Incentivize Innovation that Escalates Me to We
We do this constantly in our work: we figure out macros and hacks that streamline and accelerate our work. A routine we might perform numerous times a day, becomes a habit we learn how to tweak and accelerate and perform faster to increase our own performance.
But what if our organizational cultures incentivized people to conjure hacks and macros that accelerated the work of the team, of the entire groups we collaborate with?
I had an interview with the VP of HR for a leading consultancy in India. He described a practice there to incentivize bigger thinking innovation we can all emulate. If an associate there figures out a faster, cleaner why of performing a routinized task, they are acknowledged and rewarded. Their work gets better, and the entire team benefits from their elevated capacity.
However, if they develop an innovative new process which lifts the productivity of their entire collaborative team, the recognition and reward is significantly larger. Because now the defining mindset and orientation shifts on what innovation really means. Innovation is now cast in terms of lifting the larger whole, the greater goal and purpose. Instead of being defined as personal and incremental, innovation is recast as the opportunity and expectation that everyone will both think of themselves constantly as part of a larger we.
Here’s an example of that idea in practice borrowed from a fortune 500 financial services company that does just that in spades. I had a cool conversation with their IT leader who encourages professionals on the team to post internally their custom hacks and scripts to a social platform for others to copy and build on. The practice has spurred a friendly cooperative competition among the programmers to post and defend their own cool custom hacks. Then, other pros in the IT group are encouraged to borrow that brilliance and build on these signature scripts, which again elevates the productivity of the greater whole. It encourages personal, creative expression, and it builds a shared network of signature solutions within the group.
Figure out how to not only recognize and incentivize individual creativity and productivity, but also create shared solutions that support everyone around them.
Read MoreThe Speed from Obscurity to Visibility
“Time is the most important thing that you take from a person and I have to deserve it, give something, and spark some feelings in the viewer.” – Onur Senturk
I’ve been collecting stories about how fast cool, new ideas, innovations, and talents can move from obscurity to world stage. Just a couple years ago Onur Senturk was a fairly anonymous computer graphics “motionographer” posting his own imaginative renderings on public platforms like Vimeo. Well, Vimeo certainly surprised him by naming him winner of their Motion Graphics Vimeo Award. Here is his winning video.
Now he’s been picked up by major studios and has rendered the opening graphics animation for Transformers, John Carter, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, among others. Check it out:
You don’t have to buy them: The Collaborative Investment
I had a conversation today with a VP of Human Resources at one of the largest, and still fastest growing consultancies in India. He described a practice of accelerating innovation you can borrow today, which they have already shown to work in their business.
In the new frictionless economy, in which innovation in product and service can emerge from everyone, everywhere and for everything, not only do we need to bet on the creative innovative collaborations of the people within our own organizations, but we can also tap into the creative surge of small, nimble, companies without the deep formality and commitment of either acquisition or equity capital investment. Right now, there is a flood of new startups entering the world market. You don’t need to risk a stack of money to buy and leverage their expertise. Instead, build the “collaborative investment.”
Stay curious and open to those emerging small (even really small) businesses which show promise in delivering new market value, and cultivate those relationships, as both direct customers, and on a quid pro quo basis to stay ahead of the innovation curve. You might currently hold a leading market position, yet innovative ideas and solutions can come from all quarters of the market. And since the next killer app might notcome from inside your company, all the better reason to stay closely connected to emerging opportunities.
Here are a few ways you can collaborate with emerging businesses without formal monetary commitment:
Make visibility and marketing exchange commitments to the new partner
In this capacity, you have the power to recommend and refer existing customers to small companies showing promise, representing immense new opportunity for the small company, yet maintain a “watch and see” position to learn how the market responds. The startup gains the visibility the much larger company can offer while you remains a tacit partner in the promotional effort. This collaboration can then be formalized over time as the startup gains traction. For favored customer status, or even for an inside look under the hood of the killer app you are using, you can offer market visibility that would be otherwise unavailable because of their size.
Make internal referrals
Whatever cool, efficient, valuable product or service the startup is offering, you can bet another group or another division in the company can equally benefit from their service. If you are responsible for a particular product development initiative, you are certainly aware of similar efforts, funded from separate budgets in your own company that might benefit from the external partnership. Bonus: your internal referral will not increase your customer favorability, but also fuel the innovation of the service itself because the new division working with the startup is likely to push them in different ways.
Find small, promising companies and get close to them. Figure out what you can offer that would be of great value to your smaller collaborator to help their innovation grow.
Read MoreFinding the Guru Within
“While we teach, we learn”
- Seneca
One of the greatest gifts you can offer another is unconditional, open sharing of ideas and wisdom to grow their ideas and talents. Everyone benefits, not only obviously the person receiving advice and direction from a trusted mentor, but also the coach himself benefits greatly from the experience.
When you take the time to seek out a talented coach, ask for advice, and aspire to a particular habit, behavior, or way of life, you can better:
- Figure out what matters to you and your growth to make an impact
- Amplify your focus by removing lesser priorities
- Connect with people and ideas more closely aligned
- Identify and remove blind spots
Yet even more powerfully, when you take the time to show up and offer your own thoughtful advice, energy and direction, the impact can be surprisingly valuable for you, the advisor. Consider, if you can teach something you first have to learn it deeply enough to share it in a meaningful and clearly articulate way. In order to teach something as an effective and credible advisor, you also need to deepen your knowledge and understanding such that you can handle penetrating questions, and know where to find answers. If someone you are working with develops a greater curiosity, you should know where to direct their next inquiry.
The best coaches develop a deep emotional fluency such that they have strong understanding of their player’s strengths. John Wooden, one of the most successful college basketball coaches of all time, coached so personally and directly that he spoke, on average, for only four seconds at a time, and most often only to individual players. In the movie “The Blind Side,” Sandra Bullock’s character draws out the best football player in Big Mike by reinforcing the fact that he scored 98% on “protective instincts.”
The etymology of guru is “teacher” or “master.” Guru has also come to mean “one who dispels the darkness of ignorance.” I had a wonderful interview Monday with Dr. Sujaya Banerjee, Chief Learning Officer for Essar Group, one of the fastest growing companies in India.
Essar has developed a remarkably successful coaching and mentoring program by appealing to cultural influences. Indians believe in rebirth and the cyclical nature of life. Which means aspiring toward being immortal, becoming “amar” in Hindi. The philosophy of mentoring at Essar teaches that a way to become immortal is to coach and mentor. Senior executives and managers are encouraged to develop their immortal self through developing the wise guru within another, younger associate. By tapping into this intrinsic motivation to build an eternal legacy of wisdom, executives see clearly they have a path to create a legacy, and preserve their own immortal wisdom through others.
Share your gifts without pause or regret. I once wrote a rap to introduce Keith Ferrazzi, based on his book Never Eat Alone. You can read the bit in the rap about mentoring below or see the video here.
Read MoreBut before you focus on improving your standard of living
Remember you earn trust and proximity first by giving
With a big head you’ll think you turn everything to gold
Be careful in your success, don’t let hubris take hold
Your final task should you choose to accept
Is share this wonderful gift, without pause or regret
For if its true legacy you want to approach
Teach and share, become a mentor, a coach
People in the house
Open up your hearts and minds, there is nothing to fear
To deliver this message Keith Ferrazzi is here
Building Cathedrals
This story has been retold many times, in different ways, but the point is the same.
Christopher Wren (1632-1723) was a famous English architect and builder. As legend has it, he was walking past three stonecutters working on the rebuilding of St. Paul’s cathedral. He asked them each what they were doing.
The first worker said, “I am earning six pence a day.”
The second worker said, “I am cutting this stone true and square.”
The third worker said, “I am helping Sir Christopher Wren build St. Paul’s Cathedral.”
Peter Drucker interprets this story illuminating the three perspectives of:
“I am making a living for me”
“I am doing my best work for a reason I do not connect to” to finally
“I am willingly contributing to a greater purpose and meaning, for which it will take many hands and a guiding leader to accomplish.”
Connect higher. What’s your point of view?
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