We thought you might enjoy the following interview that Bob Eckert recently did with a magazine, "HT Kariyer" in Turkey. It was titled:
The Gator Brained Run from Innovation
Dynamic Turkey should be open to innovation
-What is innovation leadership?
Eckert: Innovation leadership can be viewed at three levels: One, is a particular company growing profit through innovation in comparison to its peers and competitors? Two, are the leaders of an organization setting standards and modeling the behavior of good creativity & innovation skills? Three, are the individuals in the organization taking personal responsibility to be creative and support innovation from their position. Innovative companies can answer “Yes!” to all three of these questions. The most innovative companies are never arrogant about their ability to do this, so are always attempting to improve their innovation culture.
-Everybody talks about ”innovation” lately. What is the business world looking for? Has the “innovation” concept changed recently and means something different than it used to mean?
-What are some of the mistakes people make when they think of innovation?
Eckert: There is a significant amount of research looking at how to make individuals, teams and organizations more innovative. But because most business schools do not teach in this area, business leaders make common mistakes in implementing efforts to improve their organizations innovation capacity. Recently, we have seen quite a few opportunistic consulting firms claiming expertise, but offering bad advice. Most of the partners at New & Improved have a Masters Degree in Creativity and Change Leadership. The other common mistake, or inaccurate perception, is that some people are naturally innovative, and others are not. In fact, anyone can improve their personal innovation quotient with the right training, coaching and practice.
-What is the role of innovation in increasing competitive advantage? Can you give some striking examples?
Eckert: If you examine any instance of increased competitive advantage, you will see only two things that cause it. One, a competitor company makes a serious mistake. Two, a particular company innovates in some way. Waiting for your competitors to make mistakes as a growth strategy is not very wise. When Mercedes Benz researched the effect of innovation skills training on just two small teams, they were able to demonstrate 750% and 1100% ROI within 90 days respectively. When a team at Pfizer used innovation tools we taught them, they found a way to save 30-60 million dollars on every product they were developing, with no decrease in quality. Both Nestle’ and Johnson & Johnson regularly use the creative process we have taught them to develop market leading new products. General Motors used this same process to eliminate a stubborn production problem that was costing them $40,000 per week.
-Can we talk about innovation in relation to all sectors, or are there specific sectors where innovation plays a more important role?
Eckert: Innovation skills can be used in any sector of business, government, education, you name it. Raising healthy, successful children can be a tremendous challenge, and well taught innovation skills have equal benefit at home.
-Could you give us brief information on the two trainings you conducted in Turkey:”Leading High Performing Innovation Cultures” & “Innovation for Results”?
Eckert: These programs both look at the personal creativity skills needed to drive innovation forward and then at the most effective Creative Process. “Innovation for Result”s then practices the application of these new skills to real business challenges of the participants. This is why we often see such a high ROI from the program. “Leading High Performance Innovation Cultures” focuses additionally on the leader behaviors that foster a creative climate, and then also looks a the systems, processes, metrics, accountabilities and reward structures that support a sustained culture of creativity leading to increased innovative output.
-What hinders innovation in companies? How do you identify what these barriers are and how do you turn the situation around? Can you give examples?
Eckert: In general terms, a lack of attention to innovation will hinder any company. Because we now have good research about what works and what does not to increase an organization’s innovation quotient, improving it is available to anyone. The organizations in a sector who get most serious about it will grow more rapidly and steal share from their competitors. We have research validated assessments available to us now which can help individuals and organizations understand both their strengths and improvement areas.
The biggest danger, both personally and organizationally, is arrogance which breeds complacency, inhibits curiosity, and slows growth. Business history is littered with stories about what happens to companies that get to arrogant, which is often caused by their very success. Unfortunately for humans, previous success does not predict future success, and often breeds complacency. Toyota is a striking example just now. Arguably the most successful car company in the recent past, they became complacent, lost vigilance and are now in big trouble in the market. I have confidence that they will come back, but this has been a painful lesson for them. Humiliation creates humility. Humility energizes curiosity. Curiosity creates learning, and learning energizes innovation. Companies that sustain a focus on innovation culture have fewer of these painful lessons. In business and in life this one thing is true: There is no such thing as a “grown-up.” There are just growing-ups and stuck people. That’s it.
-How did the crisis affect you? Have companies cut down on their spending on developing innovation or not?
Eckert: New & Improved has weathered the crisis quite well. Both because we were innovative in planning for such an eventuality, and because we were innovative during it. While many CFO’s have cut budget for human resource development as a way of managing cash flow, others, often led by a forward thinking CEO have invested during the downturn in their most important capital asset, their people. As recovery is happening, we are seeing those organizations who have invested in improving their innovation quotient leading the way forward.
-Could you give us some information on N & I? What are your services?
Eckert: New & Improved is an organizational development consulting firm focused on increasing the “Innovation Quotient” for its clients. We do this by helping people work together with more creativity and collaboration. Our services include Training, Meeting Facilitation, Executive Coaching and Organizational Development Consulting. Always focused on improving Creativity and Innovation.
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