#361 from Innovative Leader Volume 7, Number 9          September 1998

Bridging The Innovation Gap
by Allen Fahden

Mr. Fahden is an author, speaker and strategic innovation and marketing consultant who lives in Minneapolis, MN (phone 612-922-5222; email alfahden@aol.com).  He is author of Innovation On Demand (The Illiterati,1992) and co-author of Innovate With C.A.R.E. Profile, (Carlson Learning, MN).

In a recent survey, 81% of CEO’s said the futures of their companies depend on creativity and innovation.  But a mere 6% reported that their company was any good at managing those parameters.  So a huge gap has opened up between what companies need and their ability to fill that need.

Why is innovation suddenly so important and how can people make it happen? Most of today’s so-called innovation training focuses on creativity, but not on how to turn an idea into concrete change.

Previously, you had to either “grow or die.”  You could do the same thing over and over for years. The stages of an organization were:  find a replicable pattern that would make money.  Then, just improve your efficiency, defend your market share, and add a few line extensions. This cash cow could last years.

Why is this pattern no longer valid?

When personal computers, automatic phone systems, faxes and computer networks became available on a mass level, repetitive jobs such as filing, typing, and phone operating decreased.  Maintaining a company became easier.  The marketplace boomed with every leap in technology because so many people had the resources to join a burgeoning industry or imitate a new innovation.  You could produce high quality for less money than ever.  But, so could everyone else.

With all the convenience and affordability of new products, consumer expectations rose.  People were used to ease and quality.  Now they wanted more convenience and more exciting and unusual products and services. Companies have to come up with something new and different all the time or get left in the dust.

So how do they do that?

In the old days, once the cash-cow replicable pattern took hold, the creators of an idea could be pushed to the side.  The maintainers would take over and milk every profit dollar possible out of the revenue stream with stringent controls and minimal risks.  This behavior was rewarded by promoting those with the fewest failures. And squashing creativity.  But now, if you discourage, your creative people you shoot yourself in the foot. Companies must recognize that creating and maintaining are both essential, but distinctly different, stages in the process of business. Each stage requires different kinds of thinkers.

Team Gridlock

Teams are struggling to find big ideas and follow them up.  All the interventions in the world won’t make them work until the replicator thinking that undermines them gets properly channeled. The first problem is team design.  The number one criterion for picking a team is who’s available.  Then, too often, the team gets together, has a long, boring--often destructive--meeting, and nothing happens.

Let’s say you and I are on a team. You offer a couple of ideas.  I say that the first one doesn’t work and roll my eyes at the second.  You and I now have an issue.  We have friction. 

The accepted fix?  Team building.

The problem with team building is that it ignores the deeper problem.  If my natural work instincts short-circuit yours, it’s like having my truck parked on your foot.  Every time you try to do something, I cause you pain and keep you from moving.  So how will a deeper understanding of each other person’s personality, and some rope-climbing make our team work?  As a result of team building we may feel like best friends and be high-fiving by Sunday, but on Monday we still don’t know how to support each other.  If my natural way of working continues to keep you from moving forward, then team-building hasn’t helped. 

The point: natural work instincts are far more powerful than personality; yet until now, they’ve been ignored.

Right Person, Right Job, Right Time

An easy way to understand what’s wrong with team and innovation today is to look at what was wrong with production in 1912. In Henry Ford’s Detroit plant, it used to take about 12.5 hours to put one car together.  Because autos cost so much to produce, they were out of the average American’s reach.

Each person in the Ford plant would assemble an entire car, from beginning to end.  Henry Ford noticed that some people were really good at engines, while others had a talent for details and trim. Ford had an idea:  have people work on only the parts of the car they were best at building.

Thus were born mass production and the assembly line.  The time to assemble a car dropped from 12.5 hours to one hour and 26 minutes.  Not surprisingly, the price of a Ford went from around $4000 to just over $600.  And, thanks to a generous Ford, the worker’s wages doubled.  All because they had the right people doing the right thing at the right time.

Today, we have some of the same basic assumptions about creating innovation.

Innovation isn’t just having a great idea.  Creative ideas don’t become cutting-edge innovation until the best have been selected, bulletproofed, approved, and well implemented.  Innovation is not just creative thinking, it’s every kind of thinking, every kind of work, placed at the right step in the process.

Mass Creation and the Innovation Line

Each of these steps must be performed by someone who naturally does that step well.  Much like mass production and the assembly line, mass creation and the innovation line is a system to determine who does what work best, putting the right person in the right place at the right time.

Unlike psychological profiles that pinpoint people’s personalities, the Innovate With C.A.R.E.^® profile categorizes a person’s natural work style:  the tasks that make them feel most alive.  And in contrast to self-improvement tools, which show people how to change, the C.A.R.E. profile helps determine how to better use the talents you already have.

C.A.R.E. simply identifies what people enjoy and do well.  Then they can do it for 90% of their work day instead of only 20 to 25 %.  If used correctly, the C.A.R.E. profile has the power to triple how much people get done and double how much they enjoy doing it.

Most jobs usually involve four very different types of tasks.  These are:

1) Thinking up ideas

2) Selecting the best ideas and planning an effective way to make them happen

3) Pinpointing what can go wrong

4) Carrying out detail-oriented production or implementation.

Some of these tasks actually require conflicting abilities. By expecting one person to complete all parts, we lose the person’s strengths while they struggle with the things they don’t do as well. Almost every job has work in it that each of us has problems with.  We put that part of the work off, creating more stress and less efficiency.

By combining how someone thinks (practically or conceptually) and acts (spontaneously or methodically), we can identify their basic work style. While everyone is unique, in our work style each of us is primarily one or two of four types:  Creator,  Advancer, Refiner, or Executor.

Creators easily solve problems and come up with out-of-the-ordinary ideas but don’t want to hear about the holes in their ideas.  They despise details.

Consummate planners, Advancers know how to get things done and virtually  are married to their “to-do” lists.

Refiners recognize the weaknesses in a plan and enjoy doing step-by-step work. They make sure a concept gets executed properly.  If allowed to lead, Refiners can focus so much on what’s wrong that the rest of the team feels stifled and criticized.  These people can sometimes benefit from learning to understand the value of other work styles.

Executors carry out processes, working best with clear, step-by-step procedures.  They are willing and thorough, but need frequent direction when systems change.

Determining our staff’s C.A.R.E. profiles serves three purposes: 

• It allows work to be redistributed to the right people, freeing up time and making everything more effective.

• It enables everyone to be appreciated for their contributions, boosting morale and individual productivity.

• It places people in their most effective roles in the innovation process, so that the best idea gets implemented quickly, inexpensively and with the highest quality.

Sustaining Success

Here are some further hints to help you focus on strengths so that your staff will shine. 

•  Approach problems from the perspective of determining who can solve them. Stop solving problems by gathering a random team that wastes time debating and creates no plan of action.

•  Get specific about the type of work required: Need an idea?  Contact the Creators.   Do you have to select the best idea or create an implementation plan?  Call an Advancer.  Need to perfect a process?  Put a Refiner on the job. Should clear actions be taken?  Leave it to the Executors to get things done.

•  Conduct meetings that allow each work style to be present for discussions on only their part of the innovation process.

•  Acknowledge each person’s contribution to the process.

When you appreciate people for their gifts, their dissatisfaction melts away.  That’s why you gain greatly from raising people’s awareness of everyone’s unique contribution to the workplace. Both managers and workers can express appreciation for each part of the

team and how they all fit together.  When handing a task off to someone else, tell him or her how glad you are that someone does the part of the job that doesn't come naturally to you. 

What’s more, co-workers can encourage each other to talk about the difficulties they each face when trying to do work that’s not their natural style.  The bottom line? Everyone can help create an atmosphere of gratitude now that there’s a place for everyone and everyone can find their most productive and satisfying place.