Bosses look for quality ideas

Spending time working on an idea can give your career and the company a competitive edge. Photo / Ryan Mcvay

Staff innovation and change can lead to an edge.

Potential bosses are looking for bright, talented people who can produce high quality ideas they can sell to the senior team and to the staff and give the company a competitive edge.

Writing about this recently in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) blog, John Beeson, principal of Beeson Consulting and author of The Unwritten Rules: The Six Skills You Need to Get Promoted to the Executive Level, says companies are looking for executives who know how to innovate and introduce change, not simply "caretakers who can manage the status quo".

"Senior-level decision makers in your company are looking for evidence that you can lead innovation and change; simply being a master of continuous improvement won't cut it," he says.

Senior management is interested in the quality of your ideas and how you shepherd them through the organisation - whether it's introducing a new organisation design or revising a management process, says Beeson.

If you search, there are opportunities in your current job to display your ability to drive change, even if you are in a support function, he says.

Bear in mind, as well as your innovative skills, you should have good personal skills and attributes that will help you lead change at the executive level, Beeson adds.

The author gives examples of American corporates who are offering their emerging talent some space to come up with ideas. General Electric, builds "action learning" into their corporate management training programmes.

Multinational 3M has had a corporate objective of generating a certain per cent of annual revenue from products introduced in the previous three years - a goal intended to stimulate innovation. 3M has an internal board that managers can apply to for funding for a new product or technology idea.

Is this kind of thing happening in New Zealand? According to Ken Brophy, managing partner at Grafton Consultancy, a business consultancy which helps companies with change, during the global financial crisis a lot of organisations were expected to do more with less, and have stripped out the middle management. This has meant senior management is getting pulled into the operational side more than they should be, rather than working on the business.

"The risk I see is there is not enough space being created [for new ideas] through the necessity of stripping out costs," says Brophy.

Grafton itself has fortnightly catch-ups with key staff, and there is a dedicated time in the meeting, where a topic is chosen for future discussion. It might be a gap in the market, how does Grafton approach it? When they come together again, there is a debate on this.

For this to work, there has to be recognition of these new ideas in the business, he adds.

Alex Malley, CEO of the accounting body CPA Australia and leadership speaker, says top managers have a responsibility to create the right environment for emerging talent.

"It all comes down to leading by example and setting a culture that encourages creativity. This of course is largely the responsibility of the CEO and senior management. I want my staff to have the courage to think big and not be afraid to present new ideas that could take the business in a fresh direction, even though there might be risks involved," says Malley.

The IT sector is skilled at creating the right cultural environment to enable innovation, says Malley. Companies such as Google and the SAS Institute are well recognised for their fantastic working environments. "Their staff have the ability to contribute to decisions made within the company and be creative, probably more so than more traditional businesses as fresh ideas and innovation are their lifeblood."

Online accounting software company Xero has Xero Labs for its developers. Product development manager Andrew Tokeley says the company gives people a day a month to work on their own projects.

"I did not want to put in any boundaries. Developers tend to be passionate about their work, this is to feed that passion," he says.

"We don't push them to do Xero development," says Tokeley. Interestingly though a lot of people do things related to the company.

It can flag a future leader if they are using their time well, he says.

Trade Me is another New Zealand company which encourages staff to come up with new ideas on a regular basis.

"Across the company we look to hire people who have great ideas and who like to see things change as it is important to the way we do things around here," says Mike O'Donnnell, head of operations.

Every staff member at Trade Me can suggest an idea to improve the website, or processes. Everyone's ideais treated equally and the good ideas make it through to "enhancements sessions".

"Our CEO and members of our senior management team stand around the pool table on Wednesday mornings and hear the idea pitched, and the best ones go straight to the tech team and we start building them," adds Simon Young, Trade Me's head of development.

The newly floated business also has internal Fed Ex days. For a solid 24 hours, project teams get together to build something that "adds value" to the company. There are prizes for the winners and many of the ideas make it into the product roadmap for the year.

A recent successful Fed Ex project was the "Browse" functionality in the iPhone app.