My baby started kindergarten yesterday. Actually, he’s not the baby, he’s the oldest. But sending the first one off to “real” school, though exciting, causes a momma to reflect on how quickly the first five years of his life have gone. And I realized that many of those first five years have been captured in the inspiration he has created in the way of blog posts. So here’s to Andrew and all the lessons he helped inspire before he even launched his formal school learning…. Do you want to go to timeout?
Is there such thing as too big in business? Can a company become too big and therefore too bureaucratic, thus limiting its ability to innovative entirely? To address this question, the easy answer is to just point you to reading The Innovator’s Dilemma. It answers this question thoroughly. But for the sake of this blog post, I’ll tell you, it depends. The book will tell you it depends on whether or not what you are creating is a disruptive technology or a sustaining technology. The best way I can describe the difference in the two is that sustaining technologies improve
“We have rules.” Was one of the first things a CEO of a highly innovative company that has also won several best place to work awards, said to me when I asked him what the secret sauce was for a best place to work. Honestly, at first thought, I wanted to say, “Really?” He went on to site some examples, but it took me a while to digest and understand, in my please-throw-out-the-employee-handbook type mindset, what he meant and why he was right. And rules don’t have to contradict the need for a certain amount of freedom that is necessary
“The competition to hire the best will increase in the years ahead. Companies that give extra flexibility (freedom) to their employees will have the edge in this area.” Bill Gates I can’t neglect (since I missed the window over the 4th) to make sure to make a point about freedom during our nation’s birthday month. And as by coincidence or actually, by what really makes a whole lot of sense, you can’t talk about what drives innovation without talking about freedom. America is a country that was built around the concept of freedom. Despite a presidential campaign grounded on “Making
“At Google, we front- load our people investment. This means the majority of our time and money spent on people is invested in attracting, assessing and cultivating new hires.” – Work Rules! Let’s face it, hiring is where your organization starts. It’s where HR starts its job and quickly proves or disproves its value, and it is where, as I saw through digging through lots and lots of research and writings by those who are winning in business, where you need to be focused on intently if you are going to be able to have an innovative workplace. But we’ve