Have more breakthrough ideas

The greatest source of competitive
advantage is creativity.

Black Belt 1.5 million euros
Green Belt Project 1 million in Savings Idea System 8 million savings

2 types of new ideas

Improvements

Innovations

Most creative acts are not
plannedfor, or even anticipated

Most great ideas come from
front line staff individuals, not management

Study of projects in Japan
Facts: • More then ½ award winning projects initiated by individuals, not anticipated by management • Novelty and impact of these projects far exceeded those initiated by management • Award winning projects were individual initiated • Not especially novel ones were management initiated

Creating an idea system

Go after
SMALL ideas

Small ideas • Would you
prefer to implement 1 big idea or 10 small ideas? • Easier to implement: – Less resistance – Easier to do – Lower risk – Better for learning • Stay proprietary and create sustainable competitive advantage

Share your
good ideas

How to share new ideas?
• Who needs to know this buttons? • Ideas of the week/month newsletter • Ideas corner on intranet • Ideas searchable database • My great idea workshop • Push and pull strategies (push- newsletter, ideas corner, pull database, workshops)

Don’t reward or incent idea
creation!!!

Quantity and quality of ideas
Money paid for individual ideas

Not so easily quantifiable ideas
Easily quantifiable ideas

Make ideas part of everyone’s
job

Idea Goals • For Employees
measure: – Quantity and quality of ideas – Number of ideas, number of ideas implemented • For Managers measure: – How well they promote ideas – How many get implemented from their teams **there is no such thing as a bad idea

Measure how many ideas get
implemented

The idea board

Increase share of wallet Increase
efficiency Innovate Growth Actions These are the goal categories of what we want to achieve

Increase share of wallet Increase
efficiency Innovate Growth Actions PROBLEMS GO HERE Input can be complaints, inefficiencies, new ways of doing things, from your team or from suggestions from others

Problems are half of the
solutions

Hold weekly 30 minute idea
meetings

Decide about what to work
on

Increase share of wallet Increase
efficiency Innovate Growth Actions ACTIONS GO HERE Actions Owner Date

Increase share of wallet Increase
efficiency Innovate Growth Actions PROBLEMS GO HERE Input can be complaints, inefficiencies, new ways of doing things, from your team or from suggestions from others ACTIONS GO HERE Actions Owner Date

Good idea process • Drive
down decision making and implementation to the lowest possible levels • Pass constraints down as well • Resource support functions for the volume and type of ideas that come in, make supporting ideas part of the job • Only pass up completed work

Only report
implemented
actions!!

Be
Process-Oriented
Not
Results-Oriented

Avoid Cost- Benefit
Analysis

How far can CBA see?

CBA • Can be good
priority/ decision making tool – appropriate when outcomes are well known or when prior experience with similar situations • Tends to see the costs more readily then the benefits – Estimates CBA sees as little as 20% of benefits • Increases the cost of decision making, filters out small ideas

Aspects easy to quantify Aspects
hard to quantify Non-quantifiable aspects Unknown aspects Benefits Costs

Ask for specific problems to
be solved

Focus Employees on Ideas You
Want • Articulate and legitimize • Focusing people on particular topics leads to more ideas • Expose employees to new experiences to broaden their perspectives – Improve their powers of observation – Hone their idea generating skills – Give them problem-sensitizing questions

Change creates the need for
further change

How to increase creativity

6 elements of creativity

Self-initiated activity

How can we promote self-
initiated activity?

Unofficial activity

How can we promote unofficial
activity?

Serendipity Fortunate Accidents Sagacity Creativity+
=

How can we promote
serendipity?

Diverse Stimuli

How can we promote diverse
stimuli?

Within-company communication

How can we promote within
company communication?

Strong Alignment

How can we promote strong
alignment?

Questions?
Thank you!