The People Focus in Innovation

Paul Williams wrote a post for innovation tools on May 8, 2009 about the people focus of innovation. This was a response to Stefan Lindegaard's challenge on why leaders don't talk more about the people who drive innovation. Williams does a great job of synthesizing the people focus:

Ideas have many sources:

• Employees
• Research and development teams
• Customers
• Vendors
• Marketing/sales team
• Competitors
• Leadership
• Patent Searches
• Academic Institutions
• Business partnerships
• Best/next practice reviews
• Association memberships
• Conferences

What all of those sources have in common is that each and every idea starts with one person. Those who excel at developing ideas and solving problems have many common skill sets and traits. They are:

• Skilled at alternative thinking styles
• Excel at individual problem solving
• Able to participate in or facilitate group ideation settings
• Able to see weak signals of future trends
• Able to identify root causation of problems
• Comfortable with taking calculated risks
• Not bothered by fear of failure (or success)
• Able to maintain an imaginative and creative approach to problems and/or opportunities
• Able to analyze and learn from failures
• Able to assume leadership responsibility
• Able to translate ideas into objects (physical, visual, etc.)

Then there are the roles that are important for moving ideas from concept to reality:

• Idea generator - The origination point of an idea
• Idea champion - The person responsible for shaping the idea, building a business case and keeping it moving forward
• Idea sponsor - The person who secures the resources (money, human, time) to explore the idea and who provides "cover" for the idea to keep it safe
• Process manager - The person who manages the innovation/idea process to ensure ideas have an easy to access and repeatable path to follow
• Engineer or prototype builder - The person who brings the idea to life (on a drawing board, in a lab, virtually, physically, etc.)
• Project manager and implementation team - The people who manage the process and create/implement an actual object, business process and/or service based on the idea
• Sales and marketing teams - The people who convince others to purchase the output of the new idea, thus making it an official innovation

But how do you protect these people and help them stay connected?

• Look for the mavericks who feel constrained by your current processes and procedures and who develop alternative methods
• Reward those who challenge the status quo
• Encourage self-organizing teams
• Mandate cross-functional teams
• Implement collaboration tools like conference rooms/idea centers, blogs, message boards, wikis, groupware, etc.
• Provide training on expanding their natural innovative/creative skills
• Provide cover and support and appreciation for fast failures
• Demonstrate that risk taking is okay

And what about keeping people motivated to keep the idea pipeline full?

• Public recognition
• Money
• Idea lottery
• Frequent idea point program
• Calls, notes or personal visits from senior leadership
• Ice cream socials
• Promotions within the innovation management group
• Temporary assignment to work on the idea
• Award ceremony for the best failure
• Great idea awards banquet

My comment: I find most of what Williams says right on target. The one place I'd differ is this last section on keeping these people motivated. I, for one, would be turned off by anything public - so eliminate the public recognition, ice cream socials, award ceremony and banquet. The things that I want are freedom with support - for myself and my people, enough resources to develop and test the new ideas we come up with, and the ability to get the project out of our hands once it becomes mundane and ordinary. Give me those things and you'll get more production than you could ever imagine!