Anthony Milner

Here’s a cool way to promote that position you’re trying to fill.

 http://www.standoutjobs.com/

Scott delivered a hugely valuable commentary on innovation. I think his comments about 3M summarises beautifully the main take away for people working in the corporate world who are trying to encourage innovation…

3M stands for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. How then did they end up with such hugely successful products such as the post it note? A persistent inventor at 3M, Richard Drew, came up with an idea [Sandpaper], his manager William McKnight tried to kill the idea/product four times. Drew’s product eventually came to fruition and it outstripped sales of all other product lines. This led McKnight to declare…

As our business grows, it becomes increasingly necessary to delegate responsibility and to encourage men and women to exercise their initiative. This requires considerable tolerance. Those men and women, to whom we delegate authority and responsibility, if they are good people, are going to want to do their jobs in their own way. Mistakes will be made. But if a person is essentially right, the mistakes he or she makes are not as serious in the long run as the mistakes management will make if it undertakes to tell those in authority exactly how they must do their jobs. Management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made kills initiative. And it’s essential that we have many people with initiative if we are to continue to grow” – William McKnight, 3M chairman, 1948

And this style of management led to other inventions such as the postie.

So in summary, how to innovate in the workplace…

1. Delegate
2. Take risks / make mistakes
3. Reward initiative

And an interesting final comment…

The more you use the word innovation the less likely you are to actually innovate

On Tuesday morning we ran a breakfast briefing and it was my job to introduce the speakers. I always get nervy when I have to do this sort of thing. I don’t know why though, it’s not like I haven’t done it before. I’ve been trained but that was many years ago and public speaking is something that has to be practiced regularly. Of course after the talk I stumbled across a blog entry written by a certain delicate genius who recently attended NIDA’s corporate training and then promptly kicked myself for not doing some research. Even more kicking (that’s twice) because our team recently completed a website upgrade for NIDA having implemented our Enterprise Content Management product Community Manager, which means we know NIDA really well but have completely neglected to sample their product. Well that’s going to have to change real soon. The notes posted are real gems and it would’ve helped immensely so thanks for sharing Michael.

If you’re looking for the best TV drama around look no further than Channel Nine. I don’t mean CSI, CSI NY or CSI Miami, I’m talking about Channel 9, the company previously owned by PBL. The former 60 Minutes Executive Producer and Bulletin Editor-in-Chief, Gerald Stone recently published a tell all of how “they stuffed the place up”. It’s called “Who killed Channel 9?” and it’s quite a revealing insight into the nepotism, management decay and breakdown of trust which has left Nine a shadow of its former self. The “Missing Magic: Then and Now” chapter attempted to explain the reason for the creative vacuum.

“The creative flame burns best when given plenty of air to breathe. In suffocating surroundings, hemmed in by over-supervision and second guessing, with constant emphasis on the price rather than the merit of the proposition, there’s soon likely to be nothing left but ash.” Page 155

This creative suffocation if often caused by well intentioned managers trying to cut costs and speed up delivery but sometimes we need to remember that with appropriate time, space and physical surroundings, creativity will flourish, resulting in solutions we never dreamed possible.