Company
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How to Stop Great Thinking
by Kevin Cuthbert and Karlin Sloan
Human beings cannot help but innovate and create. It's harnessing the energy of great thinking that enables organizations to capitalize on creativity. Unfortunately, most organizations stop creativity in its tracks by squelching innovation and stomping on good ideas.
Caution - here are three ways we stop our best thinking, and stop innovation from setting us apart from our competition:
1.) FOCUSING ON THE SHORT TERM TO THE EXCLUSION OF THE LONG TERM - this is the biggest mistake companies make when looking at the development of new and innovative ideas. Take the time to get it right. A great example of short-term thinking? Microsoft's recent launch of 'VISTA" without getting rid of the bugs. After the worst PR in the companies history, Microsoft is reeling from a decision made on short-term goals versus long-term success.
2.) REWARDING PERFECTION - it's important to let people make mistakes! Great things happen after trying and trying again. Thomas Edison took over 1000 tries to create the lightbulb. Build in time for mistakes and reward attempts not just successes.
3.) EXPECTING A SPECIFIC OUTCOME - sometimes it's the surprises that represent our greatest success. If we're wedded to one outcome and don't open our minds to new possibilities, we're missing out! The Post-It wasn't something that was planned for, it was an innovation that took the world by surprise. When Spencer Silver was working in 3M's research labs trying to create a super-strong adhesive he made a "mistake" and created a super-weak adhesive. No one knew what to do with it, but they didn't toss it out. Four years later another scientist named Arthur Fry remembered Silver's creation, and used it to coat bookmarkers for his own reference material. Ten years after the initial invention Post-It launched, and became one of the world's most successful office products.
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An Innovation Story: Genentech*
by Karlin Sloan
In thinking about innovation, I wanted to pick the brain of an expert. Who better than Steven Kowalski? Kowalski works with executives and key talent at Genentech to build leadership and organizational effectiveness. Genentech is one of the world's best known oncology companies, with products like Avastin for colon and lung cancer treatment and Herceptin for breast cancer. The company ranked Number Five in Fortune magazine's 2008 "100 Best Companies to Work For".
Here's what Steve had to say about their most recent efforts to enhance innovation:
"Starting with our various leadership teams, we have brought in content from the famed Creativity in Business program at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and adapted it for groups around the company. In addition to cost savings and reduction of development time, we have seen significant positive changes within the culture of groups that have participated.
Innovation is one of our goals throughout the company. As a biotech company, we create medicines that don't [yet] exist for medical needs that don't have any existing effective treatments. One of the things that we've done to forward innovation is to deliver a series of business-focused creativity workshops.
Traditional creativity workshops can look soft and mushy, like getting a group of executives together to work with Playdough-but instead of that kind of creativity for its own sake, we've done a great job grounding creativity strongly in business. We have a culture that cares about results, so we've decided all creativity exercises need to be tied to the actual business. We're getting people to work on their business using creativity tools.
One example of a tool is called "Relax the Judge." If I were to [quiet] down that critical voice in my head, what would I see anew? What would the difference be in our collaborations in scientific and manufacturing? This new awareness is enabling more possibilities, moving relationships forward more quickly.
We've delivered this program to our scientists, project managers and portfolio managers. With each group, we make a new impact on our culture and our capabilities."
*Excerpted from an upcoming issue of Executive Travel Magazine.
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Quotations
"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." - Steve Jobs
"Just as energy is the basis of life itself, and ideas the source of innovation, so is innovation the spark of all human change, improvement, and progress." - Ted Leavitt
"When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're
nuts." - Larry Ellison
"An enterprising person is one who comes across a pile of scrap metal and
sees the making of a wonderful sculpture. An enterprising person is one who drives
through an old decrepit part of town and sees a new housing development. An enterprising
person is one who sees opportunity in all areas of life." - Jim Rohn
It seems safe to say that significant
discovery, really creative thinking, does not occur with regard to
problems about which the thinker is lukewarm. - Mary Henle
"I have always loved the competitive forces in this business. You know I certainly
have meetings where I spur people on by saying, "Hey, we can do better than
this. How come we are not out ahead on that?" Thats what keeps my job one
of the most interesting in the world." - Bill Gates
"You never change something by fighting
the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes
the existing model obsolete." - Buckminster Fuller
"If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done." -Peter Ustinov
"The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers." - Arthur Koestler
"If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it." - Albert Einstein
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