Innovation '08

Innovation isn’t a luxury reserved for prosperous times. In fact, a shot of innovation could be just what your company needs to thrive in this economy.

To explore the link between innovation and creativity, Executive Travel talked with Suzanne Fetscher, MFA, president of the McColl Center for Visual Art, an international artists’ think tank in Charlotte, N.C. Three years ago, Fetscher founded the Innovation Institute at McColl (innovationatmccollcenter.org) to bring professional artists and senior business executives together for explorations of creativity and innovation.

Since the program began, top executives from some of the nation’s leading corporations have attended the program, including Bank of America, Wachovia, National Gypsum and Motorola. In the following interview, Fetscher addresses key questions related to innovation, particularly in light of today’s troubled economy.

Q. How do individuals get motivated to innovate in an economic downturn?

The natural tendency during uncertain economic times is to look for ways to reduce costs, which for many companies means reductions in advertising, marketing, and research and development. These companies are fundamentally eating their seed corn and setting the stage for even further decline. They are also failing to position themselves for the next upturn, which historically has always occurred. The motivation for a continuing commitment to innovation during good times and bad originates with senior management. Companies that have successfully made the leap to creative corporate cultures have reaped the fruits of their labor with industry-leading products and services and enhanced efficiency.

During uncertain economic times, innovation is more important than ever. The competition for sales becomes more intense, and the winners are organizations with the best offerings.

Q. Is innovation driven by creativity or a precise model of conducting business?

The most popular misconception of creativity is that innovative ideas strike blessed individuals as lightning bolts from the sky. As Albert Einstein said, however, “Genius is 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration.” Innovation is certainly driven by creativity, but an underlying creative process or business model is needed to assure that creative thinking results in concrete outcomes, whether you are talking about a new product or service or a beautiful painting.

Many corporate executives are surprised to learn that professional visual artists, some of the most creative members of our society, follow a methodical process (i.e., a business model) in creating their work. True, artists are creative by nature, but without a well-defined, disciplined process, this creativity would never result in artwork that is marketable. Business executives are even more surprised to learn that the artistic creative process can be applied to business innovation with solid results.

Many of the participants in the Innovation Institute come from professions that are not typically viewed as naturally creative—accounting, legal, engineering and operations. By gaining a better understanding of the nature of creativity, these executives realize there is creativity innate in virtually every task. For example, an accounting executive who spends most of his days working with spreadsheets realizes that spreadsheet creation is an extremely creative task.
Spreadsheets offer opportunities to gain valuable insights into issues, providing clear communications on an array of options based on how factors are applied and arrayed.

Q. How can busy executives find time in their already overbooked schedules to innovate?

The single greatest barrier to innovation is multitasking. While the ability to answer emails, join conference calls and attend meetings simultaneously is certainly important to managing multiple commitments, it does not lead to innovative thinking.

If corporate executives truly value innovation and understand the requirements of the creative process, they will allocate time to it, just as they schedule meetings, conference calls and dozens of other tasks each day. Executives who have seen the fruits of innovation recognize that innovation is not a someday thing, but an everyday thing, and this commitment is seen in their work schedules.

By attending the Innovation Institute, an executive with a global food services company recognized that his overbooked work schedule was limiting his creativity. It was during the Institute that he gained time to think fundamentally about his business model, which led him to conclude that his company was emphasizing the technical details of construction projects, rather than listening intensely to customers’ goals and objectives for food service areas. The result of this insight was a total reorganization of his division with an increased emphasis on customer service and support personnel to interface with customers. In addition, he has modified his approach to each work day, focusing singularly on tasks at hand and scheduling unstructured time for idea generation.

Q. Can innovation be fostered when there is no budget for it?

If a corporation is not willing to factor into [its budget] the time and expense required for innovation, then [it] should not expect to see a creative corporate culture emerge and thrive. Many corporations cite innovation as a core value in their mission statements, but they fail to follow through by devoting the resources needed to understand the creative process. These same companies are reluctant to incorporate creativity into everyday business activities and do not give their associates the time and resources for innovation.

A commitment to innovation does not have to represent an overwhelming allocation of funds. Every individual is innately creative, and all that is required is the allocation of a certain percentage of dedicated time each day for the innovation process, along with encouragement, recognition and allocation of essential resources.

One example of resource allocation with limited budget impact is the establishment of “creativity rooms” within business settings. A number of the companies that have attended the Innovation Institute have created innovation spaces, which are up-fitted unlike other corporate office space. Creativity spaces are equipped with tables on wheels, rolls of paper and a plethora of other materials with which to visualize and experiment that employees are encouraged to use during cross-functional ideation time. Companies that have organized creativity rooms have witnessed associates emerging from silos to pursue increased collaboration and innovation that crosses multiple disciplines.

Ideation sessions in creativity spaces should begin with the introduction of a problem, opportunity or issue with everyone encouraged to offer comments, insights and solutions. Capturing the essence of these ideas on large sheets of paper with colored markers helps to fuel energy in the room and the only ground rule is there are no ground rules. You can gather notes and begin the analytical process later. Ideation is focused on just that -— new thinking.


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Innovation, Creativity and Recession -- What happens when times are bad?
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Q. Can innovation be more than a buzzword for my company?

Any organization can create an innovative corporate culture, but the transformation must begin with senior management at the highest levels. Only senior executives have sufficient sweep of authority to drive systemic change, which is what innovation is all about.

If senior executives want to lead creative corporate cultures, they must come to terms with their own creative abilities, recognize that creativity is innate in every associate, integrate the creative process into their business processes, encourage free-flowing idea generation and establish innovation processes with the same level of accountability required of all business processes.

Most importantly, senior executives must realize that innovation is not something you do when you have extra time on your hands, which never happens. Innovation is as essential as billing and payroll to a company’s success. Just as a company would never imagine not having an accounts payable function, [it] should be equally committed to a creative habit.

A bank executive attending the Innovation Institute concluded that he was unknowingly squelching innovative thinking by taking on too much responsibility himself and not allowing his associates the freedom or the time to offer their own creative solutions. When he began to delegate responsibility and authority, creativity took hold and innovative ideas emerged. One of those ideas resulted in a financial service enhancement that was patented.

An additional benefit of encouraging an innovative culture within your organization is the ability to attract the talent necessary to remain competitive. Companies that do not foster creative and innovative thinking will not only be deprived of the best possible contributions from their associates, but they won’t attract the top talent in the marketplace, and they will be unable to retain their most talented employees.

The president of a leading commercial construction company had an epiphany during the Innovation Institute. With more than 20 years of experience, he had dealt with just about every imaginable issue in construction, and when young associates brought issues to him, he would often readily offer a solution from his vast experience. After attending the Institute, he realized that offering quick solutions was actually a disservice to younger colleagues, and he began to give junior associates more freedom to create their own solutions, which has resulted in innovative new thinking. One example of creative new ideas was a graphics application that a young team created that enables clients to visualize how budget reductions will affect the look and feel of their projects.

The greatest risk for any organization is the failure to innovate. History is littered with companies mired in the status quo, unable or unwilling to be creative. Innovation is simply not an option; it is a requirement of business today.