Innovation and
innovative teams
Jimmie Johansson
Richard Berntsson Svensson
Kashif Ahmed Khan
Agenda
Creativity and Innovation
 The innovators
 Team structure
 Managing innovative teams
 The innovative team environment
 Rewards and recognition
 The management team

Creativity and innovation

What is Creativity?
 New

ideas
What does it mean to be Innovative?
 Transforming
ideas into action
 Containing processes like: research,
development, manufacturing and marketing
Innovation (1/4)

Industrial innovation
 Portable
radio
 Boing 727

Risks of failure
 IBM’s
OS/2
 Technical focus, not marketing needs
Innovation (2/4)


Knut Holt Study
23 organizations were studied
“Four of the firms had made no inquiries to
potential users, six had made too few inquiries,
two ignored the result, two had misinterpreted
the answers, six were committed to
preconceived designs and three failed to
understand the environment to which their
products would be subjected.”
Innovation (3/4)

The chase for the first spot

Reverse engineering
“There are really two risks in research and
development…One is whether the technology will
succeed. The other is whether it will satisfy some market
requirements. If you hang back and wait, you can be in a
position where you can know the answer to both
questions, and catching up can take a lot less time than
the original effort.” George Mechlin, Vice President for R&D in WestingHouse
Innovation (4/4)
 Risks

 Is

Fast pace of technology
it always good to be first on the market?
Maybe when turning directly to users


with reverse engineering
DVD - BlueRay
Operating systems, network protocols and
database systems.
Innovators

Innovator
 The
creative person that find solution for a
problem

Champion
 Can
be innovator
 Fights for the idea to turn into action

Sponsor
 Makes
the action happen
Discussion point

Is reverse engineering a good approach to
successful innovation or is it more
important to be first on the market?
Team structure (1/3)

Concepts of team structure
 Taylor's
method
 Drucker

Teamwork
 Commitment

Team creativity
 A team
performs better then the individuals alone
 Jelled teams increases the chance of success
Team structure (2/3)

Basic structure
 Official
 Individual
 Private

Structural conflicts
 Interaction

between the basic team structures
Group ethics
 Unwritten
team ethic
 Settle own disputes without outside help
Team structure (3/3)

Group behavior
 Work
group
 Process group
 Combat group
Managing innovative teams (1/4)

Team leader style
 Top-down
or bottom-up?
 “The manager’s function is not to make people work,
but to make it possible for people to work”

Team dynamics
 Closed
 Random
 Synchronous
 Open
Managing innovative teams (2/4)

Personal needs
 Learn

members to think by themselves
Political vs. technical solutions
 Difference
between political and technical
 Politics often used to describe people-related
work

Crystallizing the team
 Loosely
coupled individuals
Managing innovative teams (3/4)

Communication
 Communication

with the manager is important
Open communication
 Group
discussion?
 Concerns management
 Involve members with right knowledge and
skills
 Honestly presented
Managing innovative teams (4/4)

Managing conflicts
 Avoid early polarization
 Focus on the issues
 Do not deal separately

Intergroup conflicts
 Resolve issues them self
 Bring parties together
 Subcommittee
 Reduce stakes
 Agreed technical
solution
Discussion points

Is group ethic important?
 Should

teams settle their own disputes?
What is the manager’s function?
 “The
manager’s function is not to make
people work, but to make it possible for
people to work”

Is the communication with the manger the
most important?
Innovative team environment
Office environment
 How people are organized
 Size of working group


Problems that can affect innovative
environments negative
Actions for establishing or maintaining
innovative environments (1/2)




Establish program for further develop promising
people
Provide time and resources to good innovators
Provide promising innovators and champions
with sponsors
Make groups in organizations not resistant and
stagnant to new ideas
Actions for establishing or maintaining
innovative environments (2/2)




Monitor outside technical and market
development
Provide a good communication program to make
sure manager and their workers interact
Provide the professionals with modern tool,
space and support
Reward good work
Discussion points
Is a smaller organization more innovative
than a larger one?
 Is a more open landscape better for
creating new ideas and innovations than a
room where you can just fit a small group?

Rewards and Recognition (1/1)



Fertile imagination of creative people
Inadequate recognition of creative people
Pelz & Andrew’s Study
 Comparison
of people who resigned and stayed in the
organization
 No talent recognition

Both award and incentive plans can be highly
effective based on the needs of the company
Award Programs (1/1)
Few people make difference in the failure
and success of a project
 Manager’s know these people but rarely
appreciate their work
 Recognition Programs

 Basic
idea is to reward significant
achievements as soon as possible.
 ”Golden Banana” Pin
Recognition Programs (1/1)
Top people’s recognition is essential
 Aggregate of smaller contributions can
have an enormous impact
 Minor advance should be encouraged

 Letter
from the boss
 Pat on the back

Rene McPherson’s observation
IBM Award Plan (1/1)


Formal & Informal Awards
Informal Awards



Range from $50 to $ 1500
Can be given at manager’s discretion
Formal Awards





Divisional Management grant sums up to $25,000
Corporate Awards range up to $100,000 or more
Reserved for unique accomplishments
Presented at Annual Gala Recognition Dinner
FORTRAN

$250,000 presented to an IBM fellow and eight of his prior
associates
Industry Award Plans (1/1)
Six Corporate Compensation Awards
Company
Award
Annual Award
Amount Savings
(%)
United Technologies
$2,900 $19,791
14.6
United Technologies
2,500
40,000
6.3
Western Electric
3,910,
26,000
15.0
Schering Corp
1,125
5,000
22.5
Johnson & Johnson
6,798
46,500
15.0
GAF Corporation
3,580
29,000
12.3
Total
$20,993 $166,291
12.6
Award Guidelines (1/2)

To qualify for an award, achievement
should be
 Clear
 Significant
 Worthy
 Resonably

consistent with other awards
Give awards in public with plenty of
publicity
Award Guidelines (2/2)


Maxim of Charlie Beacham, Lee Iacocca’s
mentor at Ford
”If you want to give a man credit, put it in writing.
If you want to give him hell, do it on the phone.”
Large Team’s achievements
 Special
Momento
 Avoid giving cash to large groups

Never give awards before the achievement has
actually been accomplished.
Incentive Plans (1/2)

Aimed at more fundamental demands
 Sustenance
 Comfort



Incentive systems include some elements of
recognition
Common use of various types of Incentive pay
systems.
New organizations rely on them to attract and
retain technical talent
Incentive Plans (2/2)

Survey of 105 firms of Boston
 Over
80% of firms in High Technology had bonus pay
plans
 33% of the rest opposed it



These plans are widespread and popular among
employees.
Limited evidence of support for organizational
economic value
Can be used to stimulate peripheral behavior
A Caution On Recognition
Programs (1/1)

W. Edwards Deming
 Famous
14 points
 Various recognition and reward systems can
be counterproductive
Keep focus on the work
 Use rewards and recognition
 Make sure they dont become disincentives

The Management Team (1/1)
Top manager and immediate subordinate
managers make up the management team
 Most important single group in the entire
organization
 Make key operating decisions, set
priorities and determine quality of work as
well as working environment.

Contention Management (1/3)
All organizations (medium or large)
involves great many conflicts.
 Inadequate resources and tight schedules
 Need of Central Group
 Paul Lawrence & Jay Lorsch Study

 Contention
Management style leads to most
effective group performance
Contention Management (2/3)

Basic ground rules for contention
management are:
 Awareness
of management team
 Helding team member responsible
 Resolution of disagreement
 Prescence of all concerned parties
 Making sure all issues are explored and
understood
Contention Management (3/3)

Effectiveness of contention management
 Exposes
organizational’s latent conflicts
 Strengthen’s trust & avoid’s distrust
 Provides motivation
 Makes environment more challenging
 Helps in finding solutions in disagreement
IBM Personal Computer & PC
Junior(1/1)





Late 1970’s
Frank Cary IBM CEO
Don Estridge assigned as Project Manager
Job well done, IBM became a Hero from Zero
Long term disaster
 DOS
Program and Microsoft
 Hardware and Intel Chip

PC Junior and contention Management
Business Principles and Strategies
(1/1)
Every organization develops its own
principles & strategies
 Keep into consideration the following
guidelines

 Assume
technology will improve rapidly
 Do what is best for customer
 Watch for fundamental changes
Managing the Contention System
(1/1)

Guidelines
 Put
product managers incharge of the product
programs
 Make the organization as an open house
 Top Management should protect
organizaitional’s long term principles, goals
and strategies
Management Roles (1/1)
Management team vs technical team
 Management team consists of
representatives
 People depend on managers for support
 Managers must insist on their
departmental interests
 Experiment in Group Dynamics

Team Co-operation (1/1)

Manager’s face complex array of
pressures
 Departmental
Pressure
 Top Management Pressure

Need of middle ground
 Defend
group’s interests
 Need of broader consideration
Management Scope & Perspective
(1/1)
Job descriptions and tables of
organizations
 Rigid vs Loose definitions
 First Line Managers and supervisors
 Technical executives
 Senior Management

Transparent Management (1/1)

Transparent managers
 Instruction
passing is done without
responsibility
 Not a normal management attitude
 Senior managers force their subordinates to
behave in this manner
 Don’t blame the senior management
 Don’t lose respect of people and management
Building the Management Team
(1/1)
Building ambitious, contentious and
aggressive managers into a team is not
easy.
 Steps in building management team

 Respect
views of the team
 Involve team members in decision making
 Encourage team members to work together
Discussion Points
Should there be awards and recognition
programs in the company and how do they
stimulate the peripheral behavior?
 To what degree should the organization
publicise the awards and the ceremonies?
 To what an extent is the contention
management
responsible
in
the
success/failure of project and how?
