Here’s an interesting question all leaders, including myself, should be asking, “When we set goals for our company and employees, do we make them “realistic” or “unrealistic” to achieve?” If you’re like us, we tend to set them to be realistic with the mindset that people will strive to achieve something they see is “within reach” of achieving. But is this the right approach for innovation?
Running a company has all kinds of moving parts – but they are all moving at the same time, or so it seems. Our goal as leaders is to keep all the moving parts moving…basically. We have teams to help keep all the employees moving forward in the direction we set and put specific goals in place for them to achieve. But here is the big question, “What happens when they achieve the goal, do they stop and coast or get more creative and figure out new ways of doing things?” I vote that they are content and celebrate their victory (and rightfully so) of meeting or just exceeding their goal.
But when it comes to innovation, if we knew what the specific goal was, we could apply the same principles. We don’t. What we know is we want to make things better, create a more cost effective solution, develop an easier way for customers to work with us, come up with a new product/service, etc. But we don’t know what that looks like, that’s why these things are “innovative”. I want to throw out a different notion to consider – set unachievable and unattainable goals when it comes to innovation.
For example, if someone wanted to change the manufacturing process to improve it by 10% over the next year, that is attainable and would lead to some “improvements” to the “existing” process. But what if there was an entirely new process which could improve it 50%? This would probably not be discovered by smaller improvements along the way. While I completely agree we should constantly be working towards the 10% increase, why not have a small group thinking about the 50% as well? This could create a completely new way to “re-engineer” it – start with a blank sheet of paper and put down a bunch of “what if’s” that don’t exist today. It might not happen for the next few years, but if it did, you immediately become the leader…and for a while into the future. And I bet we would come up with a few more ideas of how to capture the 10% improvements along the way a well.
This is a concept we are thinking about ourselves – it isn’t easy and it is hard to get your head around since it is 180 degrees from the way we normally think…kind of like innovation. What do you think? Does this make sense to you as a business leader? Would love to hear your thoughts and comments with one caveat – you can’t just “shoot at it” you have to offer something constructive, this is how we can all benefit from your wisdom…
Brian,
This is an interesting topic for me. Does an unattainable goal turn off a person or motivate them? It is probably different for each person. What about a “compounding” goal for that person that gets turned off by the unreachable. This new goal is reachable but each time it is reached, it resets a little bit higher or a little tougher to reach. This gives the employee times to celebrate but encourages innovation by increasing the goals each time. Motivation to reach a goal is one thing, but thinking outside of the box to reach a higher goal is another. A “compounding” goal may strike both of those chords.
Justin
Justin
GREAT thoughts about this topic. I think you offer a very valid and interesting perspective on this topic. Like most things in the area of innovation, it isn’t just black and white but has many shades of grey.
I like the idea and I believe, depending on the circumstances and what you want to accomplish, this could be a very good alternative to the other two. Thanks for sharing – let’s explore it more sometime.
Brian, you penned an interesting post there and Justin’s comments are good ones too.
It is important in todays business climate to set “incremental” goals within the framework of an “outside-the-box” innovations creation process. Many executives desire innovation but at what cost? We have to operate our businesses within guidelines that are accepted by those that watch our functioning closely (shareholders, auditors, bankers,etc)… each of these types of folks seemingly trying to stifle innovation due to the unknown cost. So….how do we work through or around that? A piece of innovative work is needed here!
Setting incremental goals is a possible way to start the process of encouraging innovation and offering metrics for measurement. It is still constrictive. We are always on the lookout for innovation and trying to encourage it within our company. Yes, we have many of the same bottlenecks, and continue to open up the structure to set the stage for encouraging innovative thought. Innovation is not necessarily something that you can meet once a quarter on and expect outside the box thinking… It has to come from a source of inspiration… which should be available at all times.
Just my $.02 of course.
Rob
Rob-
Love the $.02 – much more descriptive than just saying “two cents” – made my day!
You offer some great thoughts and interesting perspectives on this topic – thank you. This is all variable of course, depending on your environment. A public company has far more restrictions and reporting requirements than a privately held company so that always weighs in on the decision of how much can you invest in innovation. However, if the shareholders and market believes innovation is critical to growth and part of the DNA of the company, such as Google and 3M, then it tends to not get the scrutiny others might get.
A way to also think about it is risk/return. If you are always working on the “next big thing” aspect of innovation the risk is huge – as is the potential reward. This makes people very nervous and lots of pressure because if you don’t deliver, they view it as failure and loss of significant capital. But if you focus on smaller, more incremental innovations, risk is generally lower, but so is the huge returns. The advantage here is you can do a whole lot of these and over the course of a year, they can really add up to generate a significant return.
Is there a blending? Of course. Finding out what that might be to maximize return and minimize risk is the golden formula – most don’t have it. If people are really skeptical or uncertain, I believe incremental is a very positive way to go. If innovation is part of the culture and “expected” then I feel you can aim a bit larger in what you are trying to create/change/invent.
There you go, just my “two cents”…