Creating a Climate for Innovation A Link Consulting White Paper May 2014 Climate for Innovation Rapid technological change, increasing global competition, and economic uncertainty all contribute to companies’ increasing interest and focus on creativity and innovation. McKinsey & Company (2014) released a special report stating, “digitization, automation, and other advances are transforming labour markets, and the global economy . . . every leader should care about digitization and disruptive innovation.” Increased economic uncertainty has caused companies to be even more risk averse and cautious with resources. Companies are either holding onto cash at record levels and/or spending on stock buyback or dividend payments rather than spending on innovation (Israelson, 2013; Rossi, 2013). Leaders are increasingly being asked to do more with less: 85% OF CEOs surveyed expect cost pressures to increase or continue 64% of that same group also expect revenue expectations to increase Investment analysts continue to expect rapid growth for companies despite years of cost cutting and anaemic growth (CEB, 2013) Clearly, companies need to be able to generate new ideas to fuel growth. At the same time, they need to be able to increase both the effectiveness and efficiency of the innovation process. Increasing effectiveness means coming up with better ideas; moreover, these ideas must be of a higher quality. High quality ideas are those which are truly distinctive, workable, and profitable. However, it is very difficult to generate high quality innovation and see it through to implementation. It’s even harder to sustain a track record of innovation over the long term. Strategy professor Roger Martin (2014) stated, “that which can be built simply and quickly can be simply and quickly torn down” through leap frog innovation and market shifts. Transformative, breakthrough, and disruptive innovations provide true, sustainable competitive advantage. Increasing innovation efficiency means increasing the probability of success and reducing the time and cost of the process. By definition, one cannot guarantee a successful innovation project. However, there is a great deal that business leaders can do to improve innovation effectiveness and efficiency. One way leaders can increase innovation effectiveness and efficiency is by creating a climate of creativity, or a place where new ideas are invented. This type of creative climate often leads to innovation, which is “the translation of these ideas into useful new products” (Hunter, Bedell, & Mumford, 2007). We are intentionally using the word “climate” here to indicate that we are talking about the employee’s perception of their immediate work environment (e.g., at the department, group, or team level) versus the word “culture” (e.g., of the overall organization). Research has shown that climate is an effective predictor of creative performance and, further, that creative people are especially influenced by climate. A recent analysis of 42 research studies (Hunter, Bedell, & Mumford, 2007) found several climate factors which significantly and positively impact creative performance. Here, we will present ten of the most important factors along with practical examples of how each can be implemented in organizations. Challenging Work Making the work challenging means designing jobs and tasks that are demanding, complex, and interesting; yet, they must not be overly taxing or unduly overwhelming. Challenging jobs are typically characterized by skill variety, autonomy, ambiguity, and frequent changes. When jobs are complex and challenging, individuals are more excited about their work and interested in completing their job well (Oldham & Cummings, 1996). Challenging work is also often perceived as more significant and meaningful by employees, such that they may derive their identity from the work. In fact, some research suggests that more complex jobs may demand more creativity simply by requiring employees to focus on multiple things at once and to shift their focus more often (Oldham & Cummings, 1996). 2 Climate for Innovation Leaders can influence this factor through job design by injecting enough complexity and variety into the job to keep things interesting. Deconstructing processes and activities into “assembly line” jobs which become routine and monotonous reduces creative performance. Further, leaders can create a stimulating climate by setting challenging goals for the workgroup. Innovation expert and Professor Christina Shalley (1991) found that teams given challenging goals around productivity and creativity produced the highest levels of creative performance. Intellectual Stimulation In this context, intellectual stimulation means encouraging open and honest debate and discussion of ideas. Creativity flourishes in work environments where meaningful exchanges take place around significant issues and ideas. (Note that discussion about interpersonal issues or criticisms of individuals negatively impacts creative performance.) This kind of debate takes time, focus, and interaction in both formal and Managing Virtual Teams informal settings. In today’s In today’s global workplace, virtual teams are very virtual workplace, a common. In fact, geographic diversity is an controversial policy might be advantage to innovation teams. However, it is much required to create this type of more difficult to create a climate for innovation within a environment. Marissa Meyer virtual team. Because team members tend to meet was frequently criticized when only when there is a particular purpose, the members she rolled back Yahoo’s work do not get the chance to engage in “ad hoc” from home policy. However, brainstorming or problem solving discussions over she stuck to her decision saying coffee or tea. In addition, research has shown that employees are “more virtual teams exhibit much more defensive collaborative and innovative communication patterns and less cohesion than face when they're together. Some of to face teams (Hunter, Thoroughgood, Myer, & Ligon, the best ideas come from 2011). Thus, it is important to build in some face to pulling two different ideas face interaction for the team early in the project to together (Tkaczyk, 2013).” begin to build cohesion. Also, building a virtual space Clearly, leaders must also be to share ideas and feedback is another courageous enough to welcome recommendation to help facilitate sharing ideas, challenges and facilitate open brainstorming, and problem solving. and honest conversations with (Recommendations are from Watkins, 2013.) employees. It takes courage to field tough questions, but leaders who are open to debate and questions foster trust and model constructive ways of handling conflict. We’ll discuss these two elements in greater depth in later sections. Positive Interpersonal Cohesion Creativity also flourishes in climates where employees perceive a sense of togetherness and cohesion and absence of emotional conflict. Organizations which emphasize group success, rather than individual success, tend to have stronger interpersonal cohesion. Collectivistic cultures where employees identify more as team members working toward shared goals also foster greater positive interpersonal cohesion (Rawlston, 2005). Fostering positive interpersonal relationships can be difficult when you must also encourage open debate. It is important for the leader and group members to acknowledge the need to debate ideas and issues while, at the same time, being careful that the debate does not erode positive interpersonal cohesion. Continuing to have open conversations may even improve 3 Climate for Innovation interpersonal cohesion. Leadership expert Judith Glaser (2014) provides this advice to manage interpersonal conflict: Clarify the conflict by talking through each party’s position on the matter. Consult a neutral friend or colleague. Reframe the conversation to focus on finding common ground. Conversely, leaders have to be careful not to err too far in fostering strong interpersonal ties. In groups where relationships become more important than task performance, group think can occur. Group think reduces team members’ willingness to express opinions that may upset others on the team and reduces open debate of ideas and creativity. Trust & Safety Research and practice clearly show that a climate of trust and safety facilitates creative performance (Reiter-Palmon, de Vreede, & de Vreede, 2013). We also know that it’s important to establish this climate early on because it’s difficult to rebuild trust after initial impressions have formed. Global innovation expert Charles Day (2013) says that “the fuel of trust is transparency.” Transparency doesn’t necessarily mean telling everyone everything, but it does mean being as open as possible with employees. This includes also being open about what you do and don’t know, as well as, what you can and cannot share. Transparency is demonstrated through work processes and evaluations. Leaders must ensure that evaluation standards can be respected and are consistently applied. Building trust also means showing you trust your employees. Even as “The best collaboration comes when there Netflix has grown and become a successful public company, it has is trust . . . if you go one step further than not implemented formal time off or that it’s about generosity . . . People who time and expense policies. Instead, it are givers . . . are highly successful, trusts employees to use their complete all their objectives, and are common sense and make decisions incredible at networking, empower(ing) in the best interest of the company. This climate of trust helped Netflix other people and help(ing) innovation.” win 3 Emmy Awards, grow to over Dana Anderson, Chief Marketing Officer at 25 million US subscribers, and triple Mondelēz (Baker, 2013) their stock price in 2013. Creating a climate of trust must go beyond policies and posters on the wall. Organizational leaders must demonstrate trust in their daily activities by assuming positive intent and giving colleagues the benefit of the doubt. Flexibility & Risk-Taking Encouraging flexibility and risk-taking means being comfortable with the uncertainty that comes along with creative work. Organizations that embrace the knowledge gained from errors have a competitive advantage over those that ignore, discourage, or punish failure. Leaders must clearly communicate through word and action that errors are to be learned from and they must present opportunities to learn and improve (Hunter, Thoroughgood, Myer, & Ligon, 2011). IDEO, the innovation powerhouse, shows support for risk-taking in a company slogan, “Fail often to succeed sooner (Fredman, 2002).” MIT’s Andrew McAfee advises innovation leaders: “do an experiment, set up at test . . . post a challenge . . . watch what happens as a result (McKinsey & Company, 2014).” Given the technology available to today’s businesses, failure is less expensive and time consuming than ever before. Through rapid prototyping using digital models, 3D printing, and virtual focus groups, innovators can 4 Climate for Innovation test concepts quickly at a fraction of the cost. Scale is important here. Make your mistakes, during prototyping which limits the risk, before moving into large scale production. Harvard Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter (2006) points out that flexibility is also key in innovation efforts. For example, Honeywell set up a venue for divisions to present their best innovation ideas during quarterly budget reviews. However, none of the budgets contained funds for emerging ideas. Thus, the leaders were forced to fund projects by finding cost savings in other areas. In contrast, IBM has set up a US$100 million innovation fund to support new ideas which might emerge during the year. For most managers, risk and error are things to be managed out of the process and leaders are often uncomfortable with the idea of “rewarding failure.” However, we must make an important distinction here. The idea is not to “reward failure,” but to encourage leaders to reward quality attempts that result in learning. Making this distinction ensures that the innovation team does not become complacent or too comfortable with failure. Autonomy Providing employees with autonomy in doing their jobs is another important aspect of a creative climate. Autonomy can be seen as an extension of trust because management must trust employees to provide them autonomy, but it goes a step further. Decades of research on innovation clearly demonstrates that innovators prefer the freedom to be selfdirected and independent (Hunter, Thoroughgood, Myer, & Ligon, 2011). Innovation author and researcher Scott Anthony (2012) observed that in the 1950s and 1960s the most successful innovators chose to work autonomously outside of the bureaucracy of large companies. Today, large corporations (e.g., IBM, Medtronic, Unilever) are creating so-called “corporate garages” allowing innovators autonomy in their work while still enabling them to draw on the overall resources of the organization. For example, China-based Haier Group was recently named one of Fast Company Magazine’s 2014 list of 50 most innovative companies in the world based on the work of Haier’s self-organizing employee workgroups (Safian, 2014). These groups work autonomously to track evolving customer and market trends and, then, to develop and launch new products (Haier, 2014). Mission Clarity Mission clarity is another critical aspect of a creative climate that can be highly influenced by the leader. Academic and applied research clearly shows the importance of setting forth a clear mission and engaging innovators in that endeavour (Hunter, Bedell, & Mumford, 2007). There are two main steps to creating mission clarity within the team. The first is to define the mission. This is often called “problem identification” or “problem construction” in the academic literature and has been shown to be highly correlated with creative production and solution generation (Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004). We also know that it is important to view the problem broadly from multiple perspectives using experience from inside the organization as well as the market and competitive landscape. Because the leader typically has the most comprehensive viewpoint, his or her input in problem identification is vital. IDEO, the global design powerhouse, recommends distilling these issues into one wellarticulated problem statement, while being careful not to pre-suppose any potential solutions within the problem statement (Fredman, 2002). For example, rather than defining the problem as “to get more people to take public transport to work,” it should be stated as “to reduce traffic, pollution, and energy consumption related to worker commutes.” Notice that the second doesn’t dictate a solution, but it does focus the problem on workplace commuters. The second step in creating mission clarity is to make clear strategic decisions that set the context for innovation (Anthony, 2012). These decisions send strong signals about the company’s strategic direction and the competitive landscape. Bain and Company in a 2013 5 Climate for Innovation study found that setting clear, specific innovation goals and models was the single most important factor dividing top performing innovative companies from weaker performers. They suggest that creating passion for the mission by capturing the hearts and minds of innovators is also an important part of this factor (Almquist, Leiman, Rigby, & Roth, 2013). Leaders need to ensure that innovators are given a clear, compelling, and aspirational mission that challenges the mind and engages the heart. Charles Day (2013) suggests one way to do this is to build the mission from the future back. Imagine how you want to impact the world 5 to 10 years into the future. Once you have that destination in mind, your day to day decisions can be weighed against if they bring you closer to that destination. Commercial Emphasis Promoting a strong balance of practicality and originality is another important aspect to creating a climate for innovation. As mentioned in the opening of this paper, both are required to produce commercially viable solutions. A solution that is original but not relevant or effective (or not profitable) is of little use to the organization. Likewise, some solutions are practical and effective but not original. Those solutions may work in the short term, but they are not innovative. Thus, they are easily replicated and do not represent sustainable competitive advantage. This is why “blank slate” brainstorming doesn’t work as well as expected. Putting practical constraints on brainstorming has been shown to yield better results (Heath & Heath, 2007). Resources Just as innovation is a risky endeavour, it can also be costly. Innovators need to perceive that the organization is willing to invest the time and money necessary to support innovation and implementation of these efforts. As pointed out earlier, leaders need to purposefully plan for flexibility in budgets to support innovation efforts as they emerge. Likewise, leaders need to allow flexibility in time allocation to encourage innovation. 3M’s policy allowing its engineers to take 15% of their workweek to focus on independent projects has yielded such innovations as the Post-It Note. Google allows employees to use one day a week (20% of their time) on independent projects. Google’s policy resulted in Gmail. Lavish spending on innovation is not required and it can actually be detrimental to the team’s climate for innovation. Leaders need to provide enough resources to allow for proper innovation. Yet, research has shown that an overabundance of resources can lead to complacency and that some limitation of resources leads to resourcefulness which drives innovation (Hunter, Thoroughgood, Myer, & Ligon, 2011). This same idea holds true for time resources as the leader must allow adequate time for innovation but also be able to make a call about when to “shelve” an idea that is not currently viable to technical or market reasons. Ensuring adequate resources is not only important in the ideation phases of innovation. They are, perhaps, even more important during the testing and implementation phases. These steps require a great deal of patience and significant investments of time and money to ensure the innovation becomes reality. Leadership Support Finally, innovation teams must believe that their efforts are important to top management. The innovation team leader can influence this factor greatly by serving as a conduit between the team and more senior leadership. The leader must sell the importance and potential impact of innovation efforts to more senior levels in the organization. Likewise, the leader will carry and interpret important messages from senior leadership back to the innovation team. While leadership support for innovation is important overall, it is most important in the testing and implementation stages of the innovation project. Earlier stages are primarily driven by intrinsic motivation for innovative teams. Leadership support becomes more important in the later stages. For example, during the testing stage, timelines and resource 6 Climate for Innovation needs become less predictable. Patience in support are necessary to ensure good ideas are not abandoned too soon. Implementation is more predictable yet can be more challenging to the organization’s resolve to follow through with the innovation. Rolling out major changes across the organization to people uninvolved with the effort will require senior leaders’ influence, patience, and resource support. During this phase, many people will resist the change for a variety of reasons and will need to be convinced by leadership that the change is needed. Summary & Conclusions Research and practice clearly show the strong positive impact that climate can have on creativity (Hunter, Bedell, & Mumford, 2007). The positive linkage between these climate factors and performance are applicable across a wide variety of work environments, including those which do not require creativity. In fact, many of the same factors that drive innovation are found in companies who are on Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work For list. Specifically, the factors of intellectual stimulation, trust, and mission clarity are highlighted as driving engagement and lowering turnover (Dishman, 2014). Most of these “local” climate factors can be influenced by the division, group, or team leader rather than trying to address the overarching organizational culture. Strong, involved leadership can have a radical impact on creativity and innovation by establishing the right climate early on in the creative process (Reiter-Palmon, de Vreede, & de Vreede, 2013). However, creating and maintaining the right climate is just the beginning. In future white papers, we will examine two important factors: leading the innovation process and leading innovative teams. Ten Climate for Innovation Factors 1. Challenging Work Non-routine work characterised by variety and frequent changes. 2. Intellectual Stimulation Robust, open debate of ideas 3. Positive Interpersonal Cohesion Absence of interpersonal conflicts, team cohesion 4. Trust & Safety 5. Flexibility & Risk-Taking Trust to empower team members to take risks and safety to challenge the status quo and make mistakes Comfort with uncertainty and viewing failure as an opportunity to learn 6. Autonomy Encouraging self-direction and independency 7. Mission Clarity Sharp alignment on a shared problem to solve 8. Commercial Emphasis Balancing business profitability equal to originality 9. Resources 10. Leadership Support Organisational investment of people, time, and finances into innovation Influence and connection to other parts of the organisation 7 Climate for Innovation References Almquist, E., Leiman, M., Rigby, D., & Roth, A. (2013). Taking the measure of your innovation performance. Retrieved from Bain & Company: http://www.bain.com/Images/BAIN_BRIEF_Taking_the_measure_of_your_innovation _performance.pdf Anthony, S. (2012, May 3). How do you create a culture of innovation? Retrieved from Fast Company: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669657/how-do-you-create-a-culture-ofinnovation Anthony, S. (2012, September). The New Corporate Garage. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: http://hbr.org/2012/09/the-new-corporate-garage/ar/1 Baker, R. (2013, June 19). Collaborative, inspiring and inquisitive - the essential skills that make a marketer. Retrieved from Marketing Week: http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/collaborative-inspiring-and-inquisitive-theessential-skills-that-make-a-marketer/4007089.article CEB. (2013). Doing more with less: Protecting high-value services in an era of permanent cost pressures. CEB. Day, C. (2013, June 13). The 4 weapons of exceptional creative leaders. Retrieved from Fast Company Co. Create: http://www.fastcocreate.com/1683223/the-4-weapons-ofexceptional-creative-leaders Dishman, L. (2014, January 17). 4 Strategies of America's Best Places to Work. Retrieved from Fast Company: http://www.fastcompany.com/3024970/how-to-be-a-success-ateverything/4-strategies-of-americas-best-places-to-work Fredman, C. (2002, August). The IDEO Difference. Hemispheres, pp. 52-57. Retrieved from http://www.ideo.com/images/uploads/news/pdfs/hemispheres_1.pdf Glaser, J. E. (2014, February 11). Tackle conflicts with conversation. Retrieved from HBR Blog Network: http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/02/tackle-conflicts-with-conversation/ Haier. (2014, February 10). Fast Company Names Haier Among World's Most Innovative Companies. Retrieved from PRNewswire: http://www.prnewswire.com/newsreleases/fast-company-names-haier-among-worlds-most-innovative-companies244791111.html Heath, D., & Heath, C. (2007, December 1). Get Back in the Box. Retrieved from Fast Company: http://www.fastcompany.com/61175/get-back-box Hunter, S. T., Bedell, K. E., & Mumford, M. D. (2007). Climate for creativity: A quantitative review. Creativity Research Journal, 19, 69-90. Hunter, S. T., Thoroughgood, C. N., Myer, A. T., & Ligon, G. S. (2011). Paradoxes of leading innovative endeavors: Summary, solutions, and future directions. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 54-66. Israelson, D. (2013, November 28). Companies hoarding cash are doing themselves no favours. Retrieved from The Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/reporton-business/international-business/companies-hoarding-cash-are-doing-themselvesno-favours/article15649639/ 8 Climate for Innovation Kanter, R. M. (2006, November). Innovation: The Classic Traps. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: http://hbr.org/2006/11/innovation-the-classic-traps/ar/pr Martin, R. (2014, 2 3). Strategy in a World of Constant Change. Retrieved from HBR Blog Network: http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/02/strategy-in-a-world-of-constant-change/ McKinsey & Company. (2014, January). McKinsey & Company. Retrieved from Why every leader should care about digitization and disruptive innovation: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/business_technology/why_every_leader_should_c are_about_digitization_and_disruptive_innovation Mumford, M. D., Connelly, S., & Gaddis, B. (2003). How creative leaders think: Experimental findings and cases. The Leadership Quarterly, 411-432. Oldham, G. R., & Cummings, A. (1996). Employee Creativity: Personal and Contextual Factors at Work. The Academy of Management Journal, 607-634. Rawlston, M. E. (2005, March 18). The influence of team cohesiveness on new product performance. Unpublishes Departmental Honors Thesis; The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA. Reiter-Palmon, R., & Illies, J. J. (2004). Leadership and creativity: understanding leadership from a creative problem solving perspective. The Leadership Quarterly, 15, 55-77. Reiter-Palmon, R., de Vreede, T., & de Vreede, G.-J. (2013). Leading Interdisciplinary Creative Teams: Challenges and Solutions. In C. M. S. Hemlin, Creativity and Leadership in Science, Technology and Innovation (pp. 240-267). Routledge. Rossi, D. (2013, November 28). Companies must reinvest their cash hoard. Retrieved from Financial Times: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8653e66e-4de9-11e3-8fa500144feabdc0.html#axzz2tvoWFI93 Safian, R. (2014, February). The World's Most Innovative Companies 2014. Retrieved from Fast Company: http://www.fastcompany.com/section/most-innovative-companies2014 Shalley, C. (1991). Effects of productivity goals, creativity goals, and personal discretion on individual creativity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 179-185. Tkaczyk, C. (2013, August 19). Marissa Meyer breaks her silence on Yahoo's telecommuting policy. Retrieved from CNN Money: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/04/19/marissamayer-telecommuting/ Watkins, M. (2013, June 27). Making Virtual Teams Work: Ten Basic Principles. Retrieved from HBR Blog Network: http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/06/making-virtual-teams-work-ten/ 9 Climate for Innovation Acknowledgements We would like to thank Dr. Roni Reiter-Palmon for her inspiration, encouragement and advice on this paper. Roni’s research and thought leadership serves as the foundation for this effort. Over the years, we have dreamed of collaborating together to bridge the gap between research and practice on the topic of innovation. Dr. Reiter-Palmon is the Isaacson Professor of Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology and the Director of the I/O Psychology Graduate Program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). She is also serves as the Director of Innovation for the Center for Collaboration Science, an inter-disciplinary program at UNO. She received her Ph.D. in I/O Psychology from George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Her research has been published in Journal of Applied Psychology, Creativity Research Journal, The Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, Human Resources Management Review, and Leadership Quarterly. Her applied experiences include consulting to and grants totaling over 6 million dollars from Fortune 500 companies as well as the government and military. She is the Editor of The Psychology of Creativity, Aesthetics and the Arts, an associate editor for Journal of Creative Behavior, and the associate editor for the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology. She serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Organizational Behavior, The Leadership Quarterly, Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, Journal of Business and Psychology, and International Journal of Problem Solving and Creativity. About Us Link Consulting helps companies translate business strategy into people strategy by ensuring individuals understand their role within the strategy and maximise their ability to contribute to shared success. We employ leading tools and methodologies proven in research and practice to improve employee and business performance. Our interventions are strategic, yet practical, and our support delivered in a spirit of humility and partnership. While global leading practices help to foster inspiration, we know that these must be customized for local geographic and organizational culture as well as situational constraints. Link Consulting specializes in human resources consulting focusing on providing talent management strategies and solutions to clients. The services that we offer range from developing talent strategies to implementation of initiatives for leadership, talent, and development. Our focus is on understanding our clients’ unique needs as individuals and as organizations, and to use the highest quality products and services to address their needs. We aim to develop and implement strategies that raise the capabilities of individuals, help them understand their unique contribution to the company’s strategy, and align their individual objectives to the organization’s vision and goals. We measure our performance most fundamentally by the improved performance of our client organizations, which is profoundly influenced by the improved satisfaction and performance of the individual employees of the client organization. Link Consulting is a business unit of Link Coordination Sdn. Bhd (686469-D) registered in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. 10