Hr’S Role In Driving Cultures Of Innovation D Magnuson 10 4 2011

MN SHRM Conference Presentation
Debby Magnuson, CPI Twin Cities

1

 Best brand of the decade:

 Best marketer of the decade:

 Best product of the decade:

Source: Ad Week

Copyright © 2011 Career Partners International.
All rights reserved. 2

"Innovation has nothing to do with
how many R&D dollars you have.
When Apple came up with the
Mac, IBM was spending at least
100 times more on R&D. It's not
about money. It's about the
people you have, how you're led,
and how much you get it."

- Fortune Magazine, Nov. 9, 1998

Copyright © 2011 Career Partners
International. All rights reserved. 3

 Market dynamics
 Competitive positioning/differentiation
 Enhancing performance
 Customer/stakeholder needs
 Organizational culture shifts
 Others from the HR point of view?

“Change that creates a new dimension
of performance.”
- Peter Drucker


“If I had asked the public what they wanted,
they would have said a faster horse.”
-Henry Ford


 Asks all job candidates, “Tell me about
something you‟ve invented.”
 “I look for people who believe they can
change the world. If you believe the
world can change, then it‟s not a stretch
to believe you can be a part of it.”
 On the importance of culture, “Most
companies‟ errors are acts of omission
instead of acts of commission.”
 “It‟s very fun to have a culture where Jeff Bezos
people are willing to take these leaps. Amazon
It‟s the opposite of the „institutional no.‟
it‟s the institutional yes.”


Creativity + Risk Taking = Innovation

-Dr. Jacqueline Byrd, CEO Creatrix, Inc.
www.creatrix.com
(used with permission)


 Our brains like to:
◦ Create repetitive paths
◦ Recognize patterns
◦ Fall into habits (neural
pathways or “ruts”)

 Creativity
◦ Requires pattern breaking,
“track jumping”

 Well-worn pathways can
block taking a new
approach.

 As pathways become more
familiar with time and use,
it takes more effort (&
stress) to jump from one
to another.

 The essence of
creativity is to force the
jumps, or notice when
they spontaneously
happen.

 Leaders can help or
influence others to
make those jumps.

“Innovation is foremost a commitment of
resources to an uncertain future.”
-Jeffrey Phillips, Innovate on Purpose blog

Case study: hiring the right talent in a global environment
 We don‟t know what kinds of people will be most successful.
 We may need folks who think laterally, across lots of tasks,
rather than deeply about something narrow.
 We may need people who are from different backgrounds.
 To get the best and brightest, pay has to be related to what
these people can get in the market, not what seems fair
through the lens of the historical business.

-Adapted from Forbes Online, Innovation Killers, The Status Quo Police


 Many of the rewards for HR are
for doing things right
◦ Legal compliance
◦ Accuracy in pay and benefit
practices
◦ Fairness and consistency in policies

 But doing things right is the
enemy of creativity!
◦ Break it if it isn‟t broken
◦ Color outside the lines
◦ “Get messy—make mistakes!”


 The range of comfort with risk-
taking is huge across a spectrum
from no risk to the true Type T
(thrill-seeking) personality.

 Back to the hiring case study—
how can you mitigate the risk?

 Examples of risks that paid off?
Didn‟t pay off?

 What happens to people in your
organization who make
mistakes?

 “The way we do things around here.”

 “The body of learned beliefs, traditions,
principles and guides for behavior that are
commonly shared among members of a
particular group. Culture serves as a road
map for both perceiving and interacting
with the world.”

 “The soup in which we live”


◦ Language
◦ Norms (humanly created rules for
behavior)
◦ Values
◦ Beliefs and ideologies
◦ Social Collectives (groups,
organizations, communities,
institutions, classes, societies)
◦ Statuses and Roles (slot or
position within a group or society)
◦ Technology (if and how it is used)

Source: Geoffrey Moore


“What people are doing during the work day is
what is being rewarded.”
-John Austin, Educator, Los Angeles Public Schools

“Every system is perfectly designed to the get
the results it gets.”
-Dr. Paul Batalden


 Work in groups of 4 or 5. Discuss these
questions:
◦ What factors in organizational culture build and
support innovation?
◦ What kills innovation?
◦ Thinking about your current organization, which of
these factors apply?


 “Associational Thinking”
 Questioning
 Observing
 Networking
 Experimenting
-Source: Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen, The Innovator‟s DNA, 2011.

“Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the
planning of a lone genius.”
-IDEO, shopping cart innovation, 1998


 Embrace risk, don‟t avoid it
 Sacrifice existing successes to
develop new ones
 Face the future, don‟t rest in the
past
 Empower product champions
 Foster internal competition
 Provide incentives for enterprise
- Advanced Institute of Management (AIM), 2009

“Trust is the first law of the innovation culture”
- Bryan Coffman

 Always be a team player

 Go through channels

 Produce—get results

Source: Dr. Jacqueline Byrd, Creatrix™


Recruitment Performance Management
Hiring Coaching & Mentoring
On-boarding Developing High Performers

1 2
Retention Compensation & Benefits
Engagement Advising Executive Team
Training & Development Policies & Procedures

3 4


 Move into groups of 4 people—your group
will be assigned to one of the quadrants of
HR roles.
 For each of the issues in your quadrant:
1. What makes innovation challenging?
2. What opportunities are there to innovate?
3. What is HR‟s role in driving innovation in this
area?


 Hiring:
◦ Is there room for people who walk to the beat of a different
drummer?
◦ Do you encourage managers to hire for innovative traits?

 Advocacy / Consulting with Executives:
◦ Do you protect and advocate for people who have taken
unsuccessful risks?
◦ Can you speak up for long-term goals, even in the face of
short-term disappointment?

 Rewards/Incentives:
◦ Are risk-takers rewarded?
◦ Are there benefits for sharing creative ideas?
◦ What behaviors are rewarded in your comp/incentive
system?


 2,700 employee Human Service and Public Health
Agency serving a major city & suburbs
 ROWE program started in April, 2009—1,800 are
trained on and doing ROWE
 Union workforce—have to record hours

“…the people who aren't doing any work rise to the
surface very quickly. When people have these work
standards, there is no way to disguise who is not
working.”
- Deb Truesdell, Mgr., Hennepin Cty Human Services

Copyright ©2011 CPI Twin Cities Inc.
All rights reserved

 Is anybody being asked about their ideas?
 Do staff know about the need for ideas and
innovation?
 Are people rewarded for their ideas and
contributions?


-Richard Branson, founder, Virgin Inc.


 http://www.innovationtools.com/pdf/Building_the_Innovation_Cultu
re.pdf
 www.creatrix.com, Dr. Jacqueline Byrd, CEO.
 http://www.changeboard.com/content/2600/Six-ways-to-build-
an-innovative-corporate-culture/
 http://innovateonpurpose.blogspot.com/2007/06/role-of-hr-in-
innovation.html
 http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cahrs/
 http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_17/b398140
1.htm
 http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2011/05/25/innovation
-killers-the-status-quo-police/
 The Innovator‟s DNA, Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, Clayton M.
Christensen, HBR Press, 2011.


Hr’S Role In Driving Cultures Of Innovation D Magnuson 10 4 2011

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