Creating a Culture of Innovation: Setting Expectations

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, SANE Innovation

As a leader, setting the expectations of your team/employees is YOUR responsibility, and is the first step in creating a culture of innovation within your organization.

So, how do you set expectations? Communicate them!

It’s important to communicate your expectations clearly. These expectations should be both what YOU expect from your team/employees, but more importantly, what THEY should expect from you. People need to know that you are serious about working WITH them, NOT just serious about them working FOR you.

Let your team know that you want each and every one of them to know that their ideas and input are as valuable as anyone else’s – including your own. (Stress that last point.)

You should then clearly define how you plan to manage innovation and creative ideas within your organization. Do you have a formal process? (I’ll talk more about this in a future post.)

You then need to lead by example by you yourself meeting and exceeding the expectations that you have set for your organization. This once again means NOT bypassing the system or process you have put in place for managing ideas and creativity. If you set specific guidelines, adhere to them. If you set goals, exceed them. (or at least meet them)

Lessons in Management: McDonald’s During the 1970’s

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Leadership, Management

Late last week I had the privilege of talking with someone that opened and ran numerous McDonald’s in the 1970′s.Two things he said really stuck out to me.  One speaks of his own innovative management practices and the other of the leadership of McDonald’s CEO at that time (Fred Turner).

He told me about one McDonald’s he ran in particular, and how he had problems in that area with many of the younger employees.  He came up with a hiring strategy in which he would hire half younger/teenage employees, and half nannies.  What he found was that the nannies would naturally organize, and manage the younger employees.  He said it was so successful that he rarely had to deal with disputes, or really run the store himself.  He would come out of his office, and the nannies that were working would immediately tell him to relax, and assure him that they had everything under control!

What an innovative management strategy!

He also told me something that Fred Turner said to him, and the other 48 managers at the time that were out in the field, growing the McDonald’s business, and opening stores all over the world.  He told them: “When you guys are out in the field, you are the CEO. You make the decisions, and you’ll be right 75% of the time.  And that’s the best rate in the industry.”

Fred empowered his employees to make decisions and he encouraged and inspired them to be the best.

I love hearing stories like these.

Creating a Culture of Innovation: Is YOUR Company Serious About Innovation?

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Leadership, Management

As part of my series entitled “Creating A Culture Of Innovation”, I highlighted an approach back in August, that I’ve come up with to begin doing just that.

Here’s a great list of questions to ask the first line employees in your organization, to determine whether your organization is really serious about innovation being part of it’s culture. These questions are slightly modified versions of the questions outlined by Gary Hamel in the recent interview with McKinsey and Co.

1) “How have you been trained as a business innovator? What investment has the company made in teaching you how to innovate?”

Yes, this should be filtered down all the way to your companies lowest level employee.

2) “If you have an idea, how much bureaucracy do you have to go through to experiment with it? How long is it going to take for you to get a small percentage of your time and/or a relatively small amount of experimental capital to test your idea? Is it a matter of months, or is it very easy for that to happen?”

This falls in line with the “Nurture” step in my SANE approach. Companies that are serious about innovation being a part of their culture have systems, and processes in place to help nurture ideas. The build it into their budgets, and strategic plans.

3) “Are you actually being measured on your innovation performance, or your team’s innovation? Does it influence your compensation?”

“Put your money where your mouth is”. Companies that are serious about innovation will find ways to compensate employees for their innovative contributions, and provide incentives for continued innovation.

4) “As you look at the management process in your company, do they tend to help you work as an innovator or get in the way?”

This falls in line with the “Execute” step in my SANE approach.

Getting in the way doesn’t just mean getting involved and complicating things. It also means simply not doing everything possible to help innovative ideas that have been supported be brought to life.

Innovative Management: A conversation with Gary Hamel and Lowell Bryan

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Collaboration, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Management

I read an amazing interview with Gary Hamel and Lowell Bryan yesterday. It was one of those articles where I was constantly saying to myself things like: exactly!, that’s amazing!, thats exactly what I said to _______!, etc.

Reading it made me really excited. So much so that I immediately started talking to, and calling friends of mine, probably babbling because I was so taken up by it. I sat at home last night reading parts of the interview to my wife as we sat trying to relax in our living room.

It made me really excited because this is something I am very passionate about. It’s something that I have very strong feelings about, and in this interview I saw my own passions and positions clearly shared by others that are truly thought leaders in the space of management.

Innovative Management: A conversation with Gary Hamel and Lowell Bryan

Please, take the time to read this interview and share with me your thoughts. If you aren’t a member at the McKinsey Quarterly this is more than enough reason to join. (IT’S FREE!)

The basic premise of the discussion is that there is an ever growing need for a new managerial model, that merits the gifts of creativity, passion, and initiative and leverages those gifts in each and every employee.

Here’s just a small sample:

“In terms of managing creative-thinking people, you have to separate the work of managing from the notion of managers as a distinct and privileged class of employees. Highly talented people don’t need, and are unlikely to put up with, an overtly hierarchical management model.

Increasingly, the work of management won’t be done by managers. It will be pushed out to the periphery. It will be embedded in systems. I think we’re on the verge of what I would call a postmanagerial society. The idea that you mobilize human labor through a hierarchy of overseers and bureaucrats and administrators is going to look extraordinarily antiquated a decade or two from now.”

Also, if you haven’t read my post from a few months back entitled: Creating a Culture of Innovation: The SANE Approach, I’m sure you will see many parallels.

John Moore posted a great overview of Gary Hamel’s new book, The Future of Management.

Tory Gattis of OpenTeams also posted some additional excerpts from the interview here as well.