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Innovation starts with a good idea, and a good idea starts in the mind of a creative individual. What's a good idea? When we told Craig Wynette, the manager of Corporate Ventures at Procter and Gamble, that respondents in our study on radical innovation said their firms had no shortage of ideas, he said: "Yeah, right, but I challenge them to tell me how many of them are good ideas." By that he meant how many really had the potential to become breakthroughs.
Creativity is one of the characteristics that make us human -- but generally we think some people are more creative than others. Since innovation is defined as "the introduction of something new" (Merriam-Webster Online), the likelihood of having an innovative idea is diminished if the focus is on execution in the ongoing business, i.e. doing what you've always been doing as perfectly as possible. When people have innovative ideas based on their ongoing work, often these ideas are incremental. Don't get me wrong. Incremental ideas can be very useful, particularly when they are in response to requests from customers for improvements in existing products and services.
However, good ideas as envisioned by Craig Wynette, i.e. ideas with breakthrough potential, often come from connecting things outside your everyday domain with things that are part of your normal routine. You can catalyze this kind of thinking on your own, but your company can also support creative thinking and innovation by valuing good ideas and by implementing processes, systems and structures that support the discovery, development and commercialization of innovation.
In our study of radical innovation in ten large, R&D intensive companies, here are some of the ways companies supported idea generators.
Leaders signal that they value innovation and actively seek good ideas by declaring "strategic intent", i.e. that the leadership wants the company to be innovative. For example, a common theme in the strategic vision statements of many companies today is "growth through innovation." Leaders can follow though on strategic intent by issuing a request for proposals. The former CEO of Texas Instruments said: "We need to grow. Find me businesses in the white spaces between our existing lines of business." Result: TI formed a new business development division and issued a request for proposals that generated hundreds of new business ideas. One of those ideas turned into the digital light processor -- DLP -- that drives half of the world's projectors.)
Sometimes an industry is confronted with a "holy grail" challenge. Thirty years ago I was part of a solar energy R&D project. At that time, the holy grail for the alternative energy industry was energy storage. What do you do when the sun isn't shining? In the elevator industry, the holy grail was tied to Frank Lloyd Wright's design of a mile high building many decades ago. It couldn't be built because there was no practical way to move people and goods up and down the building. So when the President of Otis Elevator challenged his R&D organization to come up with breakthrough innovations, he said: "Find me a solution for the mile high building problem." That's pushing on an industry holy grail.
Companies can also implement specific approaches that are enablers for idea generators. These examples are drawn from our longitudinal study of radical innovation mentioned above.
· Think tanks
Jack Kingsley, the researcher who originated the idea for the digital x-ray medical imaging device, was enthusiastic in describing the periodic think tanks GE convened, bringing together people from a variety of units and disciplines. He said he had more good ideas during the day and a half think tanks held quarterly that in the three months in between.
· Promoting connections to external sources of information
For some years, three senior technical people gathered periodically over lunch to review ideas submitted from outside the company. In evaluating one of the ideas, one of the reviewers explained why the idea violated the laws of thermodynamics. But in evaluating that idea, he came up with a new approach to designing a hybrid vehicle.
· Forecasting exercises
At IBM Steve Depp, an early participant in technology forecasting, projected the the increase in display resolution, reduction in power consumption and increase in memory storage that would enable an electronic book. Although IBM didn't pursue the idea of an electronic book, the technical advances found their way into IBM notebooks and laptops.
· Adding opportunity recognition to technical reviews
At DuPont a technology review of the discovery of a new material for electronic displays included Terry Fadem, the head of corporate business development, who was invited by a research manager to attend the review and to assess the business potential of the technical concept. After the review Fadem engaged in intense due diligence with his internal network -- generating lots of additional idea generation and development -- that led to the formation of a project team to pursue the idea.
· Creating an idea "sand box"
At Nortel Networks, the broadband division was seeking approaches to stimulating adoption of broadband in the home. Three smart techies were assigned to an idea sandbox for six months to explore all kinds of possibilities. What emerged was a concept for renting software over the internet, which eventually morphed into a digital rights protection project.
How much is a good idea worth? Common wisdom says ideas are a dime a dozen. That just reflects the reality that good ideas need to be converted into innovations and ultimately into new businesses that generate economic returns to the inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs. However, all mega-businesses were once small businesses and all small businesses started with zero revenues -- and a good idea.
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Re: Innovation: Where Do Good Ideas Come From?
