#62 from R&D Innovator Volume 2, Number 10          October 1993

Restoring Creativity
by Laurie Tema-Lyn 

Ms. Tema-Lyn is founder of IdeaScope Associates, specializing in corporate innovation, corporate strategy, and new product development.  It is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and San Francisco, California.

Five years ago, a vice-president of R&D in the food industry came to IdeaScope Associates for assistance in revitalizing his department.  IdeaScope had tackled similar challenges in a variety of industries, yet most of our clients had been marketing professionals who wanted to develop new product ideas or to respond to marketplace changes.  Whatever the industry (food, pharmaceuticals, financial services or telecommunications), the marketing department was generally the driving force in our work.

In this period of tight budgets, limited resources and results-oriented work, the R&D department remained a less-than-equal player in our innovation programs.  Such was the case with this R&D vice president, whose talented team of 50 had lost their innovative spark after years of faithful service.  They commented that they felt stifled by years of operating under a "marketing dictatorship" where their roles were diminished to that of "order takers" for the marketing department.

The Design

We recommended that the group undergo these four phases in an effort to regain their creative spark:

Eleven Lessons

To help our client, we stressed the following lessons in the management of creativity:

1.  Encourage a broad exposure to ideas and information in industries and areas beyond your company's usual domain.  Look for ways to transfer process and content ideas into your business.

2.  Encourage "tinker time".  This has been the norm for many years at companies like 3M and Hewlett Packard, who support researchers to devote time to new ideas and personal projects.

3.  Encourage frequent and informal communication within the R&D department and beyond it.  Post-It notes, E-mail, handwritten memos, and quick hallway meetings are great for cross-fertilizing ideas, especially when "idea makers" don't have to prove their ideas right away. 

4.  Encourage "incubation time" and "focused day-dreaming."  Visit local art museums, day care centers, or other radically different environments, and search for operating principles that can be transferred to challenges facing your business.  These steps greatly enhance "out-of-the-box" thinking.

5.  Encourage direct contact with your marketplace.  Observe your customers in action.  Hold focus groups; visit stores where your products are sold; speak with your sales reps.  The basic goal:  a thorough understanding of how and why your consumers use your product, service or technology.  What needs does your company fulfill?  Not fulfill?  We aren't suggesting that you become marketing gurus...but rather that you achieve some balance and not isolate yourself in the lab.

6.  Hold frequent innovation meetings with small teams.  The goal?  To find new ideas, enhance existing ones, or overcome hurdles.  Designate a process manager to guide your meetings and record ideas.  See that the notes are distributed to team members.  Be sure to include action steps and champions who will "shepherd" ideas so they are pursued.

7.  "Bank" your ideas.  Set up a database to capture ideas that are not appropriate for pursuit now; also, record insights into past successes and failures.  Periodic review of this information will enhance the speed and efficiency of future efforts.  The database will allow you to build on the organization's collective knowledge, and not entrust it to a few people only.

8.  Separate the process steps.  There is a time to generate...a time to develop...AND a time to evaluate ideas.  New ideas need a chance to grow before they are evaluated; they are never born perfect.

9.  Encourage an attitude of mental risk-taking and playfulness with ideas.  The climate should facilitate open-mindedness, speculation and future-oriented thinking.  Some companies support this environment concretely.  For example, Polaroid has a Creativity Center filled with toys, markers, magazines and books—it's a delightful, colorful environment that allows employees to explore their ideas.

10.  Establish a road map—a strategic game plan  of where you want to be in your creative exploration by a certain point in time.  As you begin the journey, remember that you have permission to "take a more scenic route," or go on a diversion.  Also remember that you will encounter potholes along the way!

11.  Follow your passion!  The most successful and creative teams we have worked with recognize that personal excitement and enthusiasm is the most effective stimulus of new ideas. 

Content and Process Challenges

The following suggestions helped our client in dealing with content challenges, such as specific strategic and new product ideas, and process challenges, which help the department improve work flow.

The content challenges for this company's R&D group were to:

•  gain a broad understanding of trends and technologies (both inside and outside the food industry) that were likely to affect their business; and to

•  develop a portfolio of new product ideas for continued exploration over different time horizons—short-, mid- and long-term.

The process requirements were to:

•  help this team renew their innovate spirit;

•  improve teamwork and cross-fertilization of knowledge and information;

•  broaden their thinking beyond their niche in the food industry; and

•  develop more confidence in the exploration of new ideas.

The program I've sketched exceeded our client expectations on many levels, but nobody should assume that once things are "fixed" that they will remain rosy forever.  Innovators will only continue to be productive if innovative thinking is continually nourished, as well as regularly reviewed, evaluated and refined.  Innovation, like other corporate processes, is a continuous challenge.  It's not a one-time phenomenon or an annual event.