This document outlines steps for getting a team started on innovation:
1. Assess your company's openness to innovation and build a portfolio of riskier and safer projects.
2. Put innovative "dreamers" in charge to generate new ideas.
3. Develop a culture that fosters creativity through risk-taking, welcoming new ideas, and rewarding acts of innovation.
4. Align innovation efforts with your company's strategic direction by communicating passion and hiring people with aligned skills and knowledge.
1. Getting your teamon the starting-blocks ofinnovation F. E. Pozzolini for TerresNeuves
2. MENUChallenge & Mission You must take charge of creating and putting together a fast response, left & right, team of do-or-die playersthat are capable at the same time of operating as well as anticipating the future (the so-called ambidextrous characters)
3. TIMING OF ITINERARY 0900 – 0930 Who am I – The thinking behind this conference 0930 – 1015 Overall assessment - the photo of your company Are you today open to Innovation ? 1015 – 1045 Food for your thoughts & open table 1045 Break of fresh air !!!! 1100 – 1230 The right people in charge Tips for a team building
4. 1400 – 1430 The right people in charge Open table 1430 – 1500 Team building Open table 1500 second Break of fresh air !!!! 1515 onwards How to be immersed in INNOVATION by Management by walking around Developing a culture that fosters creativity & innovation Last hour until 1730 Lesson of the day Quick look back Repeat and Question session Your assessment and evaluation of the Lesson of the day
5. ITINERARY Who am I The thinking behind this conference Overall assessment - The photo of your company Are you today open to Innovation ? The right people in charge Tips for a team building How to be immersed in INNOVATION by Management by walking around Developing a culture that fosters creativity & innovation
6. Italian by birth, Scottish mother, brought up in a multilingual and multicultural environment speaking French and thinking international. 15 years in the USA, 18 years in France, the rest somehow/where in Italy. Second Fiddle and Co-Creator of businesses, innovative or in the spearhead of innovation from Food Business in the US to Career Counseling in Italy. In his fifth life I decided to put my experience to work for international Business Schools via Advancia and Negocia where for the past three years I have lectured & taught, in English, Business Intelligence, the Pleasure of Negotiation and Personal Development to Bachelor Three and Master One and Two students Further I accompany Chinese Students in the hunt for French internships and during their internship. As of November 2010 also Brazilians. I am exploring areas and lectures in the field of Innovation, Building the future, Generation clashes, Generational anxiety. I am going to lecture next year at the Central University of Economics of Beijing . 60 y.o., married, two kids and son.
7. "A laser, is a solution seeking a problem”1964 quote from a NYTimes article onTheodore H. Maiman the man who built the first operational laser
19. When culture is latent and education is monopolized in its access and crystallized by a caste Nomenklaturacuriosity wanes away
20. The only innovation The only innovation is marked by the cooptation of classes of Apparaticks & their self-reproduction as part of the Nomenklatura
25. Absolute need, through empirics, of curiositysurfaceswhere there isa starving hungerfor ideas andeconomic improvement of selfwhere the undetected of today and the unexpected of tomorrow are motors of venture and adventure that will create wealth and in the process defy Nomenklaturaand challenge the Apparatick
30. Venture Capital &Management of Riskhuman, environmental &financialthe sense & appreciation of risk based on needs and desires
31. Human CapitalThe “hungry” of the world that are structured in their claim of sharing the richness as spelled out by Adam Smith & Marx & Keynes, the prophets of HOPE
32. EnvironmentalWhere Academia and Industry work hand-in-hand un-afraid of the vulgarity of the word profit and un-tamed in their desire and want to advance Science & Technology for the well being of themselves, their organizations, their scholarly institutions
33. FinancialWhere Capital flowsWhere risk is assessed on the basis of three simple questionsHow much will it cost?Who will benefit?When can you deliver it?
40. “Les grosses boîtesfinissent par produired’abord de la hiérarchie”quote from the article Bâtisseur de rêves – a portrait of Elon MuskLe Monde , Mardi 30 Mars 2010
41. SELF-REPRODUCTION OF NOMENKLATURA= COOPTATION OF APPARATICK= BLOOD RELATIONS=MENTAL DEFICIT OF IMAGINATION= END OF DREAM = NO INNOVATION
42. ASSESSMENT/THE CK LIST The Photo of your company Where is your company in terms of innovation trends ? Are your company’s products/services/technologies on the upward slope or in the mature phase in the S – curve ? Do new technologies threaten/undermine your business? Are your company’s ops effective, fast and efficient ? Are mayor cost improvements possible, including your costs ?
43. Step ONE Are you today open to Innovation? Think in terms of Pareto. Idea and project have a mix of risk and return dimensions. Think 20/80. Apply portfolio thinkingBuild a two dimensional matrix of yourproject(s) portfolio
46. If most projects and resources are located in the upper right quadrant you are very aggressive and open to Innovation/Creativity QUESTIONS How are you going to build a suitable reward/risk balance for your organization? How can you articulate/map this balance?
47. Step TWO Put the right people in chargeA mix of dreamers, doers, go-getters Enablers of the dream are those that can identify/spot/detect the creator of innovation but who are not themselves strictusensusinnovators change opportunities sift, vet and choose projects look far setbacks are bumps egotistical and hungry presenting & selling their project can sell dreams fire-up a team organizational politics participative management not yes men not your friends
48. QUESTION Do you have any of these characters around you in your team / organization?
49. TIPS for a team buildingrecommendations & suggestions
50. Step THREE Management-by-walking-around of Innovation Being immersed in innovation as an active participant in the process that runs from idea generation to market (bottom-up / top-down / bottom-up process)
51. QUESTIONS How much of your time will you spend on the innovation front? Will you leave early decision making to low level staff who may not understand/do not share the big picture of your business and your vision? Have you become insulated from the technological issues shaping your business? Is your involvement in the process so late in the process itself that your only interest is whether a project will clear financial hurdles?
52. Step FOUR Develop a culture that fosters creativity & innovation Process and Development
53. QUESTIONS Is your current success making you a bit too self-satisfied and complacent? Are you outwardly focused/oriented? Does your organization stimulate risk-takers? Creative people and new ideas are welcome in your organization? Are you and your organization excessively bureaucratized in how you handle new ideas? How will you reward acts of creativity?
55. Step FIVE Be open to new ideas maintaining an active critical sense. Play at all times Devil’s Advocate
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58. Suggest course of action but reserve judgment until uncertainties are reduced
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60. TWO QUESTIONS in ONE Do creative people on your staff understand where the company is headed and heading? or need just to deliver the idea and not necessarily understand where the company is headed?
61. ONE & ONLY ANSWER WELCOME COMMUNICATE PASSION with DRIVE & FIRE IN YOUR EYES ! HIRE THE RIGHT DREAMERS ALIGN RESOURCES WITH STRATEGY
62. WELCOME Set the strategy-related boundaries within which new ideas for improving customer intelligence & knowledge (CKM), process, supply chain, etc…. are welcome! By doing this your company’s creative energies will naturally focus themselves in areas with the greatest payoff potential (not ROI)!!!
64. HIRE THE RIGHT DREAMERS Use every hiring opportunity to populate the organization with people whose special training, culture (yes culture), experience, know how, knowledge are aligned with the strategic direction of the company and not only so…
65. ALIGN RESOURCES WITH STRATEGY (Least & Max – Low /Max cap) People are opportunists. They follow the money. If they see that certain ideas, may be not all, that fall within the set/stated boundaries are getting funded they will channel their creative energies in that direction. You must insure resources. It’s all in one word. RESOURCES, RESOURCES, RESOURCES It takes Money to make Money
66. Step SEVEN Put a hard nose puncher in charge as you number TWO “The impossible we do today, the possible tomorrow” Step EIGHT Nurture the dream and the dreamers
