EXPERIMENTATION AND RISK-TAKING

(John Sculley) urged Apple managers to look beyond their current market opportunities and explore untapped avenues. Only by freeing themselves from the conventional Apple wisdom could the managers move into newer, more profitable areas.

(Kouzes and Possner)

Even the loosest organizations have cultural norms, assumptions, rules, and processes that operate in powerful ways to box us in and restrict our thinking

It means a leader must have an openness to ideas and a willingness to listen. It means that a leader must try untested approaches and accept the risks that accompany all experiments. Innovation is critical to an organizations health. Without constant innovation in products, services, and work processes an organization will atrophy.

Communication pathways are the veins and arteries of new ideas. Customers are the source of demand for product and service innovation. Process innovation most often comes from the people actually doing the job. Initiatives come from anywhere and everywhere. Globalization grew out of Paolo Frescos passion for it. Product services accelerated

after a Crotonvilles class recommendations to define our markets more broadly for faster growth. Six Sigma grew out of an employee survey in 1995. While our employees thought our quality was okay, they believed it could be a lot better. To make the initiatives work it took a passionate allconsuming commitment from the top. Beyond the passion there was a lot of rigor. Not

only did we put the best people on each initiative, we trained them, measured them, and reported their results. In the end each initiative had to develop the people and add to the bottom line. The leaders of every business had to be the champion-----timid and rational advocacy wouldnt work. They made sure our A players got to lead every initiative. We made sure the rewardssalary increases, stock option grants and role

model recognition at company meetings were highly visible. (Jack Welch: Straight from the Gut) 1.Highly demanding performance culture. People whose targets are 20% higher think differently from those who have to achieve 10% improvement. 2. Non-linear innovators should be rewarded spectacularly.

3. Redefine your business. GE asking each business to describe its business in such a manner that its market share is less than 10%. 4. Role model. 5. Rapid action on ideas. 5.Promote boundarylessness.---freedom to experiment. 6. Learn from/use failures.

7. Raise the bar. What new things have you done recently? Talk to others. Spread the innovation throughout.