Perspective # 5 - Collaborate, Collaborate, Collaborate

Collaborate, Collaborate, Collaborate: Traditionally innovation is the ‘job’ of the R&D department. Frederick Taylor advocated 100 years ago that it was management's job to ‘think’ and the worker's job to ‘do’. Though this would have made sense 100 years ago, in today’s competitive world every employee should be the listening post for new ideas and opportunities.

Many of us also believe in the ‘hunters’ and ‘farmers’ concept. Hunters are categorized as people who welcome challenges and enjoy the thrill of identifying new opportunities. Farmers on the other hand are characterized as people whose forte is the maintenance and growth of existing customers. These characterizations are terribly simplistic and unfair. This perspective has been the basis for the policies, structures, and operating practices of most business organizations that need change.

The challenge here is to create an Innovation culture that spans the entire company. Any employee should be able to pickup market cues, collaborate across functions and make the innovation happen. Many organizations are waking up to the power of collaboration and are organizing face to face meetings across functions.

Southwest Airlines recently gathered people from its in-flight, ground, maintenance and dispatch operations. For six months they met for 10 hours a week, brainstorming ideas to address a broad issue: What are the highest-impact changes we can make to our aircraft operations? Innovation cannot happen and be sustained just by one department or one set of workers; it is a collaborative output between the ‘hunters’ and the ‘farmers’.