Paul R. Williams is founder of the American Institute for Innovation Excellence and author of The Innovation Manager's Playbook and The Innovation Manager's Desk Reference.
We talked about his leadership role in the field of innovation and how businesses of all sizes and persuasions can use the resources he's provided in his two books, his blog, Think for a Change and his recently founded organization American Institute for Innovation Excellence to create a sustainable culture of innovation that brings progress, growth and success for all of their stakeholders.
You can listen to his comments here.
Paul, thanks for being on the show, again!
Happy New Year! Again, congrats on a great book.
Let’s talk about your new organization, the American Institute for Innovation Excellence.
It’s been quite a journey to get it to this point. And we have quite a ways to go to get it completely off the ground. We spent the entire month of december getting all the corporate foundation work in-line, filing papers with the state and federal government. What we’re working on now is pulling together the support documentation to file for our official non-profit status as a 501C3 organization.
We wanted to get our 5 main research themes defined for 2011. Those are:
- Beyond the phase or stage gate approach to managing innovation.
- Intersection of innovation and project management
- Innovation Maturity RoadMap
- Center of Excellence Approach to Managing Innovation in An Existing Organization
- Bridging the Execution Gap.
Other than that we’ve been working on our website, blog and twitter. All those things. It’s definitely been a busy few months.
You shared a timeline of Creative Problem Solving processes throughout history. That was in your post titled: Creative Problem Solving (CPS) Throughout History.
And at the end of the timeline you list The American Institute for Innovation Excellence. I see that as being like Sir Isaac Newton when he said If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants. Whose shoulders are you standing on the most heavily as you launch this organization?
We all stand on the shoulders of great giants. That’s good and bad. The bad is we follow those processes without considering if there’s a better way.
I was most inspired by Gary Hamel and his thoughts on managing innovation itself. That was my main inspiration. He looked around and saw an inefficient, broken and in some cases a completely inappropriate method of managing people in the knowledge-based economy versus the old command-and-control manufacturing economy.
I kinda did the same thing. I looked around and saw methods and tools and techniques that have been around for in some cases 75-100 years. To move beyond how we innovate today we have to create the next set of best practices for managing the process of innovation.
I really wanted to contribute to the greater good rather than compete as an innovation consultant. I don’t think you can be inside a business model to really make the foundational changes to an entire discipline.
Who needs to hear about this institute? For whom did you write your mission and vision statement? Why do they need to read it?
It’s written for anyone who thinks like we do. That innovation management and processes and methodologies have stagnated since the 80’s. There really are better ways for coming up with new ideas. There are process shortcuts you need to find. There’s limitations in some areas you need to find a way to breakthrough.
It really improves the lives of everyone if you can find these solutions. Not just business, but governments and the lone inventor and entrepreneur.
You answered this a little bit. But it deserves more attention. What problem or challenge are you trying to solve?
As an organization we dedicated or resources to breakthrough ideas in ways of thinking and experimenting and dedicating resources to innovation. The whole concept here is to bring for-profit thinking for a non-profit benefit.
If we focus our research on new methodologies and processes for management of ideas and innovation without that distraction of turning a profit or getting outside new business and working on specific client problems...that true dedication to the process itself we may be able to create some breakthrough next practices that change how we handle innovation management process together.
How will your organization bring these solutions? How can members participate?
As we develop our research there’s going to be periodic times before we issue a final research finding. We’ll provide some status updates if we think of some new processes that we would like to introduce to those who are following along who would want to try. That’s really the main way that we’re going to interface with those who are interested.
As we develop research, if come up with a process we’ll put it out there in the wild and have people try it. And if it doesn’t work for them we’ll suggest they come back to us for potential ways to fix it.
Almost as a global source or crowd-sourcing way of approaching this. But, we also offer direct membership in the institute. Members can offer their ideas and come up with their burning ideas that they don’t have the time to come up with but that the organization can better benefit the greater good.
Part of the membership benefit is you get the sneak peek of the results of the organization first before we sent it out to the general public.
The funding helps us conduct this research.
We’re just really looking for like-minded people who can crowd-source with us. That’s part of the fun.
We’ll have multiple social media touchpoints on Twitter, our blog and newsletter. Hopefully, we’ll have some training at some point.
We’d love to have a conference or a forum where we can share and cross-collaborate.
We really do hope members participate. We’ll give lots of ways to connect.
And what is your reasonable aspiration or hoped-for future with this institute?
That’s a good question. You always try to think of what’s your end-state.
I think we’d have to consider the institute-based approach a success if and when we find a new approach or methodology or processes to the problems that we’ve put in front of us. If just one person uses these new approaches we’ve come up with and it benefits them and them come up with a new product or service then I think it will all have been worthwhile.
On top of that, if we’re able to meet and collaborate with people who are passionate about ideas and innovations like we are, and we’re able to set up a new network and that benefits society as a whole.
But beyond that we just want to try and contribute to the field of innovation management.
That last question is a favorite of mine on this show. It comes from Erika Andersen’s book, Being Strategic.
She follows that up with asking how will you know you know you have reached this oped-for future? What are some of the metrics that will measure your progress?
Some of the metrics we’ve set up are around the foundation. Let’s set this organization for success right from the beginning.
Are we getting followers on Twitter, members on LinkedIn and fans on Facebook?
Are we growing a healthy organization, financially stable?
Those will be the first metrics we use to measure our success.
Longer-term or even middle-term, we’ll have some metrics around the number of research tasks we’ll take upon.
Are we contributing, are we being mentioned in other journals?
Do others see us as a leader?
I mentioned at the beginning of the show how our country’s standing as an innovation leader has slipped. 10 spots. Devastating impact on today’s economy.
What are these other countries doing that we’re not?
I think America has lost its way in that innovation and thought and creative-type leadership has been ratcheted down to a quarterly type view, driven mostly from the stock markets. Sorta stick-to-your-knitting and we’ll get through this together. I think that’s kind of opened some doors for some other countries who do have a longer view. Some of them don’t have anything to lose; they’ve got nowhere to go but up.
Some of the BRIC countries, Brasil-Russia-India-China, they’re the new leaders in the doing the work. We’ve outsourced doing of the work to them. And by default of doing the work you develop an understanding of the problems; you’re hands-on. You understand the customer complaints a little better. By touching it, they’ve found better ways of doing it.
America’s had all of those things in the past, but when the Great Recession we stuck hour had down and we lost sight of that number one.
I love the point about how outsourcing the work also outsources the learning opportunities.
It’s something that a lot of people forget about. It’s easy to hand off the work. But, you lose the hands-on knowledge of what is working, what is not, what the customer is thinking. You can get that back from reports percolating up. But unless you have feet on the streets about how that product is so over-made you’re missing some keys to that foundational understanding of does the product do what we intended and serve its purpose.
A lot of people who manage by spreadsheets fail. And that’s exactly why.
Ok, so you’ve written some about the importance of imagination in the process of innovation. Let’s imagine...tonight you get a phone call from the 202 area code. It catches you on a good night; you’re willing to be patient with a telemarketer. You answer. It’s President Obama. He saw your site, heard you here on the show. And he’s kinda busy. So he wants your 3 tips, your 3 steps, for America to take to bring us back to being the number one country for innovation. And creating a few jobs along the way might help too.
What do you tell him?
That’s a good one.
I think number we have to figure out a way to release the money stranglehold and move some money around. That’s really what’s holding the economy back. Businesses aren’t investing any money because the customer is not buying; the customer is not buying because they’re worried about their jobs.
Somehow you have to make the entrepreneur focus on creating and fee them from punitive taxation, excessive regulation. Just bring some stability back to the financial system, maybe the political system and take a step back from the quarterly focus.
Ok. There’s stability here. I can make some longer term investments for the future.
We really need to start teaching STEM again in the schools. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. I talk to a lot of people at IBM and GE and they’re in a panic over the lack of qualified replacements for their retiring engineers.
We need to push kids into these scientific type disciplines. We’re really starting to fall behind in that. We need to get past the touchy-feely type stuff taught in schools.
We really need that national BHAG or Big Hairy Audacious Goal from the Collins model. What’s our 21st century moonshot? What’s the thing that gets the nation all behind the innovation and experimentation and challenges to technology. There’s really nothing out there right now we could all get behind and focus our energy and resources. That would be a big step.
How could we, as individuals or companies, follow your recommendations?
I think each person can take stock in themselves, place some investments in the future. Encourage your children to take those STEM classes and help them understand these topics will be important for them in the future.
Within your organization try to push your employees, challenge them. You don’t know what they could do.
I saw a great quote on twitter recently and now I can't name the member who shared it. The quote they shared was from Peter Drucker:
The temptation of business is always to feed yesterday and to starve tomorrow.
How does a robust innovation culture, process, help businesses feed the right amount to the right day?
That is really hard. Innovation management is a lot like portfolio management. You assess your comfort levels across a wide spectrum of risk and reward.
You really need to take a look at where can you put your money. Stuff we already do, stuff we’re successful at. That’s the incremental approach, the bread-and-butter, of business innovation. It’s investing in stuff you’re pretty sure you’re going to get a reward on.
But I think if you’re also smart you’re also going to put your money into the next wave of products or services. What’s the next product or service that will capture your customer’s attention?
You should have some seeds planted for the future.
If you invest in some very long term, long horizon, try to track some trends that might be coming down the road. I mean 20 years ago you never thought you could put your phone in your pocket and put your fingertips on any piece of information known to man....those things are true visionary type breakthrough innovations.
You’ll probably lose most of your money. But if you pick just one idea....that tiny investment is going to pay off explosively.
If more companies took this approach to innovation management they would be much better off.
Most organizations like The American Institute for Innovation Excellence include as part of their charter the goal to create and share a list of best practices. You write The pursuit of best practices means just that, you are pursuing the technique, as defined by others, who you see as leaders.
Why will that process, defining best practices, not work with the innovation practices?
Yeah, that’s a chicken-and-egg type approach. Innovation you’re looking by definition beyond what works today. So, you’re searching for a better way to do something. And that takes you beyond best practices of what people are doing today.
Best practices. Are they important? Many organizations pay no attention to them. They serve as starting points. But by following them you are a follower. But what innovation management does is force people to think beyond, to break through that limit to create next best practices.
That’s why an organization like ours needs to be very aware of “are we following, are we treading water...or are we breaking new ground?” That’s why I challenge this organization in its by-laws. Don’t just settle for best practices but move beyond them to create next best practices.
It’s standing on the shoulders of giants as we talked about earlier. There’s a collection of work to-date. Walking through that collection of knowledge that feeds the new thought processes. You can’t have something new unless you have something to compare it to. You take and feed on what’s already been done. Don’t waste your time on those things that have already failed. Push beyond what works now and think of a better way.
There’s always a better way. It’s just going to require some thought to find it.
What do you tell companies who’ve embraced the need for innovation but who struggle to create their own approach?
I tell them that it’s not easy. It’s not a lone inventor out there coming up with a magic bullet.
It’s a myth. Yes, it may happen one-in-a-million times. But it takes courage and patience and leadership.
A lot of organizations I have worked with in the past that made it work and are constantly looking to make it better, those have leaders who are engaged and dedicated to growth.
It takes a strong leader to not take his eye off the ball for too long, making sure there is a focus on growth. There’s a new product right around the corner. They’re willing to try and learn and fail again.
It’s that 4 beliefs we talked about last time. If you have the courage and the faith and the trust, you’re going to succeed. But it’s going to take a strong leader and a dedicated focus to make it happen. It’s not going to happen by itself. You can’t just say “I wanna be innovation” and then let it just sit there. There has to be a walk behind that talk.
Do you have some examples of companies who created their innovative approach to innovation?
The first one that comes to mind is Procter and Gamble. They have their connect and develop approach. It took a significant BHAG-type statement from their then CEO A.G.Lafley to not just challenge the organization to look within for new ideas but to throw open the doors to R&D to search the world for new ideas that would fit with their new business model for innovation.
There weren’t many big behemoths like Procter & Gamble willing to take that risk. They had the strong leadership. He had a laser-like focus on reaching that aggressive growth forecast.
Do you have an example of a company who tried to force an ill-suited best-practice onto their organization with disastrous results?
The poster child for this is 3M during Jay Mcnerney era where he tried the one-size fits all Six Sigma approach. It was forced upon the entire organization including R&D. The Lean and Six Sigma approach was great once you’re doing the building and manufacturing of these ideas. It just did not work in a new product development or R&D setting.
It took them a long time to get over it. They have been able to survive this and come out in the last few years with new-to-the-world type approaches.
I spoke in December with Brett Trout, an IP attorney. We spoke a bit about net neutrality. I bring it up here only as the web and its free flow of ideas has been a conduit for a lot of innovation. How does net neutrality effect our ability as a nation to sustain innovation?
You know ideas, in order to get better, need to move around and split, add to other ideas. The networked and real-time world make them happen at light speed. They’re happening electronically everywhere either by accident or on purpose.
The reason we’re on the edge of new ideas all the time is just these new advancements in technology and how fast all of these ideas are colliding and collaborating, we’re just getting to the best ideas so much faster.
To be able to have that non-ownership of ideas and to be able to get to these ideas with them being blocked because of somebody’s political ideology...this is the part of net neutrality that is most important. Everybody can put an idea out there and let anyone make it better...that whole idea can’t happen without net neutrality.
Has social media and collaboration tools like wikis and forums, even Facebook pages. Are they helping or hindering innovation?
It’s helping. All the people who learn from me and I still learn from, some of these are people I’ve never heard of before. It’s almost daily.
They’re helping expand the concept of just this collaboration and learning and sharing knowledge. Just to be able to have these tools, it kinda shrinks the world. I never thought I would have the chance to work with someone in Europe at the click of my keyboard, even a few years ago.
On the other hand I wonder if we don’t use these tools to create our own safe havens of people who think just like us. I think there’s the danger of not losing our thought leadership by doing something like that. Walling ourselves off into our favorite little clicks.
I go back and forth on that personally. I use the tools to join communities whose opinions I disagree with or they have knowledge I totally lack. On the other hand, I find sometimes there’s a desire to only listen to those who reinforce our own echo-chamber. We only want to talk to our cool friends who already understand what our group is all about.
StumbleUpon is a great tool I use myself when I find myself walling myself in. Best of the day, find some random sites, force myself even if I have no interest in them.
Even go on to Google and search for a new solution.
Those are really where those unique connections in your brain are made. You take a problem and thinking about and stumbling on and you’ve been struggling on for years and all of a sudden you find something rare...that’s where those connections are made, where those great ideas come from.
If you don’t do that, take advantage of some of the tools to do that and force yourself to participate in groups that you may not have much interest in, but just use it as a playground to stimulate your thought...that’s where I think those tools really can have an impact.
What other social media tools do you use? How have you used them for developing this site, your books?
I use Twitter quite a bit. I’m on there a few times a day. For me it’s a pulse of what’s happening. Twitter has been described as a river. When you have time you wade in and gather news of what’s happening in the world. I’m using it to gather news and what people are thinking, constantly being referred to other people’s writing. I hope I’m retweeting what I find.
I’m also on LinkedIn, pretty active there. I have a group, Innovation Management Group, with 4200 members there. It’s a great place to collaborate there. We keep that spam-free. We just started one for the institute where we can announce new things coming out, research. It’s another one of those touchpoints where members and non can stay in touch.
Between the blog and website, I try to use Facebook sparingly. To me, it’s not a good business tool.
You’re a leader. Leaders are readers. Jim Rohn said that. I just quote him. And you’re avid reader, too. What are you reading in all your free time? Fiction or non.
I use some of the Christmas catching up on all that reading. And I have a vacation coming up and my Kindle’s loaded up.
The book I just finished reading that’s phenomenal is The Week that Changed Wall Street. It’s by Maria Bartiromo who’s the money honey on CNBC and it’s about all that went on and behind the scenes that weekend when Lehman fell and brought the world economy to its knees.
It’s amazing how just a few people can make bad decisions that effect billions of people.
I’m just starting another book called Company Town by Hardy Green. It’s a book that looks at the old company towns and utopian towns of industrialists like Hershey and Disney and Ford. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of building a town from scratch. It’s really a neat book.
The last one is called the Vault of Walt by Jim Korkis. There’s a lot of stories in here that have not been told. We talked about this the last time. Walt Disney is sorta my hero with innovation. Talk about a guy who dreamed big and made it happen. Any time I have chance to learn more about his life, I take.
Where are you on the web?
The American Institute for Innovation Excellence.
The blog remains at Think for A Change.
Twitter as PRWPMP.
Let’s put you on the spot for this weekend’s game, Packers vs Falcons.
Being a die-hard, born-and-raised, Packers fan, I’m picking the Packers.
[Update: You’re RIGHT!]
Be sure to ping me when you’re ready for volunteers to help with the The American Institute for Innovation Excellence.
Thanks for the hour!
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