给CEO的三点创新建议

    一旦形成共同语言，就需要通过正式和非正式机制进行传播。农用化学品巨头先正达（Syngenta）就体现了形成共同语言所能带来的回报。2006年，一小组专职培训人员为项目和管理团队开设了一门创新课程，旨在通过提供语言和工具，帮助先正达提高每年10亿美元研发费用的生产力。五年内，这项培训扩大到了先正达所有的区域市场，帮助公司重组了产品组合，设立了区域子公司，专注于为各个地区的特定客户提供适应当地气候和农作物问题的解决方案。

    结果，新产品出现了爆炸式增长，提高了土地产出率和农民个人的生产力。先正达的收获不仅仅在于一两项新产品，更在于一个可以不断复制的模式。这种模式给它带来了市场热销的新杂交种子，以及解决大豆、大麦、小麦、甘蔗、玉米、苹果和花卉的抗旱防病问题的创新方案。2006-2011年，先正达营收增长了45%，净利润翻番，其中新产品为全球营收贡献了7亿美元，增幅是公司总体增幅的两倍。

界定具体的创新挑战

    有一种错误的观点，认为混乱和创新相伴而生。事实上，推动创新的最好方式是有所约束。换言之，严格界定需要解决的问题。这些问题可能是宽泛的战略性挑战，比如“我们如何在中国获得成功？”，也可能是具体而微的挑战，比如“如何简化填写工作记录单的流程？”总之，问题界定得越明确越好。

    接下来，明确哪些员工最适合解决眼前的这个问题。有些挑战适合广大员工“闲暇之余的”思考，有些则要求更专注的思考。千万别以为抽出一点时间就能想明白类似创设新型业务模式这样复杂的挑战。就算创业者每天时时刻刻都想着同一个问题，大多数新业务最终仍然以失败而告终。

    很多公司认为，让员工参与创新的最好方式是给予金钱奖励。但丹尼尔•平克在畅销书《驱动力》（Drive）一书中总结的研究显示，事实上金钱奖励会降低创意表现。平克建议给予人们自主性，提供机会让人们追求极致，为人们的工作注入目标感。

身体力行，率先垂范

    创新在很多公司都不是自然而然的事。需要管理者定期以身垂范，亲自作出表率，帮助建立创新文化。

    审慎地承担风险。虽然创新还不至于像很多人认为的那样前途未卜，但不是所有的创新努力最终都能成功。最优秀的创新者都会小心实验，同时接受这样一种观点，即调整方向和失败都是创新过程题中应有之义。但当人们觉得一旦创新失败、就会遭到惩罚，就会很难按照这一套去做。管理者可以采取很多方式来鼓励正确的创新行为，比如放手让创新项目发展、善待商业计划遭遇失败的经理、讲述个人失败的经历，从而给讨论增添些人情味等等。

    Once you have a common language, spread it through formal and informal mechanisms. Agrichemical giant Syngenta (SYT) demonstrates the payoff that can come from an investment in a common language. In 2006, a small team of dedicated trainers created an innovation course targeted at project and leadership teams. The course's goal was to provide language and tools that would help the company improve the productivity of its $1 billion annual investment of R&D. Over the course of five years the training spread to all of Syngenta's geographic regions, helping the company reorganize its product groups while launching geographical units focused on finding solutions to specific customer, climate, and crop problems in each region.

    The result has been an explosion of new products that not only boosted land productivity but also the personal productivity of farmers. Syngenta benefited not from just one or two new products but from a repeatable way to bring to market successful new hybrid seeds and new ways to protect soy, barley, wheat, sugarcane, corn, apples, and flowers from droughts and disease. Between 2006 and 2011 revenues increased by 45%, net income doubled, with new products contributing $700 million in global revenue at twice the company's overall growth rate.Frame specific innovation challenges

    There's a misbegotten notion that chaos and innovation are friends. In fact, the best way to accelerate innovation is to constrain it. That is, to tightly define the problems that you are seeking to solve. These problems can be broad strategic challenges, such as "How do we win in China?" They can also be tactical challenges, such as "How do we make the process of filling in time sheets less onerous?" The more specific the problem definition, the better.

    Then determine which employees are best equipped to handle the problem. Some challenges are ready-made for "spare time" thinking from broad groups of employees. Others require a more dedicated approach. Don't fall into the trap of assuming complicated challenges involving the creation of new business models can be solved by people in a fraction of their time. Most new businesses fail, and that's with an entrepreneur spending every minute of every day thinking about a problem.

    Many companies think that the best way to get employees to participate in innovation is to give them financial incentives. However, research summarized in Daniel Pink's helpful book Drive shows that financial incentives actually decrease performance on creative tasks. Pink instead counsels giving people autonomy, providing them opportunities to develop mastery, and instilling a sense of purpose in their work.

Role-model desired behaviors

    Innovation is an unnatural act at many companies. Leaders need to regularly role model desired behaviors to help shape their organization's culture.

    Consider prudent risk taking. While innovation is more predictable than many perceive, not every innovation effort is going to work out. The best innovators follow a process of careful experimentation, and accept that course-correction and failure are natural parts of the innovation process. However, it is hard to follow that process if people perceive that they will get punished if things don't pan out. Leaders can help to encourage the right behavior through the way in which they drive disengagement from projects, how they treat managers who work on commercial flops, and how they humanize the topic by describing their own failures.