Why we need it

IDEA FACTORIES are needed not just because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but because of all the global instability; wars, famine, environmental disasters, etc. Global competition is increasing at a fantastic rate while technology rapidly changes redefining our lives (how we live and how we work). Do not sit back and wait for others to change the world, it is up to everyone to be proactive and use your innate powers of creativity for good.

Everyone was born creative; however, years of societal repression has made us avoid risks and avoid challenging existing ideas. This creates comfort causing an overconfidence with current norms and the status quo. Unfortunately, evidence is all around us that the way in which most things are done are either not working or need massive improvements. These improvements come from new ideas and the spirit and perseverance to put them into action. A global community of IDEA FACTORIES are needed to spread the skills and mindset of every person and organization to change for a better future.

Innovation starts with an I(dea). New ideas make the world a better place; creating stronger competition, and new ways to live and prosper. Ideation (i.e., creativity) is a wonderful way to improve your mental state and develop a strong sense of confidence and positivity. Humans are our most valuable asset, and the need for new ideas from everyone is critical to create a better future.

An individual’s creative ability is the most untapped resource in most organizations. Organizations need to leverage the diverse perspectives and experiences of all employees for the success of the organization. Not just a few people at the top of the pyramid or those in typically creative areas like marketing, research, or design; but every employee at every level, in every role must contribute to the success of the organization, and the way to untap the latent creativity of everyone is through a formal, systematic process such as an IDEA FACTORY.

The need for a continuous stream of new ideas is critical for organizational survival. Every area of the organization needs to encourage continuous improvements, and to make everything increasingly better, in a never-ending cycle of improvement. From accounting to distribution to marketing and sales, every part of the organization must find ways to reduce costs, increase safety, make processes more efficient, and provide ever-increasing ways to drive new sources of value to customers. There is no time like the present, to start. You cannot wait.

Ingredients for Success

There are several key ingredients to a successful IDEA FACTORY. First, is a long-term perspective. An IDEA FACTORY cannot just be a new “flavor of the month”. It must become part of the organization culture (and an individual’s mindset). Going forward everyone must understand that continuous improvement will be a critical part of long-term growth. Second, is full management support from the top, down through every layer of management. And this cannot just be empty speeches.

Leaders must demonstrate that for the organization to survive and prosper, a focus on continuous improvement based on a never-ending stream of new ideas is the only way the organization will operate. This cannot change from one leader to another, it must be ingrained within the corporate culture to ensure long-term success and employee buy-in and participation. Companies like Toyota, GE, and Motorola have demonstrated that new ideas and innovations in all areas of the business are critical in good and bad times.

There also has to be both virtual and physical spaces created for learning and experimenting. Online forums, courses, and resources need to be accessed anytime and anywhere. Physical locations need to be created where employees have access to tools and supplies (e.g., whiteboards, flip charts, 3D printers), books and other resources, and areas for training and seminars. To ensure these critical items are not stopped-and-started from year-to-year, the IDEA FACTORY needs a stand-alone budget that falls directly under the CEO.

This budget will cover supplies, training materials, courses, field trips, as well as rewards. The budget should be enough to ensure all employees are able to grow, but not so big where expensive “gadgets” or ongoing and useless “boondoggles” take the place of the ideas. An IDEA FACTORY is about the non-physical, the ideas that are developed and built to create new sources of innovation. This budget should should also cover various events.

The IDEA FACTORY should promote the new ideas through newsletters, idea fairs, trips to other companies and suppliers, book clubs, and travel to other locations of the business. In addition, the budget will need to cover an information system to ensure new ideas are properly stored and shared across the organization, for long-term and continuous learning. This investment is to develop an army of engaged, highly motivated employees who take responsibility for the success of the organization.

The Basics

For ongoing success, there are several foundational elements that will provide a high probability of success. Ongoing and vocal support form the top to the bottom management is required to ensure the entire organization understands the importance and criticality of new ideas and continuous improvement. In addition, participation must be voluntary; however, the organization must work continuously to get the highest percentage of participation. As the organization develops “small wins” and morale increases as participants realize the success of the organization depends on each of them, more and more employees will see the benefit of participating.

Continuous training and application of learnings must also be offered virtually and in physical locations. From creative thinking, critical thinking, and decision making to skills such as mindfulness and team building, and benchmarking best-practices from within and outside the organization, training needs to be an ongoing focus. Unlike typical training courses, employees must immediately apply the new skills and use them daily to create the expertise and habits for continuous improvement. In addition, the success also depends on developing the organizational capability in stages; thus, the long-term perspective.

Stage I

For a successful IDEA FACTORY, the organization must first learn the basics, gain small wins, and then slowly be exposed to increasingly tougher ways to solve problems and develop new areas of business. Just as babies progress from crawling, to walking, to running; participants must learn the basics before they can “change the world”. Stage I is typically 1 to 3 years in length.

During Stage I, the CEO and top leaders provide an ongoing demonstration of the support for the initiative. In addition, employees are encouraged to identify several areas in their work area to improve every month. These one or two monthly new ideas will provide a simple, but powerful way to train everyone to identify areas to improve, and be responsible for the implementation of the improvement. The IDEA FACTORY is not a suggestion system. It puts the onus on the individual. Each person provides a suggestion for improvement in their work area, and makes the change. Unlike traditional suggestion system where ideas are offered for others to initiate, the IDEA FACTORY creates an army of problem solvers and problem fixers.

Stage I focuses on training in foundational elements such as creative thinking, critical thinking, asking questions, writing skills, and mindfulness. Writing skills are critical so each person completes a simple BEFORE and AFTER card which communicates the issue and the effect of the improvement. These “suggestions” are reviewed by management and hung on bulletin boards around the facility to share the new ideas. This visual communication also ensures there is a daily (and present) reinforcement that clearly demonstrates continuous improvements are the new way of business.

Failure is also a critical element within Stage I. Everyone will learn that failure is accepted and an integral part of continuous improvement. The ability to learn, fail, and iterate will allow everyone to have the confidence to accept risk and keep learning. Monthly CEO-led “town halls” to showcase both success and failure should be conducted to demonstrate the importance of the IDEA FACTORY, as well as the fun of creating and failing.

During this stage it is also beneficial to take employees on field trips to other locations of the business or visit other companies to learn and share. These trips can allow employees to apply best-practices to their work, or share ideas to be used among other companies or suppliers. Employees will also learn that benchmarking other companies and adopting good ideas from other sources, is an acceptable method of improvement.

Stage II

Stage II usually lasts 2 to 3 years, and moves employees to the next stages of problem solving; finding and correcting increasingly difficult improvement projects. Employees also move from individual projects to more group and team-based projects. In addition, this stage trains all groups to find better ways to deliver new forms of value to customers. The skills taught during this stage are research, statistics, and decision making.

Creative problem solving is learned through systematic methods which train employees in the importance of using data and evidence to find the root causes of issues, and use new ways to solve problems. In addition, the importance of experimenting and testing ideas is also stressed, ensuring everyone understands that failure is acceptable, and the only way to learn and iterate. Teams learn the use of A3 documents as well as processes like the Six Thinking Hats and Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA).

Visual communication becomes an increasingly important part of the learning. A3 problem solving documents are shared across the organization and used as learning resources. In addition, many projects move outside of “personal work areas” to other areas of the business. This training reduces the silo mentality, and demonstrates the need to challenge existing ideas (not people) as well as the power of non-experts to improve other areas of the business. Strategy is another area of focus.

Employees learn about strategy and how to position their ideas for the highest probability of success. A focus on ways to deliver higher-and-higher amounts of value to customers, while understanding competitors is critical. Employees learn foundational competitive strategies such as identifying competitor strengths and weaknesses, how to properly position against competitors, while working together to ensure the strongest force supports the idea for success.

Stage III

Stage III is where experienced practitioners work on long-term “moon shots” or Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAG) that often takes years to develop. This stage is to allow skilled practitioners to use their skills to put forth new ways to change the business through new products, technologies, or inventions. This stage is similar to the Google X (now just X) project, which focuses on ambitious, exploratory and ground-breaking projects undertaken without any expectation of near-term profitability or benefit and also, perhaps, without a full investigation of potential risks and benefits. Stage III allows employees and teams to “go big”, often reminiscent of “skunk work” projects.

The employees at this stage are now thinking more like intrapreneurs, than just employees. Intrapreneurs act like entrepreneurs but within an organization. They use the resources of the organization to develop new areas of business for future growth. Examples of intrapreneurs are Lee Iacocca who championed the Ford Mustang, Art Fry who created the legendary Post-it® note pads, Hulki Aldikacti who spearheaded the Pontiac Fiero, and Richie Herrink who created IBM’s corporate training. These individuals did their day jobs while working on “passion projects” to change the organization and world.

Intrapreneurs are provided “air cover” from sponsors to have the time to do these projects in addition to their regular responsibilities. They learn how to develop business cases to demonstrate the business potential of the ideas and areas of the organization required for support. By the time employees move through Stage III, the organization has developed an army of motivated and skilled creative problem solvers whom focus on improving themselves, the organization, and ensuring customers are provided the highest levels of value, for clear competitive differentiation and market success.

Conclusion

Every organization needs to develop internal IDEA FACTORIES. Too many organizations are content with an army of “walking dead” employees who show up, do their job, and leave. These zombies are just waiting for retirement in 15 to 20 years. This is unacceptable from a return-on-investment (ROI) perspective. Employees are the costliest asset within an organization; therefore, it is critical to ensure the highest return from each of them.

The days of just doing your job and not questioning anything is over. For long-term success, leaders must leverage the creative abilities of everyone within the organization. There must be a change of mindset and culture to proactively find new ways to improve every aspect of one’s work and the organization in general. It is up to leaders to drive the initiative for an army of continuous innovators at every level and area of the organization.

Creating an environment which focuses on long-term learning, the acceptance of failure, and collaboration between groups is critical. In addition, resources must be provided to encourage all employees to develop and apply new ideas; to realize the success of the organization depends on everyone. Another key benefit of creating an IDEA FACTORY is the team mindset and the moving away from silos.

Teams must work together and share information and resources for the overall success of the organization. An intelligence system can support this through a digital portal for all improvement ideas, success and failure stories, and people to seek out for guidance. This system can be a simple depository to ensure that the organizational knowledge is kept within the company and shared for everyone’s benefit. Encouraging everyone to upload their learnings so the entire organization’s benefit, is a critical tool to destroy the silo mentality.

The IDEA FACTORY is nothing new, but most leaders do not take the need seriously. The creative ability and aspiration of all employees is dormant and buried deep within them, from years of societal conditioning. It is up to everyone to contribute to the success of the organization, and develop a continuous flow of ideas for change. Leaders need to remove the fear of failure or risk-taking, and create an environment of adventure, hatred for the status quo, and the enjoyment of messing things up.

For those that take up this challenge, the opportunities are massive. As your competitors continue to do the same thing, year-after-year, or are satisfied with incremental changes, your organization will be moving faster and faster, doing the unconventional and challenging how things are supposed to be done. A culture of experimenting and learning will lead to success. Will you be the one who creates the future, or the one who is passed by? The choice is yours.

Creating an Idea Factory

What it is