Innovation is a change philosophy

Innovation needs to be a pathological process in the positive sense. Innovation needs to be in the blood stream, pumping through the arteries and veins of an organization. Innovation is not just about a product process but a change philosophy. Following is an excerpt from a HBR post - Making Innovation Everyone's Job.

Today innovation is the buzzword du jour, but there’s still a yawning chasm between rhetoric and reality. If you doubt this, seek out a few entry-level employees and ask them the following questions:

1. How have you been equipped to be a business innovator? What training have you received? What tools have you been supplied with?

2. Do you have access to an innovation coach or mentor? Is there an innovation expert in your unit who will help you develop your breakout idea?

3. How easy is it for you to get access to experimental funding? How long would it take you to get a few thousand dollars in seed money? How many levels of bureaucracy would you have to go through?

4. Is innovation a formal part of your job description? Does your compensation depend in part on your innovation performance?

5. Do your company’s management processes—budgeting, planning, staffing, etc.—support your work as an innovator or hinder it?

Mercer Study Shows Respect is #1 with Employees Worldwide

This post was centered on leadership but I believe it is as true with our brands -

Engagement seems to have replaced "empowerment" as the Holy Grail of corporate relationship with people. We want you to be engaged with our company, our goals, our stock, our products, our website ... you get the idea.

To couples all over the world engagement represents love, loyalty and commitment ... presumably leading to life-long marriage.

It's easier to make the analogy with customers. Think Tide, Ivory Soap, Kleenex. Many of us use the same familiar products we grew up with. But are there any employees (in Corporate America, at least), even those most engaged, who believe that in exchange, their employers will be equally engaged to them?

If you've ever worked on a team, chances are you've experienced some pretty dysfunctional relationships. While more pleasant, I've found it's not essential for us to form deep interpersonal relationships with the people we work with. It makes sense; we rarely form these relationships with anyone. Yet, sometimes despite ourselves, we can work together to get the job done.

On the other hand, respect is the one element a team can't do without. Team members can't give it their all unless they know the others can and will deliver (or at least give it their all).

But there's a rub. We don't all see respect in the same way. For some, it's earned; for others, it's a given, unless lost. It's shaped by our life experiences.

I was excited to learn that the large HR consulting group Mercer found the same result. The firm's What's Working study asked employees in 22 countries around the world about their attitudes and perceptions of 12 factors that contribute to engagement. You can go the site to download a free pdf of "Engaging Employees to Drive Global Success."

Worldwide, of the 12 factors, respect was rated overall as the one that most influences their engagement at work. It was rated first with employees in the US.

Not so with employees working in different countries. For example, workers in France and India chose type of work for the top slot. They found some big differences from country to country. For workers in the UK, being able to provide good customer service was rated highly but not so in Japan, where it was ranked last.

The researchers learned that differences in national cultural, the state of economic development and economic conditions accounted for very different answers. Organizational differences also have a big impact.

This means context matters. There's no silver bullet or cookie-cutter solution to encourage employee engagement. But if you haven't surveyed your employees about what gets them charged up about your company, it seems you can't go too far afield starting with fostering respect.

Can people forget to think?

I had a recent experience that surprised me and forced me a ask the fundamental question “can people forget to think?”.

I have a strong feeling we can forget to think! An organization that limits strategizing, planning and decision making to the elite few can result in a lame duck staff that is monotonic in every way. In particular common sense is the first to leave the individuals.

Just like muscles atrophy when they are not exercised, we forget names of old acquaintances we don’t keep in touch often enough and forget locations of items we rarely use. We can forget to think!

It is a shame, given the single differentiating criteria of humans is out ability to think and plan ahead!

My conspiracy theory buddies have presented me with a different perspective. They believe it could always be a mutiny, the sort of a rebellion to corporate policy?

May be I underestimate the power of the mind sometimes?