Changing Tracks Effectively

develop a vision and share it with the rest of the organization

Anytime you are introducing a change there are some steps that will help smooth the process. Some of those steps are:

• Have a clear strategy - develop a vision and share it with the rest of the organization, to help employees feel ownership of it.
• Set clear targets - Giving people clear goals and milestones will help them feel more confident about changes.
• Encourage involvement - By allowing participation early in the change process, you ensure commitment to it and improvement in design.
• Invest in Training - Training is important for developing skills, continued improvement, and in creating a change-oriented organization.
• Be supportive - Create an atmosphere in which individual concerns can be aired, and ideas within the organization used positively.
• Communicate Actively - Communication should be active, open, and timely (before the change occurs), and able all, two-way in practice.

ACTION POINT: Use strategy, targets, support, training and communication to keep change on track.

Getting People on Board

There are two types of resistance to change:

Change management is about understanding that uncertainty about change is natural, and dealing with the sources of that uncertainty.

There are two types of resistance to change:

• The type you can tackle directly (by training people in new skills, for example)
• The type that is emotional and maybe irrational.

If someone feels their job is changing for the worse, that will shape the way they see the change, whether they are correct or not. You can address this only by creating a supportive climate where your employees can discuss and come to terms with their concerns.

ACTION POINT: Create a supportive climate to help your employees understand change.

Managing Change

It is important to understand the reasons for this resistance, and manage changes to minimize user uncertainty.

Implementing innovation means changing things, and many people are resistant to change, especially in their working conditions. It is important to understand the reasons for this resistance, and mange changes to minimize user uncertainty.

Not everyone is against change--some view it positively, while others resist any change at all. This could be due to several factors: they do not see the need for change, they are scared it will require them to do things of which they do not feel capable, they are worried about losing their jobs, they fear they will lose control over their work, they do not see what is in it for them, or they feel overloaded with what they already have to do.

ACTION POINT: Understand the reasons change is often resisted.

Using Creative Tools

there are many tools available to help you tackle the stages of the problem-solving cycle.

The good news is that there are many tools available to help you tackle the stages of the problem-solving cycle. These can be used by individuals, but most are more useful as part of a general meeting to encourage ideas.

Identification

• Fishbone (or "cause and effect") diagram-exploring the root causes of a problem and its contributing factors.

Redefinition

• Goal orientation--restarting the problem to focus on what you are really trying to solve.
• Perspective--looking at the problem differently.

Exploration

• Brainstorming - pooling ideas from a team.
• Radical ideas - encouraging wild thinking.
• Random link - forcing a random connection.

Selection

• Voting - a simple vote to choose the idea.
• Implement-ability matrix -- plotting your ideas on a chart to compare the payoffs they offer.

Implementation and Review

• Measure and compare - reviewing an innovation project once it has been implemented to measure its success.

ACTION POINT: Use the creative tools to work through the problem solving cycle.

Enhancing Creativity

Allow creative thinkers time and space to consider problems at length.

There are a number of proven strategies to enhance creativity in your organization. Building diversity will ensure that you have several perspectives available on a problem. Allow creative thinkers time and space to consider problems at length.

Provide spaces for employees to develop their ideas--quiet rooms where individuals can concentrate, and group discussion areas where staff can gather to explore problems. And make sure that you give your staff a sense of freedom to try out different ideas, even if they don't always succeed.

ACTION POINT: Use diversity, space, quiet concentration and open discussion to enhance creativity in your employees.

Fostering Creativity

Understanding the creative process helps you to develop it in your organization.

Creativity not only generates the ideas that start an innovation, but also the means of fixing problems along the way. Scaling up, getting the bugs out of the system, and revising prototypes all require creative input. Understanding the creative process helps you to develop it in your organization.

Creative problem-solving is a process psychologists have studied for years. There are four stages:

• Recognition: realizing you have a problem to solve.
• Exploration: examining different potential solutions. These may be obvious answers, or they may be tough, complex ideas that develop over time.
• Insight: the moment of connection, when an answer comes to you that you feel will resolve the problem.
• Validation: further examination of the idea as it is implemented to make sure it really is the solution.

In a business context, review and analysis should follow validation, to ensure the problem is solved. If not the cycle repeats until an answer emerges.

ACTION POINT: Creative problem solving is a skill like any other. Provide training to your employees and make sure they obtain experience in finding and solving problems.

Creating an Innovate Climate

People are expressions of commitment at the strategic level.

There are different factors that help create the climate for innovation. The following lists some of those factors and how they influence innovative behavior.

• Motivation - People are driven to make their mark on the world and are motivated by the degree to which they feel able to do so. Staff can be highly motivated by recognition of their contribution form both peers and superiors.
• Availability of slack resources - People need resources to experiment with. They need time and space to explore and create.
• Leadership - People need role models who exemplify key values and who support innovation in actions as well as words. They need leaders who consistently provide resources and motivation. People are expressions of commitment at the strategic level.
• Direction - Innovation needs to be seen as strategically targeted and not just for the sake of it. People will use measurement to drive improvement if they are motivated from within.
• Self Development - It is important to help people continue to learn and acquire and use key skills.
• Enabling tools and resources - To contribute to the innovation task, people need training in systematic approaches to problem finding and solving.
• Learning - Learning helps people reflect on innovation experience. It builds and extends understanding to guide action.
• It encourages people to experiment.
• Learning can be shared across the company.

ACTION POINT: Reinforce the factors that contribute to a climate of innovation.

Leading the Way

Sharing your vision of the company's future,...will encourage employee participation.

Managers should also take a positive approach to creative ideas rather than expecting employees to just do as they are told. Sharing your vision of the company's future, and how innovation contributes to that vision, will encourage employee participation.

Managers should support and communicate with workers throughout the company rather than remaining distant, so that new ideas can originate at any level.

ACTION POINT: Look for good ideas to encourage and promote from every area.

A Culture of Innovation

...is so confident in its ability to innovate that it sets the goal of deriving a third of its sales from products introduced in the past three years.

3M is often cited as an example of a consistently successful innovator that draws on what is clearly a highly innovative culture. 3M has around 50,000 products and yet is so confident in its ability to innovate that it sets the goal of deriving a third of its sales from products introduced in the past three years. Although it is famous for encouraging people to explore ideas not relevant to their main jobs, this is only one element of a complex culture.

It also allows people to progress their ideas through stages of funding options, from seed money to greater resources, if the Board is convinced by the proposal. There is a deliberate attempt to create a sense of company history based on valuing those people who challenge the system, and a policy of encouraging "bootlegging" behavior--progressing innovation projects that might not have received official sanction.

ACTION POINT: Develop a recognition-and-reward program for those who contribute to a successful innovation, to encourage all employees to participate in the process.

Setting an Innovation Culture

Your employees must have the right attitude in order to come up with and develop innovations.

Any organization has its own particular patters of behavior that are underpinned by values and beliefs--its organizational culture. If you want to develop an innovative organization, creating the right culture is the biggest challenge.

Your employees must have the right attitude in order to come up with and develop innovations. An organization that operates a blame culture--in which mistakes are punished an instigators of new projects are made scapegoats when they fail--will discourage innovative thinking.

On the other hand, a more open culture in which mistakes are treated as opportunities to learn and develop new strategies, will be more likely to encourage innovation.

ACTION POINT: Discourage the attitude that current systems are perfectly fine, or "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," so that employees are constantly thinking of how their processes could be improved.

Laying the Foundation

Is communication effective, and does it work top-down, bottom-up, and across the organization?

Their are some questions you can ask your self to determine if your organization promotes innovation. Some of them are:

• Does the organizational structure facilitate innovation rather than stifling it?
• Do people work well together across departmental boundaries?
• Is there a strong commitment to training and development of people?
• Are our people involved in suggesting ideas for improvements to products or processes?
• Does our structure help us to make decisions rapidly?
• Is communication effective, and does it work top-down, bottom-up, and across the organization?
• Does our reward and recognition system support innovation?
• Do we have a supportive climate for new ideas, so that people do not have to leave the organization to make them happen?
• Do we work well in teams?

ACTION POINT: Make sure your staff receives necessary training to understand the innovation processes in which they are involved, since this will help them generate ideas and take on new processes easily.

Balancing the Structure

Good communication across the organization is equally important

There are a number of considerations that can hep you to strike this balance. First, while an appropriate structure is essential for an innovation idea to progress, rigid hierarchies can stifle new ideas, as employees at lower levels find themselves unable to pass their suggestions on to management. Cooperation across team boundaries is essential, sine input from many different skill sets will be needed to implement a new idea--this cannot be achieved if each department operates on its own.

Good communication across the organization is equally important, as well as communication up and down the hierarchy, so that ideas can be shared, and no one feels left out as an innovation moves forward.

The structure of of individual teams is also important. Effective team-working means that ideas are discussed and developed within a team, and all team members are encouraged to contribute.

ACTION POINT: Ensure that all teams are aware their input is welcome, rather than treating innovation as a job for the experts.

Avoiding Chaos

not all innovation works in loose, informal, and organic environments,

Blueprints for an innovative organization will highlight the need to eliminate stifling bureaucracy, unhelpful structures, communication barriers, and other factors that stop ideas from getting through.

But you must be careful not to fall into the chaos trap--not all innovation works in loose, informal, and organic environments, or "skunk works" (a group within an organization whose role is to work on advanced projects and develop prototypes with minimal restrictions.), and these types of organizations can often end up obstructing successful innovation.

Successful entrepreneurs and innovative organizations know this, and use a range of structures, tools, and techniques to balance formal and organic structures.

ACTION POINT: Seek to balance creativity and structure for successful innovation.

Building the Innovation Organization

Developing and implementing new ideas can work only when backed by an innovative organization--one geared to change.

Innovation is about human creativity and ingenuity--piecing together a puzzle, solving problems, and creating solutions. Developing and implementing new ideas can work only when backed by an innovative organization--one geared to change.

The innovation system provides the structure for an idea, and strategy directs it, but it is people who actually make it progress. However, just throwing people at the innovation challenge is not enough: you need to provide in which they use their creativity and share their ideas.

ACTION POINT: Encourage the creative spark of ingenuity in your organization.

Understanding Slower Adopters

any community will include laggards--a few people extremely resistant to change.

The early majority is the large group of people ready to adopt an innovation when it appears to be taking off, and when they witness the advantages enjoyed by early adopters. Positive experiences by early adopters can encourage the early majority to come on board.

The late majority consists of the more conservative members of the group who are only prepared to change when they can see a large population already successfully using the innovation. You can best reach them by promoting positive experiences reported earlier adopters.

Finally, any community will include laggards--a few people extremely resistant to change. A lot of effort will be required to convince these people, and you may decide to leave them be if 100 percent adoption is not essential to your innovation.

ACTION POINT: Use the early adopters positive experience to help win over the majority of late comers.

Understanding Early Adopters

early adopters--trendsetters in a community whom others imitate.

Innovation adoption is a complex negotiation between proponents of an innovation and the people they want to use it. Some people can be relied upon to be enthusiastic and try out new products, while others will resist changes to their settled preferences. To accelerate diffusion of your innovation you need to know the types of adopter and what motivates them.

Your best friends will be innovators--cutting-edge users who are always willing to try new products and processes. They can be recruited during testing stages, working with prototypes and beta versions, and may also come up with ideas for improvement. The next are early adopters--trendsetters in a community whom others imitate. They are often open to good new ideas, and should be targeted because if you can appeal to them and meet their needs, others are likely to follow.

ACTION POINT: Know the people that will be asked to embrace innovation.

Listing Characteristics

how much better the new innovation is perceived to be

Certain key characteristics greatly affect how easily an innovation can be diffused. The first is relative advantage: how much better the new innovation is perceived to be. People will be more eager to adopt an idea if is benefits are obvious. Balanced against this is complexity: the more difficult people perceive the innovation to be (the more complex the procedure, the more technical the product) the less likely they will be to adopt it.

Other important factors are visibility--it can be useful to offer demonstrations of the benefits of your new idea--and whether it can be trialed--training and trial runs are important to help users come to terms with new products and procedures. Finally, the product must be compatible with the market--it must fit the people who you want to adopt it. Try to minimize mismatch by developing variants for different groups of users.

ACTION POINT: Understand the advantage, complexity and compatibility of the innovations that you undertake.

Maximizing your Chances

It makes sense to allow more time and resources to promote a radial change

Three factors determine the speed at which an innovation diffuses: the nature of the innovation (radical innovations are adopted more slowly than small ones), the characteristics of the adopter (some communities are more receptive to change), and the personality of the innovator.

It makes sense to allow more time and resources to promote a radial change in a conservative community than small change in a flexible workforce.

ACTION POINT: When introducing innovation, understand the nature, characteristics of those that will be affected and the personality of the innovator.

Getting People Involved

Getting the ideas and insights of people who will be using the new process is an ideal way of improving the final design ...

"Test marketing" of a new product or service helps explore customer preferences that provide information about things like pricing policy or advertising, an checks if people really want the new offering. Such testing also offers the chance to test different launch strategies--for example, two different regions could be used, each employing a different launch strategy.

The same principle holds for process innovations inside the organization--changes in "the way we do things around here." Getting the ideas and insights of people who will be using the new process is an ideal way of improving the final design of the process as well as smoothing the route to change.

ACTION POINT: Engage people in product and process change to improve the results of innovation.

Diffusing your Innovation

To manage your innovation journey to the end, be sure you've done enough to make people adopt your new idea.

A great idea implemented perfectly will be of no use to your organization if no one adopts it. A new product must be bought by customers if it is to succeed in the marketplace, and a new procedure must be followed by employees for it to have any effect. To manage your innovation journey to the end, be sure you've done enough to make people adopt your new idea.

No innovation is adopted all at once. The process is cumulative: initially only a few people take a new idea on board. They are gradually joined by more and more users until the last few percent trickle in at the end of the process. A graph of percentage adopters against time takes on a characteristic S-shaped curve.

A key message from this is to work with potential early adopters at as soon a stage as possible. Getting them involved in testing and trials, learning from their feedback, and building their ideas into the final innovation can help kick the adoption curve upward.

This is where tools like prototyping are useful, giving potential adopters the chance to see, touch, and play with an idea before it is finalized, so you can get their reactions and ideas to help improve it.

ACTION POINT: Keep an eye out for people willing to engage with new products or processes and invite them to participate in testing.

Making a Success of Innovation

Learning and continuous improvement

There are key aids that can be helpful in making innovations successful. Some of the key aids and how they can help are listed below:

• Systematic process for progressing new products and services - Provides stage-wise monitoring and evaluation.
• Early involvement of all relevant functions - Brings key perspectives into the process early enough to influence design and prepare for problems later in the process and increases efficiency in detecting problems early.
• Overlapping/parallel working - Concurrent or simultaneous engineering aids faster development while retaining cross-functional involvement.
• Appropriate project management structures - Allows choice of structure--matrix/line/project/heavyweight project management--to suit conditions and task.
• Cross-functional team working - Involves different perspectives. Ensures effective team-working and develops capabilities in flexible problem-solving.
• Advanced support tools - Use of tools assists with quality and speed of development.
• Learning and continuous improvement - Encourages carrying forward lessons learned--through things like post-project audits. Develops a continuous improvement culture.

ACTION POINT: Establish a culture of continuous improvement.

Managing Implementation

many activities can be done in parallel...

A sequential process, however, risks missing out on key knowledge inputs form different groups, and it fails to take account of uncertainties that might emerge as you go through the project. It is also a slow process, since things cannot move to the next stage until they have completed the previous one.

In practice, many activities can be done in parallel and with interaction between different functional groups working concurrently.

ACTION POINT: Allow for flexibility in managing your innovation process.