Training Professionals Have a Leading Role in Innovation and Change - Coursework Example

1. Role of training professionals for innovation One of the biggest bottlenecks which the organizations face in achieving success in their innovation initiatives is the lack of skills in their employees. Any progress in innovation is impossible to be made by creating a standalone department for innovation. Active involvement of staff is a pre-requisite for attaining the goals of innovation. Innovation has to be built into the culture of an organization and for that people need to have an innovation mindset. The investment into training activities for professionals yields long term benefits for the organization. The turnaround time reduces, the production efficiency increases and there is a greater certainty about the acceptance of the product or service by the customers. In addition, it also helps in effectively facing the rising competition by giving the company a strong and dynamic competitive advantage. According to Roger L. Hammer, President of Strategic Business Innovation, developing an innovation mindset into the various areas in a company is the true ‘innovation engine’ that will propel business into the future (Hammer, 2006). 2. Approach for design and delivery of training programs There are several areas in which professionals must be provided training in order to foster innovation within the organization (Riddle, 2008). These are discussed in the following paragraphs. 2.1. Stimulate idea generation Ideation is the primary and the most important step for innovation. The employees need to be trained on how they need to allow ideas to generate. The best way would be to write down any idea that comes into the mind. The focus at this stage should be to generate more and more ideas. Their quality or relevance should be judged later. 2.2. Stimulate creativity Creativity is the ability to think out of the box and to find connections between two seemingly divergent viewpoints or ideas. It has been found that group discussions foster creativity. The professionals need to be encouraged to participate in more and more brainstorming sessions. To find connections between divergent ideas, lateral thinking is required (Training staff to innovate, 2000). This can be boosted by allowing professionals from various fields such as Science, Mathematics, Engineering, Business, Psychology etc. to interact with each other. People must be trained to have communication with people whose skill-sets are different from theirs. The employees must also be encouraged to give multiple solutions to a problem. These solutions could be written on Post-it notes and pasted on a board without names. Each of the solutions should then be discussed from an unbiased perspective based solely on merit and not on who the idea comes from. The winner should later be identified and rewarded. 2.3. Analysis of options The employees must be trained not only on generating ideas but also on how to filter the options to come up with the best solution. For this certain techniques such as Fish-bone diagram, root cause analysis, 5 Whys technique etc. can be taught to them. The feasibility and viability of each option has also to be studied. Some exercises in form of case studies can be performed. The outcomes of various options can be quantified and the option with the best score can be chosen (Riddle, 2008). 2.4. Customer Focus Innovation in any product or service may be great but it is useless unless it is acceptable to customers. Therefore, customer focus is essential for the commercialization of an innovation. For knowing customer, the staff can be trained in certain techniques such as Voice of Customer, House of Quality etc. In fact customer needs should be used as one of the main inputs of the innovation process. 2.5. Capturing Ideas from Outer world There is a large literature on this topic. The basic idea here is that innovation doesn’t always imply making a product or service from scratch. Implementing ideas from other industries, fields, businesses or sectors successfully to your organization after customization is not a lesser innovation. For achieving such type of innovation, employees must be trained to keep their minds open and receptive to outer world. Henry Chesbrough in his book ‘Open Innovation’ stresses that the modern world has moved from an era of closed innovation to Open Innovation where ideas enter into and exit easily from a firm’s innovation structure (Chesbrough, 2003). 2.6. Process Flow Analysis One of the best ways to innovate is to chart out the flow a process should have to be optimum. Once the desired process flow is ready, the efforts have to be made in designing the equipment required for realizing the flow. For this, professionals need to be trained in tools such as Flowcharts, Process Maps and Activity Flow Diagrams. 2.7. Implementation Any idea is not fruitful until it can be implemented well. In fact this is the most mechanized step of innovation and hence requires management. The employees must be trained in project management activities such as preparing project plans, work breakdown structures, adhering to time schedules, project reviews etc. In case of services, employees need to be trained in assessing levels of customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction (Riddle, 2008). 3. Case 1: Training & Development at Commonwealth Bank of Australia Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has been consistently rated as the most innovative bank in Australia over the years. At CBA, a special attention is paid to staff training in order to drive innovation. According to Peter Switzer, a top level executive at the bank, they choose right people for the right job in their recruitment. The people hired for sales are either well aware of the clients or are trained extensively to do so. The bank considers training of staff for innovation as an investment into the business. CBA conducts regular trainings to teach business systems and not only the process flow related to a particular person’s job. The bank never uses half measures for training. It uses a staff-mentoring system in order to train new employees. Hence, the employees are not left to themselves to discover their world as it is a time consuming process. Another key initiative by the bank has been to empower its staff. This instills greater confidence and a sense of ownership in the professionals. This also increases the speed of work and hence turnaround time. The senior managers prepare the innovation plans and everyone in the staff is encouraged and involved in generating ideas. The management tasks are delegated to lower levels. The idea is to basically move towards a flat organizational structure. The bank also takes care of the motivation quotient of the employees by rewarding them from time to time. The bank believes in staff equity to ensure loyalty. CBA believes in increasing efficiency or the dollars earned per hour rather than increasing the work hours. Besides, the bank has provided a congenial family atmosphere at its workplaces. The offices are bright, well lighted, pleasant and full of fun. Besides, the bank is trying to build an innovation culture. The policies regarding the same are mentioned in writing so that there is no communication gap (Switzer). 4. Case 2: Training & Development at Aldi, Australia Aldi is one of the best and the most innovative retail chains in the world. Aldi was awarded the Most Innovative Australian Retailer of the Year Award 2009. According to Dieter Brandes, a former member of board at Aldi, the core of innovation at Aldi lies not in products but in processes and operations. These aspects are driven by people and hence people are the most important assets to drive their innovation. At Aldi, barcodes are used 3-5 times on a single package to save scanning time. There are other innovations as well which are made possible due to efforts made by professionals. For all this an innovation culture has been built in the employees by Aldi through training. Aldi has created an environment of decentralization, autonomy and scope for errors into its culture. This enables the employees to be more innovative. Aldi believes that innovation has to come from within the organization but it has decentralized its various regional offices. Therefore, all the regional ideas are pondered upon and the best ones are chosen for implementation. Aldi believes in simplification of systems and stresses on people orientation and knowledge. It believes in empowerment of line managers. The line managers are trained to take responsibility for purchasing, logistics, finance, accounting or whatever field they work in. In this way, by appropriate training of the professionals, Aldi ensures a continuous innovation (Daum, 2005). 5. Comparison of the two cases On comparing the two organizations, it can be observed that both organizations believe that training their professionals is one of the pre-requisites for innovation. Both organizations believe in the empowerment of front-end employees or line managers. They also emphasize on building an innovation culture within the organization. In Commonwealth bank of Australia, the greater emphasis is on Employee empowerment and creating a warm environment. However, in Aldi the emphasis has been laid on providing appropriate technical trainings to line managers so that re-work is educed and time is saved. This has also to do with the nature of the two firms. Whereas, CBA deals in services where soft skills are more important, Aldi deals in products and hence technical skills are more significant. Having discussed the two cases, it can be said that, both the organizations are taking humongous steps towards making innovation a part of their organizational culture. This has directly affected their performance in the past years. 6. References Training staff to innovate. (2000). International Trade Centre, International Trade Forum, Issue 2/2000 Creating an innovative organization. Available online from http://ideaction.net/creating-an-innovative-organization.html?showall=1 Riddle, Dorthy I. (2008). Training staff to innovate. Service Growth Consultant Inc. Hammer, Roger L. (2006). Strategic Innovation: the engine that propels business, Build an innovation engine and rev-up your business. Strategic Business Innovation-Building Business Value, (866)316-9031 Peter Switzer. Be good to your staff and they’ll be good to you. http://www.commbank.com.au/business/betterbusiness/expert-advice/hiring-firing-managing/be-good-to-your-staff.aspx Daum, Juergen H. et. al. (2005). Innovation management and the role of finance: status, challenges, and vision: A discussion with the senior executives and CFOs of six leading European companies Chesbrough, Henry (2003) Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology. Boston: Harvard Business School Press Read More