Christine Fruechte (Colle + McVoy) in “The Corner Office”

Christine Fruechte (Photo: Nicole Bengiveno/NYT)

Adam Bryant conducts interviews of senior-level executives that appear in his “Corner Office” column each week in the SundayBusiness section of The New York Times. Here are a few insights provided during an interview of Christine Fruechte, president and chief executive of Colle + McVoy, an ad agency in Minneapolis. She observes, “We put up all of our ideas, and they are there for everybody to see and to give feedback on.” As a result, she says, it has no room for big egos.

To read the complete interview as well as Bryant’s interviews of other executives, please click here.

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Where Ideas Are Always on the Wall

Bryant: What were some early leadership lessons for you?

Fruechte: I’m the oldest of four children, and I think my entrepreneurial spirit was instilled at a very young age. My dad worked for a lot of Fortune 500 companies, and then quit the corporate world to start his own business, a management-training consultancy, out of our house. I spent a lot of time working with him on his business — opening envelopes, stapling things — and it instilled a really strong work ethic. A lot of people say to me: “You’re from the Midwest, yet you seem to be very direct. Where does that come from?” The answer is that every night at dinner, my father’s management training consultancy kind of spilled over to the dinner table. We’d pass around feedback like we passed around the bread. We’d talk about the day, what happened and how things could have been done better.

My dad was a management training consultant by day, but he was also a magician by night. Before he would perform for the Twin Cities Magic Shop, he would perform for his family. He would say: “O.K., I’m going to try something. Tell me what you think. How can I be better?” So it was very natural. I would say, “O.K. Dad, if you do this or do that, it will be better.” And he’d say, “Great, great.” So I saw his excitement and enthusiasm for me giving him feedback.

Bryant: What was your first management role?

Fruechte: I had supervised account executives, but I think the biggest challenge for me was when I left Minneapolis for an opportunity in Honolulu. And for the first time in my life I was leading a department. I was 28 years old, and I was not really aware of what I was walking into. First of all, there was age bias. There was gender bias. And I was also from the mainland. It taught me a lot about how you have to earn respect. Just because you have a title, respect isn’t necessarily given. And it also taught me to be very direct with my expectations and how I’m here to help people achieve greatness in their role. It was really about sitting down with people one-on-one, understanding how I could help them be best at their jobs. I didn’t know what they needed, so spending that time together was really helpful.

I also just tackled a lot of the biases head-on. I would say: “What is your problem with me? Obviously I’m sensing that there’s some frustration with either me in the role, or the way that I’m managing the situation, or the way that we’re working. Help me. Tell me about it. Let’s talk about it.” I’m not going to walk on eggshells. We’re all too busy.

Bryant: Were there other early lessons for you as a manager?

Fruechte: A great lesson for me was to learn to open up more and let people get to know me, because I can be very buttoned up. And that tends to be somewhat intimidating. If you want to be approachable and if you want people to let down their guard, you have to be a bit more casual. And people want to know your personality. They want to know what you like to do on the weekend. It doesn’t need to always be about work. Learning to humanize myself as a leader was something that was really important. After that, it was a different level of engagement and interaction with my team.

Bryant: Can you share your thoughts on how you build a corporate culture?

Fruechte: An effective culture is grounded in having a collective purpose. And a culture also is deeply rooted in core values. You know what your principles are, so if you hire someone and they’re not operating by your core values, even though they may be incredibly talented, they’re going to be rejected from the culture. If you don’t act quickly, they’re not going to be healthy for the culture and it will turn cancerous very, very quickly. You have to live by the core values, and reinforce them constantly. We remind people what the core values are anytime we have agency meetings, and they’re built into our performance reviews. If you’re not living by the core values of the organization, you’re not going to be allowed to advance.

Bryant: What are those values?

Fruechte: One is integrity. I have a very short fuse for anyone who is not going to operate with high integrity. If they step over that line and start to do things that are suspect when it comes to ethics, they’re out immediately. And yes, I have terminated people very, very quickly, and it’s a very easy decision to make for me because I’m not willing to compromise when it comes to that.

Another core value is entrepreneurial passion, and a third one is collaboration, and they kind of go together. To be successful in our environment you have to be an entrepreneur and you have to have passion for the business, and you have to be a builder and someone who wants to invent. Some people are very comfortable in a very corporate structure — they say, in effect: “I do this, this is the only part of my job, I’ve never done that, that’s kind of scary, that’s someone else’s, someone else should figure that out.” That’s not to say that’s good or bad, but you will not thrive here unless you have the mind-set or DNA of entrepreneurial passion and are constantly trying to figure new things out.

Collaboration is a word that’s overused a lot, but we do practice . it. Our offices are completely open, and all of our work is posted on the wall. So if you’ve got a big ego, leave it on the elevator because the creative business is a very vulnerable business. We put up all of our ideas, whether they are strategic, digital, media, and they are there for everybody to see and to give feedback on.

You have to have a lot of confidence in the notion that the endgame is the best idea. It’s not about whether you look good, or are the smartest person in the room. Every idea, every project that we’re working on is basically all on the open wall. So if I’m gone for a week, I can come back and literally walk along the walls and catch up on the majority of everything we’re doing. People will rewrite headlines. People will say we need ideas for this or that. People will submit. We post it all up there. And then you don’t know whose ideas they are. You just start circling the ideas that you think achieve the objectives.

Bryant: What else?

Fruechte: “Creative” is not a department at our agency. We expect it from everyone within the organization. You aren’t just defined by one little role. We’re all defined by really trying to create standout ideas. And we also expect insightful thinking. And that means always having a point of view. I don’t care if you’re the receptionist, or if you are a new copywriter, you have to have a point of view about anything. It’s not just about shiny objects or the latest and the greatest products, it’s about how they add value to human behavior. And you have to be very, very insightful to uncover that.

The other thing that I really try to foster is a grass-roots culture, so people can feel empowered that they have ideas of how to enrich the culture. One copywriter asked if the company could offer interest-free financing for bikes. Within 15 minutes we said, new policy — bike financing program — and we talked about it at our next all-agency meeting. You have to celebrate those victories to encourage more people to look for more opportunities to do things like that.

Bryant: How did you come up with the core values?

Fruechte: There was a core group of about 12 individuals, but we vetted the ideas with the people who would be living them every day as well. It’s not just about the words, but it’s also about defining what the words mean, because if you say “creativity” or if you say “collaboration,” you can define them a lot of different ways. We actually conducted internal focus groups as we refined the core values. Talk to us, we said. Push back. What are we not thinking about? How else should we describe it? What can make it more accurate? Is this real or is this not real?

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Adam Bryant, deputy national editor of The New York Times, oversees coverage of education issues, military affairs, law, and works with reporters in many of the Times’ domestic bureaus. He also conducts interviews with CEOs and other leaders for Corner Office, a weekly feature in the SundayBusiness section and on nytimes.com that he started in March 2009. In his new book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed, (Times Books), he analyzes the broader lessons that emerge from his interviews with more than 70 leaders. To read an excerpt, please click here. To contact him, please click here.

SUGGESTED READING

The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm
The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO’s Strategies for Defeating the Devil’s Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization
Thomas Kelley and Joinathan Littman

The Executive’s Compass: Business and the Good Society
James O’Toole

Harvard Business Review on Inspiring & Executing Innovation: A book review by Bob Morris

Harvard Business Review on Inspiring & Executing Innovation
Various Contributors
Harvard Business Review Press (2011)

How to create and then deliver new or better products and services

This is one of the volumes in a series of anthologies of articles that first appeared in HBR. In this instance, its ten articles focus on one or more components of a process by which to inspire and then execute breakthrough innovation. Having read all of the articles when they were first published individually, I can personally attest to the brilliance of their authors’ (or co-authors’) insights and the eloquence with which they are expressed. Two substantial value-added benefits should also be noted: If all of the articles were purchased separately as reprints, the total cost would be at least $60-75; they are now conveniently bound in a single volume and for a fraction of that cost.

Here in Dallas, there is a Farmers Market near the downtown area at which several merchants offer slices of fresh fruit as samples. I now provide what follows in that spirit.

In “Innovation’s Holy Grail,” C.K. Prahalad and R.A. Mashelkar use the term “Ghandian” innovation because, “at the core of this type of innovation lie two of the Mahatma’s tenets: ‘I would prize every invention of science made for the benefit of all’ and ‘Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s reed’…Ghandian innovators solve problems in two ways: by acquiring or developing technologies and by altering business models or capabilities.”

In “The Customer-Centered Innovation Map,” Lance A. Bettencourt and Anthony W. Ulwick suggest that all jobs have the same eight tasks. To use job mapping, look for opportunities to help customers at every step.” They are:

1. Define: Determine their goals and plan resources
2. Locate: Gather items and information needed for the job
3. Prepare: Set up the environment to do the job
4. Confirm: Verify that they’re ready to perform the job
5. Execute: Carry out the job
6. Monitor: Assess whether the job is being successfully executed
7. Modify: Make alterations to improve execution

“Because problems can occur at many points in the process, nearly all jobs also require a problem resolution step. Some steps are more critical than others, depending on the job, but each is necessary to get the job done. Successfully.”

In “Innovation: The Classic Traps,” Rosabeth Moss Kanter identifies and then rigorously discusses eight (8) common mistakes that must be replaced by the “potent remedies” she recommends. The mistakes are:

• Rejecting opportunities that at first glance appear too small
• Assuming that only new products count – not new services or improved processes
• Launching too many minor product extensions that confuse customers and increase external complexity
•  Strangling innovation with the same tight planning, budgeting, and reviews applied to existing businesses
•  Rewarding managers for doing only what they committed to do – and discouraging them from making changes as circumstances warrant
•  Isolating fledgling and established enterprises in separate silos
•  Creating two classes of corporate citizens – those who have all the fun (innovators) and those who must make the money (mainstream business managers)
•  Allowing innovators to rotate out of teams so quickly that team chemistry can’t gel
•  Assuming that innovation teams should be led by the best technical people

Suggested Readings:

Two by Thomas Kelley with Jonathan Littman:

The Art of Innovation
The Ten Faces of Innovation

and two more recently published books:

The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge
Vijay-Govindarajan and Chris Trimble

Innovation to the Core: A Blueprint for Transforming the Way Your Company Innovates
Peter Skarzynski and Rowan Gibson

Lessons to be learned from Pixar about a “creative culture”

How to encourage risk taking within a “try, learn, and try again” culture?

Here is my take on what Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson learned during a lengthy and probing study of the Pixar culture:

1. Celebrate failure with the same intensity as you celebrate success. View each setback as a precious learning opportunity.

2. Become a “prototype junky.” There is no project too big [or too small] to conduct a real-world test of it within a few weeks.

3. Develop your own “skunk works” within the organization. [click here.], At least form a small group and enable it to meet regularly to brainstorm how best to answer questions, solve problems, and respond to unmet needs…especially those identified by past and current customers.

4. Dream BIG. Ask team members to think of ten over-the-top, outlandish, eccentric, far-out, wacky, unheard-of, unorthodox ideas for a project.

Note: In the most innovative organizations (such as IDEO, Nike, Apple, and yes, Pixar), two quite different approaches are taken: generate lots of what Jobs calls “an insanely great idea” and then decide what to do with them, or, tackle an especially serious problem with a totally open mind.

5. Don’t cry poor. The best new ideas tend to be produced by groups whose members are world-class scroungers. External limits and constraints tend to inspire original thinking and below-the-radar initiatives.

6. Planning is OK but do not allow the process to be a distraction from achieving the desired objective. Beware of meetings and considerations devoted to “planning to plan.” General George Patton once said, “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan next week.”

7. Each project is a “work in progress” so establish a planning center (perhaps online) where evidence of progress is on display. Grab low-hanging fruit” ASAP and celebrate completion of “baby steps” to reassure everyone that progress really is being made.

8. Forget about lengthy meetings, reports, analyses, etc. What’s happening NOW? Why is it happening? What more needs to be done? Who will do it? Everyone involved must have a sense of urgency. John Wooden said it best: “Be quick but don’t rush.”

9. Assume authority and do whatever must be done and done NOW. If appropriate, ask for forgiveness later. That said, be sure to do your homework, consider all the possible implications and consequences, and be prepared to explain later why the initiative you took had risks but the decision to make it was rigorously thought-through and prudent. Also be fully prepared to explained what of value was learned, especially if action was unsuccessful.

I highly recommend Capodagli and Jackson’s Innovate the Pixar Way: Business Lessons from the World’s Most Creative Corporate Playground, published by McGraw-Hill (2010).

The best books on brainstorming, idea generation, etc.? Check out these two:

The Idea of Innovation
The Ten Faces of Innovation
Thomas Kelley

If you need additional assistance:

A Knock on the Side of the Head
A Kick in the Seat of the Pants
Roger Von Oech

Cracking Creativity
Thinkertoys (Second Edition)
Michael Michalko

Jump Start Your Brain
Doug Hall

Six Thinking Hats
Edward De Bono

The Ten Faces of Innovation: A Book Review by Bob Morris

The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO’s Strategies for Defeating the Devil’s Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization
Thomas Kelley with Jonathan Littman
Doubleday (2005)

I recently re-read two books written by Tom Kelley with Jonathan Littman, this one and The Art of Innovation. In both, Kelley provides a wealth of information and counsel which can help any decision-maker to “drive creativity” through her or his organization but only if initiatives are (a) a collaboration which receives the support and encouragement of senior management (especially of the CEO) and (b) sufficient time is allowed for those initiatives to have a measurable impact. There is a distressing tendency throughout most organizations to rip out “seedlings” to see how well they are “growing.” Six Sigma programs offer a compelling example. Most are abandoned within a month or two. Why? Unrealistic expectations, cultural barriers (what Jim O’Toole characterizes as “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom”), internal politics, and especially impatience are among the usual suspects. That said, I agree with countless others (notably Teresa Amabile, Clayton Christensen, Guy Claxton, Edward de Bono, Peter Drucker, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, Michael Michalko, Michael Ray, and Roger von Oech) that innovation is now the single most decisive competitive advantage. How to establish and then sustain that advantage?

In an earlier work, The Art of Innovation, Kelley shares IDEO’s five-step methodology: Understand the market, the client, the technology, and the perceived constraints on the given problem; observe real people in real-life situations; literally visualize new-to-the-world concepts AND the customers who will use them; evaluate and refine the prototypes in a series of quick iterations; and finally, implement the new concept for commercialization. With regard to the last “step”, as Warren Bennis Patricia and Ward Biederman explain in Organizing Genius, Apple executives immediately recognized the commercial opportunities for PARC’s technology. Larry Tesler (who later left PARC for Apple) noted that Jobs and colleagues (especially Wozniak) “wanted to get it out to the world.” But first, obviously, the challenge was to create that “it” which they then did.

In this volume, as Kelley explains, his book is “about innovation with a human face. [Actually, at least ten...hence its title.] It’s about the individuals and teams that fuel innovation inside great organizations. Because all great movements are human-powered.” He goes on to suggest that all good working definitions of innovation pair ideas with action, “the spark with fire. Innovators don’t just have their heads in the clouds. They also have their feet on the ground.” Kelley cites and then examines several exemplary (“great”) organizations that include Google, W.L. Gore & Associates, the Gillette Company, and German retailer Tchibo. I especially appreciate the fact that Kelley focuses on the almost unlimited potential for creativity of individuals and the roles which they can play, “the hats they can put on, the personas they can adopt…[albeit] unsung heroes who work on the front lines of entrepreneurship in action, the countless people and teams who make innovation happen day in and day out.”

Because organizations need individuals who are savvy about the counterintuitive process of how to move ideas forward, Kelley recommends three “Organizing Personas”: The Hurdler, The Collaborator, and The Director.
Because organizations also need individuals and teams who apply insights from the learning roles and channel the empowerment from the organizing roles to make innovation happen, Kelley recommends four “Building personas”: The Experience Architect, The Set Designer, The Caregiver, and The Storyteller. Note both the sequence, interrelatedness and, indeed, the interdependence of these ten “personas.”

What Kelley achieves in this volume is to develop in much greater depth than do von Oech and de Bono what are essentially ten different perspectives. He does so, brilliantly, by focussing the bulk of his attention of those who, for example, seek and explore new opportunities to reveal breakthrough insights…and while doing so wear (at least metaphorically) one of de Bono’s hats (probably the green one). Kelley devotes a separate chapter to each of the ten “personas,” including real-world examples of various “unsung heroes who work on the front lines of entrepreneurship in action, the countless people and teams who make innovation happen day in and day out.”

“What Three Books Should I Load On My Kindle For My Cruise?” – w/update

So, here’s the request that came in an e-mail:
We are going on a cruise in September and I want to load my Kindle with three books.  What are the three best books you would recommend for my reading? The request came from a very sharp, keen-minded, successful, independent business consultant.  He attends one of our book synopsis events.  This is my attempt to answer his question.

I am tempted to simply list some of my all time favorite reads (not necessarily the best books I’ve ever read, although they are close –  but definitely books that I am very glad I have read), like:  The Doorbell Rang, one of my favorite Nero Wolfe mysteries, by Rex Stout; and The Powers That Be and The Reckoning by the truly great David Halberstam; and Defining a Nation, edited by the same Halberstam.

And then there is this:  what are the business books from the last few years (and even a little longer ago) that should be on your “I’ve definitely read that book” list?  I would certainly include Good to Great by Jim Collins; something Gladwell (it’s tough to choose — probably Outliers); Servant Leadership by Robert Greenleaf and The Leadership Engine by Noel Tichy; almost anything, but definitely at least one thing, by Peter Drucker.  Add to this The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley, and a major personal favorite, The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp.

But – I still have not answered the question.  If I had but three books to load on my Kindle for a September cruise, what titles would I choose?  Here’s a list of five; you will have to narrow it down to the three that most interest you.

Choice #1: Collapse:  How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond.  Diamond, a Pulitzer Prize winner with his earlier book Guns, Germs, and Steel, has written a tour de force in Collapse, sweeping us through the societies that collapsed, and providing warnings regarding the decisions societies make.  An important book!

Choice #2: Inside the Kingdom:  My Life in Saudi Arabia by Carmen Bin Laden, or, The Looming Tower:  Al-Queda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright.  Of course, the Wright book is the heftier of the two; it won the Pulitzer, and provides an amazing education about the rise of Al-Queda, what went into their thinking, and especially their animosity toward the West.  But there is a personal tone and a very personal take on life in the strict Muslim world of Saudi Arabia in Carmen Bin Laden’s book — the former wife of Yeslam, one of the brothers of Osama Bin Laden.  It is a captivating read, and noticeably shorter than The Looming Tower.  (You can tell, from this  response, that I think we ought to seek to understand this “other” culture that is so foreign to our own).  

Choice #3: OK, which two business books to put on the list? Not necessarily which books to read for enjoyment, but which books provide the most important and useful information?  I list two choices.  I would put The Other 90%:  How to Unlock Your Vast Untapped Potential for Leadership and Life by Robert Cooper, because everyone would benefit from reading an occasional “let’s aim high, and take things higher” book.  Unfortunately,this book is not available for the Kindle. (Yes, I checked on all the others).  So, for this category of business book, I recommend The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz.  (I haven’t yet read the new Schwartz book, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance, which could be a better choice).  And, for the other business book, I would have to go with The Checklist Manifesto:  How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande, just because I think it deals with the complexity of this age and provides really valuable suggestions.  (And, it gives every patient going in to surgery an important question to ask his or her surgeon:  “do you use a checklist?”).

These are the five.  You’ll have to reduce it to your three.  And, of course, you may be asking others for their suggestions, and reject my three altogether.

And you will notice that there are no novels on my list.  I read about a novel a decade (except for my relatively frequent re-reading of the Nero Wolfe mysteries).  But I have actually bought a novel – in the past week.  It is: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.  I might actually read it – one of these days soon.

————–

Two personal footnotes:

#1 – thanks, Tom, for providing a great idea for a blog post.  I apologize for answering you in this fashion.

#2 — And, it would be interesting to have Bob Morris give his list of “only three” in response to this request?  I’m pretty sure he would have different titles – all absolutely worth the investment of a Kindle purchase and a few hours of reading.  So many books… so little time!

——

update:  I definitely should have put The Big Short:  Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis into the mix — as the book I would recommend to help you understand the financial meltdown of the last couple of years.  So now I am up to six to choose from, to then narrow down to three.  Sorry about that.

Interview: Thomas Kelley

Thomas Kelley

Kelley is general manager of IDEO, the widely admired design and development firm that brought us the Apple mouse, Polaroid’s I-Zone instant camera, the Palm V, and hundreds of other cutting edge products and services. He’s also written two outstanding books on innovation that share the secrets of IDEO’s success: The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm and The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO’s Strategies for Defeating the Devil’s Advocate and Driving Creativity Through Your Organization, both co-authored with Jonathan Littman.

Here is a brief excerpt from my interview of Kelley.

Morris: IDEO has demonstrated that the workplace environment can nourish and support breakthrough creativity and innovation. How to design such an environment? What are the essentials?

Kelley: Here are three underlying design principles that come to mind:

1) Spaces that encourage serendipity: layouts and architectural elements that encourage “accidentally” bumping into people from different parts of the company and spontaneous discussions among small groups. In some companies, that means a wide staircase between floors or a casual touchdown space in the hallway that is available for an impromptu five-minute meeting.

2) Spaces that empower people to customize and adapt them. If the protocols in your office space include a lot of restrictive rules (e.g., no decorations sticking more than four inches above the cubicle, no tape on painted surfaces, no moving desks or tables without permission from the facilities department), then don’t be surprised if those rules also restrict the flow of ideas in that space. The ideal workspace is one where you feel empowered to adapt it to your team’s workstyle and the unique circumstances of the moment—a space as flexible and easily reconfigurable as a kindergarten classroom. Putting everything on wheels would be a good start.

3) Spaces that deliberately emphasize what’s important to the organization. The right space reinforces your cultural values, which helps attract and retain the right kind of innovators to suit your unique interests. At Timberland’s headquarters in New Hampshire, the first thing you see after you get past the reception desk is the running tally of how many thousands of hours Timberland employee have donated to social causes. The social conscience of the organization is not something dreamed up by the PR department, it’s baked into the culture, and it is very evident in their space. At Cirque du Soleil in Montreal, all of the administrative offices are built around the practice space where performers work on new shows, as a constant reminder of what the business is really about. At Pixar, the workplace is as colorful and animated as the characters in their successful films.

Ever notice that the most innovative companies often have the most creative work places? Does that seem like just a coincidence? Space is a strategic tool that any company can use, but most organizations insist on treating it as a utility.

If you wish to read the entire Kelley interview, please click here.

Q #85: What are “business incubators”?

In this series, Bob Morris poses a key question and then responds to it with material from one or more of the business books he has reviewed for Amazon and Borders.

Opinions vary because definitions of the designation very. Some business historians claim that the formal concept of business incubation began in the USA in 1959 with the Batavia Industrial Center in a Batavia, New York, expanded in the U.S. in the 1980s and then throughout the UK and continental Europe in various related forms (e.g. independent innovation centers, pépinières d’entreprises, science parks, etc.). Other business historians include corporate research centers such for Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs (commonly identified as the “Skunk Works”) that was founded in 1943 and given the assignment to design the XP-80 “Shooting Star.” The P-80 was introduced in 1945 and the first operational jet fighter used by the United States Army Air Force.

With all due respect for the historical significance of these initiatives, I am among those who think it is more important to think about business incubation as a process rather than as a physical location. In fact, idea generation can occur anywhere if, as experts on the subject agree, certain conditions exist:

1. Constant and prudent experimentation. Everyone is strongly encouraged (if not required) and full advantage is taken of each “failure,” viewed as a precious learning experience.

2. Brainstorming. Sessions are frequently scheduled, with cross-functional representation (i.e. management, accounting, marketing, sales, production), to solve one specific problems, answer one specific question, or discuss one specific opportunity. (Only one per session.) Workers are also strongly encouraged to conduct informal brainstorming sessions.

Note: Over the years, I have helped client companies to establish a program for what I call “brown bag brainstorming sessions.” These are informal and can be scheduled by anyone, usually during the lunch hour in a room provided by the company.

3. Recognition and rewards. More than 85% of the improvements of Toyota’s processes (i.e. design, production, and distribution) are suggested by its workers and a majority of those workers are on the production line.

4. Workplace Environment. In The Art of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation, Thomas Kelley explains how and why his firm, IDEO, created a workplace environment that is most congenial to and supportive of innovative thinking. Excellent advice can also be found in Gerald Sindell’s The Genius Machine, Michael Michalko’s Thinkpak: A Brainstorming Card Deck, Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, Doug Hall’s Jump Start Your Business Brain, and Paul Sloane’s The Leader’s Guide to Lateral Thinking Skills.

One final point: Keep in mind Ben Hogan’s assertion that golf is played between the ears and that is where competition is won…or lost. The human mind is the best business incubator and always will be. With innovation as with almost all other human initiatives, most limits are self-imposed.

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them. They will be most welcome and I thank you for them. Best regards, Bob

Q #54: Which exercises do you recommend for brainstorming?

In this series, Bob Morris poses a key question and then responds to it with material from one or more of the business books he has reviewed for Amazon and Borders.

Here’s an exercise (inspired by Edward de Bono’s ideas) which will work very well with those who have been required to read de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats prior to getting together to brainstorm. Buy several of those delightful Dr. Seuss hats (at least one of each of the six different colors, more if needed) and keep the hats out of sight until everyone is seated. Review the agenda. Review what de Bono says about what each color represents. Then distribute the Dr. Seuss hats, making certain that at least one person is wearing a hat of each color. Proceed with the discussion, chaired by a person wearing a Blue or White hat. It is imperative that whoever wears a Black hat, for example, be consistently negative and argumentative whereas whoever wears a Yellow must be consistently positive and supportive. After about 15-20 minutes, have each person change to a different colored hat. Resume discussion. Thanks to de Bono and (yes) to Dr. Seuss, you can expect to have an especially enjoyable as well as productive session.

In a previous Q&A (#53), I identified several ways to ruin a brainstorm session. One of the most common is “homogenous” group membership. Wearing several hats of different colors and making each participant think according to the color of hat worn will ensure a variety and diversity of points of view.

In my opinion, the best sources for information and advice about brainstorming include two books by Thomas Kelley, The Art of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation. Also, Gerald Sindell’s The Genius Machine, Michael Michalko’s Thinkpak, Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, Doug Hall’s Jump Start Your Business Brain, and Paul Sloane’s The Leader’s Guide to Lateral Thinking Skills.

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them. They will be most welcome and I thank you for them. Best regards, Bob

Q #53: What are some of the most effective ways to ruin a brainstorming session?

In this series, Bob Morris poses a key question and then responds to it with material from one or more of the business books he has reviewed for Amazon and Borders.

According to the experts, these are among the most effective:

1. The CEO or some other C-level executive chairs the session. The discussion requires a facilitator who is totally neutral, whose sole purpose is to keep the discussion moving along in an orderly, unhurried fashion. Preferably someone who has mastered the Socratic method of asking questions, not making statements.

2. There are no clear objectives and “ground rules.” At the outset, there should be a problem to solve, a question to answer, or a new opportunity to pursue. In other words, an ultimate “destination.” Otherwise, the discussion will resemble an aerosol spray of opinions.

3. The group membership is “homogenous.” The best brainstorming sessions resemble a “crucible” to which an idea is subjected to scrutiny by quite different backgrounds, perspectives, values, and temperaments. Only the best ideas survive but not until all ideas have been shared.

4. Allowing early criticism. In the spirit of “the only dumb question is the one not asked,” everyone involved should agree that “the only bad idea is the one not shared.” All ideas should be welcomed without criticism until everyone has had a chance to respond with questions or comments.

5. Settling for only a few ideas. In fact, the most productive brainstorm sessions generate lots of bad ideas to get one OK idea, lots of OK ideas to get one excellent idea, and lots of excellent ideas to get what Steve Jobs characterizes as an “insanely great” idea.

6. No follow-through. If there is no follow-through, why have the session? See #2.

In my opinion, the best sources for information and advice about brainstorming include two books by Thomas Kelley, The Art of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation. Also, Gerald Sindell’s The Genius Machine, Michael Michalko’s Thinkpak, Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, Doug Hall’s Jump Start Your Business Brain, and Paul Sloane’s The Leader’s Guide to Lateral Thinking Skills.

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them. They will be most welcome and I thank you for them. Best regards, Bob