Additional Resources for Cultivating Innovation

Hyper-growth companies often credit a culture of innovation as their primary driver of success. Here's how you can too.

Admit it. When do you get your best ideas? When you're sitting at your desk striving for an answer, or when you're doing something off-task like driving, walking, or puttering around the house? On the surface, daydreaming seems like the antithesis of "work," yet it's truly at the core of our most important type of productivity--creative problem-solving. That's why some of the most innovative companies in the world feature programs that give key employees the time and space to think creatively, i.e. daydream--Google offers a 20% program, 3M has a 15% program, and Gore & Associates (Gore-Tex, etc.) features "dabble time." All three companies credit these programs as the source of their most successful products.

Executives and managers routinely talk about the importance of innovation, but turning talk into reality isn’t easy to do. Nearly everyone who took part in CCL’s 500-person client panel said innovation is a key driver of success (94%), and 77% of their organizations have made attempts to improve innovation. Even so, just 14% are confident about their organization’s ability to drive innovation effectively (CCL Innovation Leadership Survey, 2014).

When faced with confusion or a problem, our instinct is to repair it with order. We examine and analyze the situation, looking for logic, until we can say: “Aha, I know this. Now I know what to do.” Unfortunately, the rapid analysis and rational decision-making that most managers use to run their organizations has serious limitations. As problems and circumstances become more complex, they don’t fit previous patterns. We don’t recognize the situation. We can’t rapidly or automatically know what to do. What worked before doesn’t work today. To make effective sense of unfamiliar situations and complex challenges, we must have a grasp of the whole of the situation, including its variables, unknowns, and mysterious forces. This requires skills beyond everyday analysis. It requires innovation leadership.

To accelerate your search for a viable new growth model, start with the two-pizza rule.

To rise above the competition, you'll have to question the sacred cows.

Innovation is something we know we all need desperately – our country needs it, our companies need it, our communities need it. We are staring a whole host of decidedly wicked problems in the eyeballs – in health care, in social security, in energy, in national competitiveness – and the [...]

The Six Thinking Hats is a method devised by Edward De Bono and meant to improve the results of thinking and discussion. It may be used either by oneself or in a group. De Bono claims that by separating six different types of thinking we can make our thinking clearer and more thorough. We should “wear” each hat in turn, and analyze the issue at hand from six different aspects separately. In a group setting, the entire group is encouraged to use just one hat at a time, thus contributing to an organized and comprehensive discussion, rather than a confused and mixed-up argument. Each hat is marked with a different color and represents the following type of thinking:

Carl Bass is president and chief executive officer of Autodesk, Inc. Autodesk is the leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software. Formerly he...

Not long ago, I visited a Trader Joe’s in Boston’s Back Bay. As I went to pay for my goods, I found a seemingly endless line for the cash registers. Well over 40 people were waiting to check out. It was “rush hour,” so perhaps I had no right to be surprised. But startled I […]

The creative power behind a company is its people. And while many businesses tout the desire for creative employees, not all organizations understand how to encourage a workplace of free-flowing ideas. From the design of the office space to the downtime given to employees during the workday, various facets of company culture have an effect on getting creative juices flowing.

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