My colleagues work closely with innovation champions who are the backbone of their companies' open innovation programs. They hear stories of frustration, elation and the day-to-day effort that is poured into their work to make open innovation a success. These champions are part change agents, motivational speakers, visionaries, and also the 'work horses' that get the job done.

There was an interesting article on Harvard Business Review's blog yesterday that addressed the unique challenges faced by innovation champions. The author, Rita McGrath, argues that success in open innovation "depends on middle managers, scientists, and intra corporate entrepreneurs scavenging for resources in an informal way". We see this in some cases but we also see a general recognition among our clients that this is clearly not sustainable and the proper processes, organizational design, technologies and yes, budget need to be established to maintain a successful program. We like it when 'serendipity' happens and we find a highly unexpected solution and solution provider for our client, but we don't think serendipity belongs anywhere within the foundation of the open innovation program.

Over the last ten years, we have either worked for or discussed working for a large number of companies that are implementing open innovation programs. Many times they have referred to NineSigma and others as Open Innovation intermediaries.

I have always pushed back when firms classify NineSigma as an OI intermediary. To me an intermediary is a group that simply connects two groups together and hopes for the best from the connection.

At NineSigma our work is focused across the two dimensions of Engage and Enable. Our Engage business is all about supporting our clients in solving a critical business challenge. This may involve finding and acquiring a platform technology to enable a suite of new products, it may be mapping out a white space and presenting options to our client on how to capitalize on new opportunities, it may be helping indentify new applications for existing technologies or it may be identifying and then contracting with a co-development partner.

The work typically involves broadly Engaging the global innovation community in order to deliver the desired results to our client. We use the term Engage to differentiate NineSigma's level of interaction with the global innovation community. Engage implies searching for and then engaging groups identified to deliver results to our client. Engaging means dialog, analysis, interpretation and synthesis to create a final work product that adds value to our client. This is much more that simply acting as an intermediary and connecting two groups together and hoping for a good result.

I have always liked these funny eye tweaking images in which you can see two different images depending on how you focus on the picture.   

Trying to solve a problem is quite the same; depending on how you look at the problem your outcome may vary. When looking at the image, your brain is doing the trick on its own, but how can you do that with a problem? Most of the time we look at the problem from one single angle: the one we are familiar with. Whether this “way of thinking” comes from our education or is built on our experience doesn’t count, what matters is its uniqueness and the difficulty we have to change our point of view. Corporate thinking in organizations tends to polish peoples’ creativity thereby limiting dissension.

Methods like Lateral thinking and tools like S.C.A.M.P.E.R. or TRIZ are available to help creativity and can be applied to problem solving but they require some training and self- discipline. Very often, getting an “outside view” is simple, fast and efficient to help in finding novel approaches. 

At NineSigma, every day we practice this “outside view” for our clients looking for innovative solutions or business approaches. Even better, we perform a “double outside view” that I have seen at work very efficiently dozens of times since I have joined the team. The first “outside view” pass, occurs with our Program Managers who unscramble, decompose and formulate the problem. They methodically review every possible approach in order to open as many paths as possible for potential solution providers. The second pass is done by the solution providers who offer their own knowledge and approach to the problem. Of course, the first pass drives some expected results in, but almost on every project we do receive unexpected or unobvious solutions. The famous quote from Albert Einstein: “Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them” has never been so true.  

I recently spoke at a number of conferences throughout South Africa on the topic of open innovation.  Knowing that open innovation was practiced primarily by large enterprises in the US, Asia and Europe, I was curious to see how a region populated mainly with small and medium sized enterprises would react to my talks.  Not only was I surprised by their warm reception to open innovation, but also by their deep knowledge and decisive action they were taking in this area.  In order to remain competitive in this dynamic world of rapid innovation, industry and science parks are picking up momentum in South Africa, and other parts of the world where small and medium sized enterprises are grouping together, both physically and collaboratively, to share costs, resources and ideas.   

The concept of the science park is a worldwide phenomenon, mainly seen in developing regions. The concept is based on cooperation between academia, industry and government operating in close proximity to strengthen the region’s innovation output.  In South Africa, which has a developing economy, the science park concept offers a means of becoming competitive with those fully developed regions that host major companies, universities and other key sources of innovation and knowledge.  Knowing the power wielded by large enterprises through their vast pool of resources and far-reaching supplier networks, these science parks are finding new ways to mimic this capability through collaboration and co-location.  Open innovation is an integral part of the science park concept.  What a company does not have in terms of innovation resources, may be found within one of the partnering companies.  And if still not found, members of the park will soon begin to share open innovation resources, for example, the NineSigma office that is being established at the South African Innovation Hub in Pretoria, which will be managed by our local partner in the region, RIIS.

It’s fascinating to see open innovation take root in areas like Sub-Saharan Africa.  The innovation efforts taking place today in such regions will soon begin to offer great insights and ideas for small and medium sized enterprises throughout the rest of the world.  We see such companies in Asia, North America and Europe struggle because of their limited resources – especially in today’s tough economy.  So perhaps the emerging science park model could offer a next chapter in open innovation and provide a means to accelerate innovation in this underserved market sector.

This post is by guest blogger Bruna Martinuzzi. This post originally appeared on AMEX Open Forum blog; reposted here with permission. 

I once worked for a technology company that encouraged employees to practice what they called “Intelligent Disobedience.” The concept originates from seeing-eye dogs: while dogs must learn to obey the commands of a blind person, they must also know when they need to disobey commands that can put the owner in harm’s way, such as when a car is approaching.

Intelligent disobedience is not about setting out to be disagreeable or arbitrarily disobeying rules for its own sake. Rather, it is about using your judgment to decide when, for example, an established rule actually hinders your organization, rather than helps it. The antonym of intelligent disobedience is blind conformity.  Conformity smooths our day’s journey at work.  Conformity, however, can have its downsides. It saps creativity for one, and it is, in John F. Kennedy’s parlance, “the enemy of growth.”

Here are some ideas to inspire you and others in your team to establish a culture that values intelligent disobedience:

1. Consider the benefits of decentralizing some of the decision-making in your unit.If you are used to making all the decisions, allow those closest to the customer the flexibility to make appropriate decisions on the spot. This places the value where it should be—on customer satisfaction rather than on lockstep adherence to the process—but it also places value on team members by giving them the authority to bend the rules when necessary.

2. Don’t surround yourself with yes-men.Ponder the words of Barry Rand of Xerox, quoted in Colin Powell’s A Leadership Primer: “…if you have a yes-man working for you, one of you is redundant.”

3. Beware of naysayers. Consider the source of those who vigorously advise you against a change initiative. Sharpen your social and organizational awareness skills by carefully analyzing what their self-interest might be. In this regard, take a page from Guy Kawasaki’s Rules for Revolutionaries: The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and Services: “The status quo will always try to shoot down a good idea, especially if it threatens their position.”

4. Don’t take expert opinion as the final word. If your own experience or knowledge tells you otherwise, don’t automatically silence your inner voice because it is drowned by the din of the expert crowd. Above all, spend the time to glean the experts from the quasi-experts in your field.

5. Catch yourself if you habitually insist on “going by the book.” Ask yourself: Is this necessary for every issue? Might you enhance your team’s productivity if you paid more attention to the restraining effect that this could have on the people involved? What would happen if you built some elasticity in your rules, if you allowed others to apply standard procedures more flexibly?

6. Become aware of your mental scripts.In Everyday Survival: Why Smart People do Stupid Things, Laurence Gonzales talks about the dumb mistakes we make when we work from a mental script that does not match the requirements of the real-world situation. Mental scripts are our conditioned responses to various situations. Mental scripts push us, for example, to stubbornly cling to the notion that “this is how we have always done it” and to refuse to accept the realities of a new situation.  So we find ourselves mistakenly generalizing into the future whatever worked in the past—this is a slippery path.

7. Help your people distinguish between fact and conjecture. Conjecture can be influenced by mental scripts which don’t have a bearing on current reality. Be the voice in the room that calls attention to this possibility and help everyone pause so that they can analyze inferences and conjectures that may or may not be valid.

8. Examine your reaction when confronted with new ideas. Seth Godin compiled a list of responses to actual good ideas.  If any of these describe some of your habitual responses, consider how you might practice being more receptive to others’ notions. Defending the status quo is a sure-fire way to extinguish the spark of new ideas in your group.

9. Establish a culture that values common sense over bureaucracy. Encourage everyone on your team to cast a critical eye on all procedures, practices and policies in their area. Which ones are no longer relevant? Which ones impede or delay the flow of critical information? Which ones cause make-shift work? Which ones are plain dumb? Which traditions have petrified?

10. Get comfortable saying no. Intelligent disobedience also involves having the ability to say no. If you struggle with this, read The Power of a Positive No: Save the Deal, Save the Relationship and Still Say No.  In the book, William Ury, outlines how to master the art of delivering what he calls “a positive No.”  This is a powerful three-step process of marrying a No with a Yes:

a) Yes! (Becoming conscious of the positive foundation for your No—for example, core interests or values)

b) No. (Respectfully explaining your No, linking it to your positive foundation)

c) Yes? (Having a plan B—that is, another positive outcome for the other party)

11. Make it safe for people to push back.This provides a platform from which people can rise and develop, and is also the mark of a confident leader who has the maturity to know that he or she cannot possibly have all the right answers. Allow others to connect the dots their own way.

12. Be aware of mind traps that lead to blind conformity. Mind traps act as mental straight-jackets, preventing you from thinking creatively and rationally.  These include, for example, the “herd instinct”, i.e. relying on the fact that “everybody else is doing it.” Here is a compiled list of the ten most common thinking traps.

13. Question the blind assumptions that can hurt your business. In

Rules to Break and Laws to Follow: How Your Business Can Beat the Crisis of Short-Termism (Microsoft Executive Leadership Series), the authors expose three false assumptions about how a business creates value—these are, among the rules to consider breaking:

a) The best measure of success for your business is current sales and profit

b) With the right sales and marketing effort, you can always get more customers

c) Company value is created by offering differentiated products and services

14. Reconsider your need for harmony at the expense of progress. We are often reticent to challenge the process for fear of disquieting others who resist change. A component of emotional intelligence is the ability to be a change catalyst: to build the courage to champion change despite opposition.

15. Become aware of your three most rigidly-held beliefs. Write them down. Explore what cognitive shifts you can make to soften your position on these. Think of the emotions that drive these beliefs. Could some of them be motivated by fear? What might these unbendable beliefs prevent you from achieving?

The well-beaten path may be comfortable because it allows us to move along, without having to exert much effort, but it is the path that ultimately leads to mediocrity.  As Emerson said, long ago, “Do not follow where the path may lead.  Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.”  If you are a leader in charge of others, allow space for them to leave their own footprints.

a) Yes! (Becoming conscious of the positive foundation for your No—for example, core interests or values)

b) No. (Respectfully explaining your No, linking it to your positive foundation)

c) Yes? (Having a plan B—that is, another positive outcome for the other party)

Bruna Martinuzzi is the President of Clarion Enterprises Ltd., Clarion Enterprises Ltd. a firm that specializes in emotional intelligence, leadership and presentation skills training. Her latest book, The Leader as a Mensch, explains how you can become the kind of person others want to follow.

In the last post we discussed defining the scope of the open innovation program. In this post we will discuss selecting open innovation projects or Needs. If you are familiar with the Want, Find, Get, Manage model for open innovation, Needs equals Wants.

What exactly are Needs? Needs are more defined than ideas. They are aligned with the firm’s strategy and help meet a customer value proposition. They have a direct impact on the firm’s business through either revenue generation or cost reduction justified by a simple business case. They should have a sponsor within the organization. The Need may be already being worked on or it may be something that has been identified, but resources have not yet been assigned.

This often brings up the make versus buy question. In reality the question that should be asked is make, buy or pursue in parallel? By parallel, I mean work the Need internally while scouting or searching for a solution or co-development partner through open innovation.

We typically see Needs falling into the following categories:

·         Breakthrough: The big, bold bets that significantly change the industry competitive landscape

·         Strategic: Platform projects that support multiple product initiatives

·         Tactical: Project specific “gaps” that keep a project from reaching its end point

·         Speed, Cost, Quality: Process improvements that impact a company’s cost position through improvements to cycle time, product quality or cost reduction

The process for selecting Needs for the open innovation program can take many forms. The one I find the most interesting is a two step process. The first step is to solicit key Needs from the organization. This step is focused on indentifying the Need and providing some level of detail around the desired outcome, the customer (internal/external) value proposition, the magnitude of the challenge to achieve the desired outcome and any other relevant information that is specific to the organization.

The second step involves getting the key stakeholders together to “hash” out a ranking of the Needs. Once this ranking is accomplished, the group then selects the Needs that will be worked on in the open innovation program. This stakeholder meeting is interesting to observe as the various people represent why their Need should have priority and others in attendance propose approaches to solving or identify existing internal expertise or IP that can be applied to the Need.

The goal is to pick a manageable number of Needs for the open innovation program.