Page 219 - 100 Great Business Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

I -low to overcome the politics, to give innovation a chance?
First discard the easy, romantic myths. The innovator as
creative zealot, for example, championing his idea in the
face of dragonlike bureaucracy, fighting his way to glory
in the marketplace. "It happens that way maybe one time
in thirty," says McKinsey's Foster. Or the perhaps more
appealing belief that all we need to achieve innovation is
participative management. Liberating everyone to do his
job more as he sees fit may be a necessary condition for
lasting innovation, but it isn't sufficient in itself. The pro-
cess still has to be managed.

From the top. No way around it, the brass really have to
send loud and clear signals that they are committed to
the cause. They may do this by appointing a rising star
as the corporate czar of new product development. Or
by spending significant time in the labs and with the in-
novators. Best yet, they can offer even more tangible in-
dications of their backing, like monetary rewards propor-
tionate to the new idea's success.

It helps to hold up a cause that everyone can rally around.
Quality, for instance, or a flat-out declaration from the
top that three years hence, they expect X percent of the
company's revenues and profits to come from new busi-
nesses. Then write some concrete measure of progress
toward this goal into the performance each manager is
appraised on.

Just about every expert on innovation agrees that to get a
new business started, you do need one of those multi-
functional teams: maybe four people, one each from de-
sign, manufacturing, marketing, and finance. Top man-
agement should help them find support anywhere they
can in the organization. A good sponsor high up may be
crucial: He can locate resources, run political interference,
and ask questions along the lines of "But have you thought
about how that might sit with so-and-so?"

Evaluate the team as a team, and reward them as a team.
The experts cite a number of intriguing new ways to com-

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