Saturday, December 13, 2008

Innovation rule #2: Do see the system

Organizations are machines. The various parts work together to generate the desired output. Sometimes the parts work well together and sometimes the machine is poorly designed and there is misalignment. In either case, it makes no sense to modify one part of the machine and pretend that change will have no impact on the rest of the machine.

If you want your organization to innovate, you must design a machine for that purpose. All parts of that machine must work together to drive innovation. Who you hire, how you train them, how you measure and reward performance, how you pay people, how you communicate internally, what your physical space looks like… Every aspect of your organization is a part of your machine. It will either contribute to or detract from your success.

So build the right machine.

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