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Contents
What’s Next? Extending the Success of the Collaborative Innovation Team to the Larger Organization
How to Make an Ideas Community Work. Defining the Roles
Modeling the Resource Requirements for your Collaborative Innovation Program
Practicing Collaborative Innovation to Become a Learning Organization
Yes, Innovation is your Day Job
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By Doug Collins
V.P. Innovation Architecture, Mindjet
Ideas that Work
A Quick Guide to
Extending the Success of
Your Innovation Program

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I love when a client and I reach the place where we can contemplate,
“What’s next?
”Exploring “What’s next?” means the client has achieved a level
of confidence and a measure of success from having run one or
more innovation challenges. They identified the critical questions
successfully. They defined the nature of the invitation they were
seeking in a way that resonated with the prospective members of
their innovation community. They worked hard to create the virtual
and physical forums that helped the community members engage in
authentic ways with one another. They helped people to explore and
realize their leadership potential, thereby sowing the seeds of real
transformation.
From here, “What’s next?” can mean a number of things. It can mean
reflecting on and framing new critical questions that the organization’s
leaders want to engage the community with. Success breeds
success. Let’s go again. “What’s next?” can mean pursuing further
the possibilities of helping innovators who have already contributed to
move their insights from idea to concept. Let’s honor our commitments
to the community (I have explored a few of these possibilities in earlier
columns).
Beyond refining and extending the program for collaborative innovation,
the leaders of the activity may find that they have opportunities to
disseminate their approach—specifically, their perspective for effecting
authentic forms of community engagement—to other parts of the
organization such as marketing, operations, human resources, and
finance. Leaders might find that they have opportunities to disseminate
their approach to other parts of the organization such as marketing,
operations, human resources,
and finance.
Now that it has experienced success the innovation team
brings the gift of four insights to this conversation (Figure 1).
Understanding techniques to identify and pose the critical question,
or inquiry in a way that resonates with community members. Likewise,
understanding the importance of creating and blending the right
forums, both in person and virtual, in which the community can
explore the question fully through dialogue.
• Insight on the Engagement Model
Understanding approaches to engaging on the question of
commitment What are we here to create together? What ownership
of the process and the outcome does each party claim in engaging
with one another? What reservations do community members have
that keep them from participating?
• Insight on the Company
Figure 1 The gift of the four insights that the innovation program brings to the organization
Insight on the Engagement Model
Collaborative Innovation Program
Insight on the Innovator
Insight on the CommunityInsight on the Idea
Companies that invest in developing strong innovation teams in their core product areas can extend that skill to other parts of the
organization – Doug Collins looks at the skills your innovators are now developing and how they can be repurposed and extended.
What’s Next?
Extending the Success
of the Collaborative
Innovation Team to the
Larger Organization.

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Understanding approaches to supporting the community members
who contribute their insights and build upon the insights offered by
others. What opportunities does the initiative have in helping the
individuals realize their leadership potential on this front? Another?
What reservations do community members have that keep them
from participating?
• Insight on the Innovator
Understanding approaches to framing and re framing
community members’ input to derive meaning and set direction.
• Insight on the Idea
PUTTING THE SOCIAL IN SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Your colleagues down the hall in the marketing, public relations, and communications group have a new challenge. The organization expects them
to build market awareness through traditional forms of promotion, as always. Of late, the organization expects them to engage the customer in
conversation about the offer, the brand, or the organization at large, as well.
Today, the marketing charter is in a state of flux to the extent that the practice of marketing has become the practice of continual innovation in its
own right. “What’s next?” can mean helping the people working in this domain more fully explore the possibilities that the social in social media
represents in an inquiry-led way such that they in turn realize the leadership potential that their evolving charter represents.
This dual charter, along with adding to marketing’s voluminous
“to do” list, creates conflict in how the group engages with the
consumer. Their approach to social media marketing, for example,
can by habit mimic traditional outbound communications. The reach-x-
frequency mindset intrudes. The tweet becomes the world’s smallest
broadcast studio.
Where might the collaborative innovation team start the dialogue with
their peers who lead adjunct functions such as marketing? As always,
by asking the critical question: What possibilities exist to more fully
explore the idea or the promise that the offer or the brand
represents to the consumer? In this context, the offer, the brand, or
the organization itself serves as the idea, reified. Greater openness
and, ideally, intimacy with the consumer comes from engaging in
authentic dialogue on the value that the organization delivers to the
community.
From this inquiry the next set of questions flow in logical succession,
each one touching on one or more of the gifts that the collaborative
innovation team brings to the table…
What is the critical question facing the offer, brand, or organization?
With whom within the market which segment— does this question resonate? What does the organization want to create together
with the community of consumers that it can not create on its own, internally?
What reservations does the organization have about engaging the consumer community in authentic dialogue?
And, what reservations do the consumers express?
What commitment does the organization make to support the community of consumers?
Do opportunities—and expectations—for user or advisory groups emerge, for example?
What is the nature of the invitation by which the organization engages with the consumer community?
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Figure 2 The collaborative innovation team lends its gifts to marketing in helping the
group engage in authentic dialogue with consumers around the offer and/or brand promise.
Internal Ideation
Status
External Ideation
Awareness
Social Media“Centrale”
...and you could help build this capability...
Opportunity to share
perspective and explore
the possibilities of applying
external ideation as a form
of engagement.
Operations
Development (R&D)
Marketing/BrandHuman Resources
Innovation
Fulltillment/ Support
Leadership Engagement
if you are here Then. . . you could go here.
Does it make sense for the innovation team to maintain a Chinese
wall between the internal and external dialogue? Yes, most likely, not
only for the commonsense reasons relating to protection of intellectual
property, but also because the organization may discover it needs a
way to assess, juxtapose, and make meaning of the two conversations.
In depicting “What’s next?” in this case, the figure that emerges may
look something like a hub—a place where the organization explores,
engages in, and makes meaning of enquiry-led dialogue supported
in both virtual and physical communities they sponsor. Figure 2
designates the hub as the Italianate “social media central” and shows
the path the team may take in expanding their scope from supporting
innovation to helping the organization support more innovative forms of
engagement with the community.
What’s next? The collaborative innovation team brings many gifts
to the table in terms of understanding the possibilities that exist in
engaging communities in authentic dialogue around ideas. In sharing
these insights with colleagues representing various functions within
the organization, they have the opportunity to explore new levels of
engagement and, by extension, transparency with the consumers the
organization serves.
The collaborative innovation team brings many gifts to the table
in terms of understanding the possibilities that exist in engaging
communities in authentic dialogue around ideas.
Bringing gifts to the table secures your seat at the table.
In helping the organization realize its leadership potential in innovation
you can in turn help your peers engage authentically with the larger
market. Marketing colleagues who engage business clients (B2B), for
example, may especially value your perspective. The high revenue-to-
client ratio one finds in B2B compels your colleagues working with
these customers to help the organization not only build awareness
with them, but also shed light on each customer’s intent—and how
that intent aligns with the value your organization provides them.
What might you choose to do to help them? What possibilities open
when you explore the overlap between external innovation
and organization-wide engagement?
Article first appeared in Innovation Management magazine.
LOOKING INTO THE FUTURE
Forward-thinking members of the collaborative innovation team can see the larger end-game that opens up if they choose to pursue
this scenario: the possibility of creating a virtuous circle in which the dialogue with the eternal community informs the nature of the internal
innovation they support as part of their core charter.

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At some point in my engagement with clients the question of roles
arises. Who does what to help realize the potential for transformation
that collaborative innovation offers? What strengths does the person
sitting to my left possess that makes them the right person for a given
role? Do we assign people to positions or do they claim ownership of
the work as we evolve the project, just as they claim ownership of the
practice of innovation?
In turn, what does the innovation program commit to the people in
each role by way of training, recognition, and an opportunity for them
to realize their leadership potential? What does the program invite the
people to create together that they could not do on their own?
Some roles seem straightforward: the role of sponsor, for example.
Typically one individual—or a small cadre—convenes the community,
inviting members to engage on one or more critical questions facing
Ideas communities are a hot topic but do you really know how to make them work effectively? Doug Collins brings his experience
as a community manager to bear on the roles and resources needed to catalyze great ideas.
the group. The sponsor holds a position within the organization
where they in turn can help the community effect change. That’s
straightforward and unambiguous: convene and facilitate.
The moderator, who also plays a crucial role in the community, may
by comparison seem to have a more nebulous charter. For example,
does the moderator serve as the community equivalent of a referee:
someone who runs up and down the field, enforcing fair play, but
doing their best not to interfere with the game? Or, should they
intervene? Can one moderator work effectively across multiple
communities?
In this article, which serves as a deeper dive on the larger
questions around resourcing that I covered in a previous column,
I share perspective on the personalities and practices that lead
to effective moderation.
THE MODERATOR AS CATALYST AND NEXUS
To start, every community benefits from the presence of a trained, designated moderator. Do not leave the role vacant. The moderator serves two
critical functions that you, the leader of the collaborative innovation program, must support in order to meet your commitments: catalyst and nexus.
To start, every community benefits from the presence of a trained,
designated moderator. Do not leave the role vacant.
As a catalyst the moderator engages with the people who contribute
and build ideas, challenging them to explore and extend their thinking
by asking a series of probative questions that start with, “How might
we…?” or “What if we…?”
The moderator helps the innovator, along with community members,
to realize the full potential of their contribution, challenging them to
consider the full implications of the vision behind their ideas while
also exploring potential application areas.
Figure 1 depicts how, in serving as the catalyst, the moderator can
help the innovator more fully develop the scope of their thinking
about their idea by posing questions along the cognitive spectrum
that goes from vision to reality.
Figure 1 The moderator, as catalyst, engages the innovator across
the cognitive spectrum
Questions to explore the larger implications of the vision that the idea embodies.
• What possibilities do you see for this idea to help us realize our shared vision for this [challenge / area / . . . ]?
• What seeds for transformation does this idea carry with it?
• What commitment do you envision people making to realize the potential that this idea represents?
• What observations could we make in the early days that would give us insight into the promise the idea holds?
• What opportunities do you see to try this idea with [person / market / region / . . . ]?
• What is the primary advantage that this idea has over the current [state of arrairs / practice / scenario / . . . ]?
Questions to explore applications for the idea.
Scope of
thought relative
to the idea in
question
Vision
Reality Moderator Innovator
How to Make an Ideas
Community Work:
Defining the Roles

ideas that work | 6
The moderator, moreover, does not probe for why the idea may not work. (The innovator laments that too many of their colleagues embrace
this role. No need to formally assign someone the job.) The moderator does not serve as a screen or gate. Catalysts initiate and accelerate
reactions,not retard them. The probative nature of the moderator’s enquiry may help the innovator more clearly and more fully articulate the
possibilities their idea offers in terms of addressing the critical questions facing the community (i.e., “How might the implications behind this idea
relate to the challenge at hand?”). However, the moderator does not engage in this form of dialogue with the intent of culling ideas.
As the nexus, the moderator helps the innovator make connections within the community amongst people who share an interest in the topic and
would have strong contributions to make in evolving the idea, if only they knew the idea had been submitted. The moderator helps create this
awareness amongst the members. As the nexus, the moderator helps the innovator make connections within the community amongst people
who share an interest in the topic and would have strong contributions to make.
In my dialogue with clients I ask them if they can think of a person
in their organization who seems to know everything that happens
in the building or the organization at large. If Marvin Gaye heard it
through the grapevine then he likely got his intelligence from the
contemporary of this individual at Motown Records. The client smiles.
They know exactly who holds this position within the group. They
always do. These people can serve as effective moderators based
on their history of making connections.
The next questions that typically arise: Should the moderator have
deep technical knowledge of the subject they’re moderating? Does
the moderator need to have the most knowledge about the subject
to effectively serve in the role?
No. In fact, people can handicap themselves as moderators when
they enjoy a high level of expertise or experience with the question
at hand. They can inadvertently begin to screen ideas and influence
the direction of their evolution by the nature of their questions or with
comments that reference past, unsuccessful forays into this domain.
Nothing kills effective moderation more quickly and more resoundingly
than the comment, “We tried this before (and it did not work).”
The moderator, as nexus, opens doors for the innovator by helping
them make new connections. Figure 2 depicts the dual role of
the moderator.
HOW MANY MODERATORS?
Once clients gain a perspective of the role the moderator plays, they next want to know how many moderators they should invite to participate
in the community.
The answer varies by program and by community, of course. What I typically find is that nobody has the time to serve as a moderator full time.
And, that’s a good thing. It’s the nature of the connections that people make and the insights they form in their daily work that enables them to
serve effectively in this role.
To this end, the resource calculation becomes a function of balancing
the number of ideas circulating in the community with the number
of minutes per day the moderator can devote to the role. Figure 3
depicts the equation.
For example, let’s say that the community contributes ten (10) ideas
per week, or two (2) ideas per day, Monday through Friday. Let’s say
that the ideas tend to be relatively complex, such that the moderator
chooses to spend twenty (20) minutes per idea contemplating the
concept, collecting their thoughts, posing the probative questions,
and reaching out to members who may share an interest in the
topic.
Figure 2 The moderator as catalyst and nexus
Vision Community
Reality
Innovator
(help expand connections to the idea / innovator)
(helpexpandthinkingontheideas’s
implicationsandapplications)
Moderator
Member
with related
interest X1
Member
with related
interest X2
Member
with related
interest X3
Moderator as nexus
Moderatorascatalyst

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Figure 4 Example resource calculation
50
60
ideas
per day2 minuets per
idea per day20
minuets
per day60
activity
factor1.25
Let’s say, too, that the average level of activity on each idea is high,
such that the moderator would want to keep up to date with the
latest comments and reviews. Finally, let’s say that the moderators
in the organization choose to spend on average one hour each
morning, coffee in hand, engaging with the community. Plugging
these parameters into the equation would suggest that one moderator,
or 5/6 of one, could effectively engage this community. Figure 4
depicts this scenario.
Common sense dictates that the above equation can serve only as
a rough guide for resourcing the role. The complexity and activity
factors remain wholly subjective, for example, and communities tend
to ebb and flow, depending on the stage of the campaign. Your
mileage will vary, but you now have a place to start.
In closing, the moderator serves a valuable, necessary role in the
community. They help the innovators more fully explore and articulate
their ideas, improving the quality of their contribution. They help
connect members who share an interest in ideas, improving the
diversity of thought and perspective that goes into each potential
innovation.
As the program or challenge sponsor, you benefit from the gifts the
moderator brings to the table when you identify people who, by their
nature, find they can readily serve as catalyst and nexus, and when
you support them in this capacity by helping them understand their
charter. Recruit your moderators early in the planning stage for each
community. Train them. Support them. The quality of their work and
the extent to which they take ownership of the role heavily influences
the success of the program.
Article first appeared in Innovation Management magazine.
Figure 3 Calculating the number of moderators per community
Number of minutes per day moderator can devote to the role
Function of complexity and maturity of idea
Number of ideas contributed
per day [on average]
Average level of activity
per idea per day
Time spent per
idea per day

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Internal sponsors of innovation initiatives begin with envisioning the
possibilities that open when they convene their community. What
critical question does the organization face which the sponsor wants
to invite the community to explore? What sort of engagement and
level of commitment does the sponsor envision from the people she
wants to attract? What does success look like? Can we measure it?
The rubber then meets the road. The vision that the sponsor has for
the community meets the reality of bringing it to fruition in material
ways. Who needs to do what when and at what cost?
As the sponsor of your organization’s program, you will want
to have a way to think about allocating resources to the activity
that supports your goals for it. Estimating the resources needed
to support collaborative innovation so that the organization
realizes the full potential of the community can represent a green
field activity in its own right, however.
This article offers a place to start by identifying the variables you
will want to consider modeling as you calculate program costs.
The cost of doing innovation is a key factor in enterprise decision making but open innovation and collaborative innovation
have a short history – so how do you go about modeling the cost of launching a collaborative or open innovation program?
Doug Collins lays out the territory.
THE DEMAND SIDE OF THE RESOURCE EQUATION
Each new member of a community, along with serving as the next valuable contributor, represents a new support obligation. First, let’s look
at the demand side of the equation: the factors that determine the level of support you need to provide in order to establish and grow your
innovation communities to establish and grow your innovation communities.
The number of community members involved.
Each new member of a community, along with serving as the next
valuable contributor, represents a new support obligation. When you
invite them to participate you commit to supporting their engagement
with you. Engaging on community expectations takes time and effort,
for example. Members’ questions range from the basic, “Can you help
me access the community resources?” to requests to gain a deeper
understanding of your view on the day in the life of an idea, now that
they have contributed their insights. Don’t underestimate the support
people need, particularly if you want to go deep into
critical questions.
The number of ideation challenges.
Some organizations run one grand challenge after another. Others
host a plethora of smaller challenges that the community members
themselves initiate. Still others run a mix of activities as they grow
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more confident in their ability to manage the associated tasks in parallel.
Each activity, big and small, has a life cycle associated with it: an
introduction, the engagement period itself, and the resolution, in which
the community explores the possibilities the challenge opens to them.
Engaging in these conversations—helping the right people convene in
the right room at the right time—takes work. For example, experience
suggests that, as you scale, the resources you need to support that
next incremental challenge do not in turn scale in linear fashion. Your
group will have already tackled part of the learning curve associated
with managing a collaborative innovation program. At the same time,
the level of baseline resource you will need to provide does not fall
below 50% of the amount you allocated to the first challenge.
The nature of the ideation challenges.
Some challenges represent a relatively low maintenance burden for the
program—for example, “blue sky” ideation challenges without a
Modeling the
Resource Requirements
for your Collaborative
Innovation Program

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finite time limit, in which the community continually forms and evolves ideas, taking some portion of them offline to try in the real world. Other
challenges may by contrast require more support: challenges with a definitive beginning, middle, and end. Challenges whose ideas must be
further evolved and reformed by specialists who work the with the team who have committed to incubating the idea (e.g., financial analysts
when the challenge has implications relative to capital budgets or market researchers when vetting the ideas would require more formal forms of
traditional field research with the anticipated beneficiaries). Consider, too, the extent to which you plan to support the larger innovation lifecycle,
including, for example, prototyping and trialing concepts that emerge from the community.
In practice, your resource load changes and lightens as your community takes increasing ownership of the process of innovation, so the ownership
moment becomes critical to what you can do, cost effectively. To this end, the fourth factor, ownership, represents the most important, exponential
factor in your calculations, not only from the perspective of estimating resources, but also from the perspective of transforming the organization.
Figure 1 depicts the demand side of the resource equation that
expresses the potential for communities to scale as they grow within
the organization.
Figure 2 charts one implication of the equation, depicting the extent
to which the community takes the lead in owning the practice of
innovation influences the way in which the program team engages
with its members. The view that you create for your own initiative will
profoundly shape your perspective on what it means to have the right
people in place to support your communities.
Calculating the resource demand based on the above model
represents a three-step, as follows:
1. Take into account the macro, quantitative factors of the number of
members, the number of challenges per time period, and the general
The extent to which the community members take ownership
of the process. Some innovation programs have the implicit goal of
transforming the culture of an organization. With respect to resource,
you will want to consider the extent to which the people supporting the
innovation initiative can serve as coaches, helping the community more
fully form their ideas, as opposed to taskmasters, politely pestering
people to do the next thing on the whatever innovation to do list they
have created? And, what possibilities for change emerge when the
person who contributes an idea, along with their supporters in the
community, pursue their own charter to realize that idea’s potential?
•
nature of the challenges themselves (e.g., blue-sky versus time bound or
targeted versus transformative).
2. Factor in the sort of environment the program aspires to create in
helping each member of the community achieve leadership in innovation.
What does the world look like when the community becomes self-
sustaining, requiring less programmatic support and more consultative
engagement by way of coaching?
3. Anticipate when members of your community decide when challenges
make sense and when the teams that form around challenges should
splinter from the mainstream to pursue their idea to its fruition. In
other words, consider fully the ways in which the creation of ideation
communities can and should transform the organization and ways
in which community members come to take ownership of the ideas
they originate
Figure 1 Modeling the demand side of the resource equation
n
Level of ownership the
idea owner and their
collaborators take in
realizing leadership
in innovation
Number of
community
members
i = 1
i
i
Number of
challenges
Complexity
of each
challenge
1
2
3
Figure 2 The nature of the engagement changes as a function of the leadership the community
Coaching
Maturity of engagement
practiced by innovation
program team
Engaging by milestones
(day-n-life of program,
campaign, and idea)
Managing program
and related tasks
Degree of
leadership
practiced by
community
members
Less Innovation “ideate and run” More Innovators claim ownership of realizing their ideas
Community members contribute ideas
and wait for program / organization to
respond. Program team turns hard to
keep apace of its tasks and milestones.
The transformation curve −
the extent to which we create
a more innovative organization.
Community members convene to create the environment in which
they pursue innovation. Program team supports the community by
guiding them in create spaces for this dialogue to occur.

ideas that work | 10
THE SUPPLY SIDE OF THE RESOURCE EQUATION
You can now begin to model the supply side of the resource equation by estimating the head count one typically allocates to a collaborative
innovation program, identifying people by the critical roles of sponsor, community manager, moderator, coach, reviewer, communications, and
administrator.
You will want to explore two critical questions on the supply side, as depicted by Figure 3.
# of
Challenges
Activity-
Dependent
Resource
Baseline
Resource
On-going, programmatic support
# of
Community
Members
Framing the Challenge Managing the Challenge Making the Challenge
Framing the Challenge Managing the Challenge Making the Challenge
Framing the Challenge Managing the Challenge Making the Challenge
Figure 3 Modeling the initiative to calculate the supply side of the equation
To what extent do the one of more innovation challenges that comprise your initiative run concurrently?
To what extent does the sponsor of each challenge take ownership (there’s that word again) of articulating the critical question on the front end and
making meaning of the contributions on the back end of the process? Both activities require thoughtful, time-consuming work. In other words, where
does your charter begin and end, relative to your peers?
Article first appeared in Innovation Management magazine.
•
•

ideas that work | 11
The human resources department rarely leads in applying collaborative innovation. Yet, they face daunting challenges in helping
their stakeholders become a learning organization: one that can thrive in a rapidly changing world. In this article Doug Collins argues
that one of the best ways that human resources can give people space to practice the five disciplines that Peter Senge identifies as
defining learning organizations is to embrace the practice of collaborative innovation.
MY DEEPEST SYMPATHIES
My reservoir of respect overflows for the people who manage the
human resources departments of large organizations.
On the one hand, the organization looks to this group to fulfill
its operational charter with crisp efficiency. Hire people. Fire people.
Train them in between.
On the other hand, the organization at large looks, too, to this group
to help everyone realize the larger aspirational goals that people
equate with an operation that can thrive in the knowledge economy.
One that encourages learning and growth. One that opens space
where people can contribute their ideas and insights in helping to
solve critical business problems facing the organization.
The human resources department, for its part, has made more
headway in fulfilling the former part of their charter than the latter.
Perhaps the markings that define the path to the former appear more
visible. The ever-present need to hire people, for example, leads to
well-articulated, repeatable processes for recruiting the right person
for the right job. The new hire appears Monday morning: a tangible
result that all can see. Regulatory strictures, developed over time,
codify the steps.
What of the latter part of the charter? What possibilities exist for
human resources to help the people in their organization realize their
leadership potential?
The need exists. Kaplan and Norton, writing in Strategy Maps,
observe that “intangible assets are the ultimate source of sustainable
value creation” (2003, p. 7). By “intangible assets” they mean you: the
knowledge that your colleagues and you bring to the table enables
the organization to accomplish that which the organization down the
street struggles to imitate. A few pages later they lament that “two-
thirds of organizations do not create strong alignment between their
strategies and their HR and IT programs.”
Figure 1 The challenges and opportunities faced by human resources relative to their larger charter
Perceptual Opportunity
Insight into the challenges and opportunities
facing the organization; insight into
the potential of the people who
Perceptual Challenge
Expectation that the group serves as
a transactional business partner to hire and
fire employees−and train them in between.
Lack of persistent, open “practice
space” to explore the learning
organization charter.
Pressure to help the organization
realize the anticipated benefits
of becoming a learning
Operational
Challenge
Operational
Opportunity
“Human Resources”
(at the center of the learning and growth layer / stakeholder
in developing the organization’s intangible assets)
Practicing Collaborative
Innovation to Become
a Learning Organization

ideas that work | 12
Figure 2 The practice of collaborative innovation mapped to the principles of the learning organization
Discipline Learning Organization Principles Collaborative Innovation Practices
Claiming ownership of visualizing thebigger picture.
Perceiving the whole to the point where you can
frame the critical questions worth asking.
The career as vocation. Humility is pursuing
opportunities to learn, while building substantial
competencies.
Engaging the community to reflect on and pursue
ideas and insights around the critical question.
Confronting biases and limitations in one’s thinking
by exploring assumptions and implications.
Recasting and reframing the critical question
as afunction of perceiving the whole.
Moving from compliance to genuine commitment
to a future created in collaboration.
Recasting and reframing the critical question as
function of perceiving the whole.
System thinking
Personal Mastery
Mental Models
Building Shared Vision
Team Learning
Engaging in meaningful, reflective dialogue on
what’s important.
Taking advantage of the larger intelligence available
to the community to address the critical questions by
reflecting on shared ideas and insights.
For their part, the walking, talking intangible assets who choose to
work for the organization increasingly expect to participate in creating
the organization’s strategy map, as opposed to docilely accepting
their space on the firm’s balanced scorecard like knowledge
economy chattel. Opportunities for people to express and realize their
aspirations for the organization continue to grow in turn, aided by
the proliferation of social media and by the expectations each new
generation brings with them to the labor market.
What, then, is a human resources person to do to fulfill their charter
of creating an environment where the people in the organization can
derive greater meaning from, and make more meaningful contributions
to, their work (figure 1)?
PRACTICE CLEARS THE PATH TO PRINCIPLE
Today, the people who practice collaborative innovation tend to be the ones that—naturally—hold the larger innovation charter within their organization:
brand managers in the consumer packaged goods industry; business unit leaders in industrial firms; and, research and development leaders
in the life sciences space, for example. Yet, if we embrace the mind-set of systems thinking upon which Peter Senge bases The Fifth Discipline,
we can see links between the principles that define the learning organization and the practices that define collaborative innovation (figure 2).
The practice of collaborative innovation can serve as a powerful means for human resources to realize its larger charter in the way that it can
enable a brand manager to identify opportunities to achieve sustainable competitive advantage by engaging the community of colleagues
and consumers on the promise that the idea behind the product represents to them. In the case of human resources, collaborative innovation
occurs around each of the five disciplines as opposed to around the brand promise.
Moreover, if you believe that an organization’s intangible assets are the greatest source of value creation, then you can argue that human
resource’s practice of collaborative innovation holds the potential for the greatest return. Please, take your seat at the table.
WAXING ON, WAXING OFF
Okay. Where to start? Senge covers a lot of ground.
Begin by going for the jugular. Create a space for collaborative
innovation where the community can contribute their insights to the
two critical questions that human resources, as the group chartered
with helping the organization become a learning organization, must
ask again and again and again…
What goals does the organization commit to that resonate with you?
What opportunities for personal mastery—for pursuing your career
as vocation and not as a series of randomly assigned jobs within the
organization—resonate with you?
The biggest obstacle that organizations face today in becoming a
learning organization is overcoming the fear and ignorance that arise

ideas that work | 13
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
The people in human resources who aspire to help the people realize
their potential as a learning organization can explore the possibilities of
adopting collaborative innovation as their practice to realize their larger
charter. The act and the discipline of framing and reframing the questions
that members of the organization perceive as critical to realizing greater
meaning in their work can serve as the foundation by which the organization
attains the five disciplines Senge identified as present in learning
organizations: system thinking, personal mastery, mental models,
building shared vision, and team learning.
Years ago you developed recruitment and on-boarding practices
to fulfill your obligation to hire the people the organization needs.
Again, wax on and wax off: adopt and apply the practice of
collaborative innovation to help the organization evolve into a
learning organization. In doing so, claim your charter and take
your rightful, strategic place at the table.
Article first appeared in Innovation Management magazine.
Figure 3 Linking the scorecard with human resources’ use of collaborative innovation
Learning & Growth
Strategy
Operational Strategy
Scorecard
Customer Strategy
Examples of Critical Questions to Explore Through Collaborative Innovation
Financial Objectives Identifying opportunities for greater profitability / turnover / leverage...
Capturing greater share of wallet / Fending off competitive threats / Identifying new segments
Achieving greater levels of quality / efficiency / sustainability
Identifying opportunities to gain personal mastery that align with organizational intent /
seeing the whole to participate in its evolution
when the opportunity appears to ask the question about the question:
essentially, “What’s important to us?” and “What’s important to me?”
The introduction of collaborative innovation, as enabled now by
technology, gives the strategically minded human resources person
the opportunity to engage the larger organization on the critical question
through the thoughtful application of social media and foundation of
virtual communities that leaven periods of person-to-person reflection.
By extension, this approach allows organizations that have embraced
the balanced scorecard approach to strategy to enliven the discussion
around alignment by asking the critical question of what’s worth scoring.
Many organizations have struggled to implement the balanced
scorecard. They turn a simple, visual concept into a complex dash-
board cum data warehouse. Organizations fumble the scorecard
in part because becoming a learning organization requires the people
to run the strategy map upside down. If a firm’s intangible assets
represent its ultimate source of value creation, then the learning and
growth perspective—Senge’s starting point—must drive the financial
perspective. Anyone who has spent meaningful periods of time in large
organizations instinctively knows that it determines it. The organization’s
learning and growth potential determines that organization’s capacity
to change (figure 3).

ideas that work | 14
Your plate is full. Someone graciously offers you a spoonful of collaborative innovation. Should you accept? In this article Doug Collins
makes the case for why you should say “yes,” then go back for seconds, embracing collaborative innovation as your day job in order to
enjoy a career in a world that values people who know how to put their insights to work.
Organizations feel their way through the rubble of the economic
collapse like basement-dwelling refugees walking their belongings
out of a fire-bombed city. The way forward—the most promising path
to reclamation if not salvation to the promised land of the way things
used to be—is “innovation.”
Leaders of the world’s organizations small, medium, large, and
country-sized pin their hopes of future prosperity on becoming more
innovative: by injecting a good dose of innovation into the resident
culture. Makes for good copy. A rounded tablespoon of innovation
for the organization works like a weekend at the spa for the body.
Who can argue against the promise its curative powers hold
for one and all alike?
Meanwhile, back at the reality ranch, I find a different dynamic at
work. With utmost confidence and utter dismay I report that the
word from on high has not made its way into the departmental
nooks and crannies where organizational culture takes root.
At the places where the rubber meets the road—where the people
who prescribe direction meet the folks who carry the load—the
question the latter whispers in my ear remains, “How do I make
time for this (fill in the blank for the name of the group’s branded
innovation program and add mild profanity to taste)? Is innovation
now partof my day job?”
How do I make time for this? Is innovation now part of my day job?
They would seem to rationally ask a reasonable question. Most
gainfully employed people today juggle more jobs than a Jamaican
cab driver working to put their youngest and most studious child
through her last year of medical school. Do we need to add “be
innovative” to the pile?
The only reasonable answer I can offer in kind? Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes, make time to innovate.
Yes, follow the ideas you contribute and collaborate on to their
logical or wonderfully illogical conclusion.
Yes, take ownership of and master the practice of innovation within
your organization. And, if you find that your organization’s practice is,
in practice, malpractice, take ownership of improving it.
Further, while we remain on the subject, yes, buy five (5) new
Moleskins to carry in purse or pocket so you can capture your
thoughts as you make your way through life. Thoreau kept a
commonplace book. So should you.
You reflect for a moment. You observe to me that ten years ago, the
word on the street was that people were the organization’s most
valuable asset. Then, the hammer fell. Inconceivably, many of the
valuable assets were shown the door. The rest put their heads down
and have not looked up since.
What’s changed? What’s different now? Is the call for innovation
new wine in a musty old cask reeking of the stale fumes of
knowledge management?
Here’s what you need to know. Every day when you come to work
or go to wherever you go to do whatever you do to occupy your
time, you learn something. If you serve a client, you know more
about that client than anyone else in the organization. If you operate
a machine you know more about that machine than anyone else in
the organization.
What does that knowledge get you today? Very little, likely. You do
little to put yourself in a position where people can value the worth
of what you know.
You achieve new levels of customer intimacy with a remote client.
Yes, Innovation
is Your Day Job

ideas that work | 15
The boss sees you on the phone and wonders if you’re reconnecting with a sorority sister.
You learn everything you can about a new piece of machinery. The boss sees you driving around the shop floor and wonders if robotic
assembly would reduce variability.
See the difference? The breadth of your insights exceeds the limits of your current job. You spent a productive hour on the phone with the
client which kept them in the fold when the customers who worked
with the competitor down the street bolted to greener pastures
when the going got tough. You have perspective on what one
needs to do to retain a client. How much is that knowledge worth in
today’s hyper competitive world. A lot. A whole lot.
Are you being recognized and rewarded for having and applying this
knowledge? Possibly not. Probably not to the extent you should be
if the organization focused on what matters to its future. Do not wait
for the organization to awake. Awake first, then alert others.
In short: get out there. When given the chance to engage in
collaborative innovation, take it. If nobody gives you the opportunity,
then make your own.
When given the chance to engage in collaborative innovation, take it.
What if you work for the organization that proclaims its people as its
most valuable asset, but has no interest in connecting the dots that
lead back to a reasonable return on invested human capital?
Oh, snap. If you hold the only chair in the innovation orchestra
at your place—if you contribute and take ownership of your own
practice, but can find no kindred spirits, then you need to leave.
Find the organization that has embraced innovation in an authentic
way. Or, start your own entity. It’s a free world and becoming
increasingly more so with each passing day. Just ask the Tunisians.
Your current organization will not survive. Further, its demise, short
or long in coming, will be painful for all involved. Get out now. Or,
prepare to explain to the next person who might want to hire you
why you spent the last three years circling the drain.
A number of years ago Tom Peters wrote the seminal piece of the
modern, digital age, “The Brand Called You.” Please Google it and
read it. Many—too many—interpreted his call to action as an invitation
to shameless self-promotion. They spend their days re-tweeting
pabulum and friending distant relatives.
Wrong.
“The Brand Called You” calls our attention to the fact that we have
an increasing number of opportunities to translate what we do into
what we know and to in turn translate what we know into ideas
that become innovations that can benefit our organizations, our
communities, and ourselves.
Every day when you come to work or go to
wherever you go to do whatever you do to
occupy your time, you learn something. If you
serve a client, you know more about that client
than anyone else in the organization. If you
operate a machine you know more about that
machine than anyone else in the organization.
“
“

ideas that work | 16
Our brand reflects our ability to achieve and to articulate our
achievements in a way that resonates with our communities at
work and home. Can we be of use? Can we do something of value
for someone else? Leave the virtual sandwich boards at home.
Contributing and pursuing an idea that can help someone—a
client, a friend, or a neighbor—represents one of the highest
forms of achievement.
Make the effort, if for no other reason than to acknowledge that the
economic potential of what you know—your intellectual capital—far,
far outstrips your economic potential of what you do. Deferring the
practice of innovation to the person down the hall no longer serves
as a viable option. Today, the definition of a dead-end job is one that
does not include an innovation component. Today, the definition of
an organization on life support and fading fast is one that chooses
not to realize its potential for leadership in innovation.
Article first appeared in Innovation Management magazine.
Figure 1 Linking the scorecard with human resources’ use of collaborative innovation
What you do.
Collaborative innovation as your lever
What you know
Your brand: choices you make to
convert what you know into value
You
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