Culture of Innovation, Human Resources, and the Renaissance.
In the 15th century AD, in Italy and mainly in the City of Florence, there was a significant cultural movement, The Renaissance. In this transitional period between the Middle Ages and the modern age, extraordinary artists and scientists emerged who marked humanity with their creativity. Do names like Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, Donatello, Bruneleschi, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, or Nicolás Machiavelli sound familiar to you?
But what happened in Florence at that time? Why so many artists and scientists? Some rare genes attacked the city and caused tons of talent never seen in humankind’s history? Was it by spontaneous generation?
At that time, Florence was a prosperous city, with merchants and successful bankers as part of its society. One family of bankers in particular inhabited Florence in those days, the Medici.
The latter and other society leaders decided to invest in making Florence the most beautiful City in Christianity. Thanks to that decision, public policies, religious and private tenders were implemented to beautify the city.
These economic, political, and religious leaders weren’t just throwing money away and waiting to see what would happen. They were intensely involved in the process of encouraging, evaluating, and selecting the jobs they wanted to see done.
In this way, artists went from being artisans to master painters, architects, sculptors, etc., well paid, recognized, and admired by society. They were the rock stars of the time.
Answering the questions I asked in previous paragraphs, there are several reasons why great artists emerged explicitly in this city and at this time, but perhaps the most important is that the leaders had the vision to be the most beautiful city of Christianity.
And as I also mentioned, these leaders not only declared it, but they made sure that their vision was fulfilled, facilitating everything necessary to achieve this great goal. They created an ecosystem and habits so that the entire society was involved in the process.
The same happened in the Greece of the philosophers and the Silicon Valley of the entrepreneurs; ecosystems are created to encourage a specific area or group of people. It is not that the Silicon Valley people are more intelligent or creative; their ecosystem makes things easier for them to be carried out (investors, funds, banks, creativity is promoted, smart failure, technology specialists, universities, etc.).
What is my point? To create a truly innovative organization is not only to declare it; it is to live it every day; it is to create an ecosystem that facilitates the experimentation of new ideas.
So everything starts from the vision. Do you want to make your company a truly innovative organization?
Innovation is a buzzword and activity, but it is not done by generating new ideas in a workshop once a year or a month. Innovation goes further; it is experimenting, learning, experimenting, and relearning all the time.
To create an innovation ecosystem, you first have to find those organizational barriers that prevent you from doing so. Once the barriers are located, you will have to create BEANs. This word is an acronym for Behavioral Enablers, Artifacts, and Nudges.
These BEANs are ceremonies that allow innovation to flow and permeate as an organizational habit and not just as isolated actions.
- Behavior enablers: they are tools or processes that make it easier for people to do something different — examples: Innovation kits, digestible methodologies, etc.
- Artifacts: Things that can be seen and touched and support the new behavior. Examples: Post-its, innovation rooms, idea walls, etc.
- Nudges: a tactic drawn from behavioral science, they promote change through indirect suggestions and reinforcement — examples: Reminders, rewards, etc.
Examples of BEANs.
- Google. At Google, a BEAN is conducting to attack an innovation barrier: lack of time for workers to experiment with new ideas. So they created the BEAN called 70–20–10. This BEAN is an intervention that facilitates the experimentation of ideas. Of the total work time, 70% is dedicated to daily work, 20% to improving ideas, and 10% to creating experiments.
- Adobe. Employees apply to receive a “Kickbox” containing an innovation training kit, including exercises and a checklist for developing a new product or service idea. And then make a pitch. It also includes a pre-loaded debit card with USD 1,000 to be used to validate the concept.
Who can create BEANs?
Innovation leaders can create BEANs. Still, these areas are often blinded and do not identify the barriers preventing them from having the desired innovation culture. We could involve the Human Resources department in these issues and develop an authentic culture of innovation within our organization.
In this way, we kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, we create a BEAN and an organizational culture of innovation.
On the other hand, we involve an area often forgotten to innovate, the Human Resources department.
We regularly have a very functional perception of the HR department; that is, we believe that HR managers should only find, involve, retain and encourage people.
However, people are the main engine of understanding between peers; innovation arises from empathic and user knowledge, and who understands the user is another human being. Therefore, innovation comes directly from people, including finding, involving, and incentivizing key talent to generate it.
It is sad to see (according to the HR InnovAsian Report) that only 20% of Human Resources people are heavily involved in innovation issues within their organizations.
Thus, Human Resources should develop the correct cultural transformation type alongside the innovation department to achieve the innovation objectives. Both departments have to provide an environment of internal entrepreneurship, recognition, and incentives to generate and implement new ideas. That is, create your own Florence inside your organization.
In a study conducted by consulting firm KPMG, only 47% of employees are allowed to take risks, and only 52% report that their bosses are good at hearing new ideas.
But in turn, 60% of the people interviewed are convinced that leaders’ trust and empowerment are the primary motivators to generate innovation.
Therefore, the Human Resources department must necessarily enter the innovation agenda of any organization, that is, to have a more active role since the cultural change of experimentation and failure is a fundamental part of sustainable innovation.
Large companies such as Apple, GE, Procter & Gamble, 3M, among others, have in common the integration of Human Resources as a priority area to develop innovators’ culture through innovation, idea management, risk management, collaboration, and creation of BEANs.
Today, the Human Resources area has the great opportunity to continue with generic processes or change towards an organizational culture that promotes new environments that generate new ideas, empowerment, co-creation and become the strategic area that it consistently should have been recognized.
Thanks!
