Book Review: Serial Innovators by Claudio Feser

As part of our pilot of the getAbstract service, I have opted in to get a monthly email where the service selects a book for me and emails me a PDF of its 5-page summary. Last month I received Serial Innovators by Claudio Feser. Since the Corporate Strategy & Engagement department, of which Autodesk Labs is a part, is keen on innovation, I thought I would give the PDF a read.

Here's the gist:

• Approximately half of all businesses don't survive beyond a decade; only 15% live for 30 years and of those, only 5% make it to their 50th anniversary. Those that do survive do so because they are serial innovators. I worked at Océ when it celebrated its 125^th anniversary, but it has since been bought by Canon. So without innovation, even old companies are not safe.

• As companies age, they develop rigidities that prevent them from changing and adapting. To bring about change and innovation, managers can tap into the psychology behind what makes employees act the ways they do.

• Employees don't always realize it, but they are often susceptible to biases.

  • Optimism bias: Experience is not always a great guideline. What worked in the past may not always apply to unusual situations. Fresh, outside viewports can combat overly optimistic judgments.
  • Loss-aversion bias: Fear of losing is often more welcomed than winning. Tying success to results instead of decisions helps mitigate this.
  • Status quo bias: Sticking with what is known best fosters resistance to change. Removing the status quo as an option negates this.
  • Representativeness bias: Great minds think alike. To combat stereotypical thinking, build a diverse workforce by encouraging job rotation.

  Recognizing these biases and addressing them is the first step towards serial innovation.

• Employees need to be instilled with self-efficacy -- confidence and strength. Employees who overcome difficulties believe they can accomplish more and set subsequent goals even higher. Learning from role models helps nurture employees in this direction.

• Research in neuroscience indicates that employees act on emotion instead of logic during times of stress. Positioning workplace issues in a positive frame is conducive to lowering stress.

• Organizational structures are normally hierarchical. This can lead to rigidities.

  • Bureaucracies: Hierarchies were initially formed for efficiency, yet as corporations grow, the extra layers of management slow things down. To avoid the slow down:
    1. Rank objectives by analyzing long-term goals.
    2. Set priorities with five-year horizons.
    3. Designate ad-hoc teams to handle fast-moving or unexpected events.
    4. Give teams autonomy to work.
    5. Standardize what works as corporate policy and job descriptions.
  • Loss of purpose: To engage employees fully, use motivational stories that appeal to employees' sense of purpose.
  • Change-resistant corporate culture: To create an execution culture, foster values, norms, and unspoken ideals that encourage achievement. For innovation, encourage flexibility, inventiveness, and openness.
  • Poor incentives: Psychological research shows that incentives tied to social recognition, performance feedback, and intrinsically attractive work are more effective than monetary rewards.
  • Adherence to the status quo: To accelerate growth, invest in new, untried strategies by welcoming testing and investigation.

  Addressing organizational rigidities is another plank in the quest for survival via serial innovation.

• The book concludes with Feser's Corporate Fountain of Youth that includes:

  1. Cultivating the desire to make a difference to fulfill employee's yearning to be part of a greater cause
  2. Building a team of learners to form self-assured teams
  3. Positively framing the corporate vision to instill optimism
  4. Building on self-managed independent lean teams with evaluative metrics
  5. Promoting the corporation's drive to perform and grow with stretch goals
  6. Investing in capabilities to add to core competencies
  7. Cultivating a culture that fosters execution by welcoming creativity and new ways of thinking

In terms of Autodesk, Autodesk Labs is a vehicle that is available to all parts of the organization. Teams who wish to innovate can make technology previews available and let the customer feedback shape the technology. Since technology previews happen at the early stages of development, taking chances on innovation approaches to design technology is encouraged. Believe it or not, failure is an option. Some technology previews go on to become stand-alone products/services or get incorporated into existing offerings. Others die an early death.

The breakfast of innovation is alive in the lab.