When asked 'What's the one thing you've done
that most inspired innovation in your organization?' Craig Wynett, the Chief
Innovation Officer at P&G answered 'What we've done to encourage innovation
is make it ordinary. By that I mean we don't separate it from the rest of
our business. Many companies make innovation front-page news, and all that
special attention has a paradoxical effect. By serving it up as something
exotic, you isolate it from what's normal. You don't trumpet your ordinary
business. The same has to be true of innovation. For innovation to be
reliable, it needs to be addressed
systematically, like any business issue in which you define the problem
and then solve it." The classic business questions 'What do we want to
accomplish, and how?', 'What resources will we need?', Who will be on the
team?',
'How do we
motivate and
reward them?', and 'How will we
measure success?' apply to innovation too.
"Today's most sought-after business talent is the
ability to originate,
But the perception of the creative process is still based on self-limiting
assumptions about eureka lightbulbs flashing over the head of some
inspired genius rather than the well managed diligence of ordinary
people," continues
Craig Wynett. "At P&G,
we think of
creativity not as a mysterious gift of the talented few but as the
everyday task of making nonobvious connections – bringing together things
that don't normally go together. One way to do that is to look at
contradictions in the marketplace."
For example, P&G developed a product called ThermaCare, a disposable heating
pad that provides regulated low-level heat for at least 8 hours. How did
they come up with it? Many aging baby boomers have all kinds of creaks and
muscle twinges. Drugs can treat the pain, but they can also have negative
side effects. So you have a contradiction: people don't want to live with
pain, but they don't want to take painkillers. P&G saw this contradiction in
the market and viewed it as an invitation to create a breakthrough product,
one that resolves a paradox without requiring any trade-offs.
Opportunities like this can come up in just about any industry. (See also
the
P&G's Align success story)
A final word of caution from Craig Wynett,
"Isolating innovation from mainstream business can produce a dangerous cultural
side effect: Creativity and Leadership can be perceived as opposites. This
artificial disconnect means that
innovators often
lack the visibility and clout to compete for the resources necessary for
success. Only when innovators operate with
the credibility of leaders will innovation become a productive part of everyday
business."
Discover much more about best innovation
practices
in the mini-courses
Smart Innovation
