How can HR facilitate innovation?

I listened to an interesting podcast recently from the CYA Report team - "How HR is Killing Innovation with Hitendra Patel" Sure the title is a bit sensationalist, I personally don't think HR is killing innovation but poor HR certainly can.

Hitendra Patel is Managing Director for IXL Centre, an innovation consulting firm among other interesting positions such as Professor of growth and innovation at Hult International Business School.

There are a few thoughts and quotes from Hitendra that I'll draw out and discuss. It sounded like Hitendra was calling in via phone rather than in studio which made it difficult to catch each word however i'll do my best to capture Hitendra's statements when quoting him (apologies if this isn't a direct word-for-word).

Organisations tend to have people who fall into two categories; employees who diverge in their thoughts and employees who converge in their thoughts.

Staff who diverge tend to bring new ideas from outside the organisation into a discussion and are quite comfortable (and even enjoy), conversations taking creative twists and turns as ideas are explored. This could be sparked from an article they read, a new website they discovered or a fresh experience they had over the weekend.

Staff who converge tend to enjoy structure and focus. This can be formulating lists, plans and clearly executable action items on next steps. You might see them frustrated with meetings that lose focus or take too long and may actively cut them short to bring things back on track.

"We need the person who diverges, because those sort of people look beyond the boundaries of the organisatoin for dots, new dots, new ideas and eventually you'll need more dots than the dots that exist in your company but you'll eventually have to connect the dots. 

The person who converges doesn't like that space as much and will compress it but the person who converges is necessary because sometimes we do have to shut up and move forward and this can bring discipline to the process. Put those two people in the same room and we will have a fight but we have to teach each other how we will work with each other to collaborate." - Hitendra Patel

It's about building an organisational culture that allows both traits to co-exist and add value to the organisation in their own way; the people who create the dots and the people who connect them. Hitendra rightly points out we have a habit of hiring people just like ourselves and so it's important to make a conscious effort to consider if the organisation has a healthy balance to stimulate innovation (and make it stick!).

Innovation is about an experimentation cycle and iteration cycle

Experimentation cycle

This cycle is where an individual innovates and tries multiple different approaches. Think of a scientist or engineer who might not know exactly where the answer lies and so will test several options at the same time to see where they lead. This will inevitably lead to failures but that's the point of the experimentation cycle.

Hitendra talks about how many organisations stifle innovation by punishing failure, rather than seeing it as part of the experimentation (i.e. learning) process.

Iteration cycle

This is when a wining idea or process is found and resources are then spent on a continuous improvement initiative. This is a standard process within organisations as they look to streamline processes, refine procedures etc. However an iteration cycle without an experimentation cycle can open the risk of people barking up the wrong tree to begin with.

"When we look at most other functional jobs within companies, sales marketing, operations - we only give people one chance to do their work. We don't design in multiple cycles of experimentation and when you don't do that your staff are only going to take low risk and only do things that are 'right' or what you have done yesterday because you have not designed in opportunities for learning." - Hitendra Patel

Overly prescriptive position descriptions stifle innovation

This was an interesting point because in my experience position descriptions tend to have a surprisingly small impact on actual work performed. All too often I have encountered PD's covered in proverbial cobwebs reflecting a time and place sometimes years back. I'll assume then that here Hitendra is more so referring to an organisational culture that builds strictly defined position limits.

People need room to move, grow and change. To look beyond their day job and ask 'What's next?' 'What if?'. As mentioned above, if employees always do tomorrow exactly what they did yesterday they're not going to innovate. There's a useful metaphor mentioned in the interview where Hitendra talks about basketball players - given their experience they don't have to expend all their mental energy dribbling the ball (representing their day job). They instead focus on who they will pass the ball to, where they will play the court, the next decision they will need to make - future focused.

The Star Model

Today's post is dedicated to Jay Galbraith, an American organisational theorist who lives on through his Star Model framework for organisational design.

The Star Model

In reading up on the Star Model one of the main elements I connect with most is it's appreciation that you can't just pick up your desired culture off a shelf and insert it into an organisation. I believe culture is an emergent property of the organisation in which it resides and so what leaders can do instead is build the strategy, structure, processes and reward systems etc which then act as the foundational framework for a culture to form. 

One critical element is the type of people that reside inside the system. People are individuals and act with their own motivations, behaviour, skill sets as well as strengths and weaknesses (relative to the system). Part of picking the right person is 'culture fit' however from Jay's examples below it's clear that there is also a strong element of hard definable skills that contribute to suitability.

Flexible organizations require flexible people. Cross-functional teams require people who are generalists and who can cooperate with each other. Matrix organizations need people who can manage conflict and influence without authority. - Jay Galbraith

When things go wrong (or right!) it can be easy to point directly at a particular structure or process for responsibility however there is merit in considering how those elements exist inside the organisational system as a whole. Perhaps there is more than one element out of alignment or there may be other elements influencing the outcome that on the surface were overlooked. Make sure you take a moment to assess if your energies are being focuses in the right place (or places).

Most design efforts invest far too much time drawing the organization chart and far too little on processes and rewards. Structure is usually overemphasized because it affects status and power, and a change to it is most likely to be reported in the business press and announced throughout the company. However, in a fast-changing business environment, and in matrix organizations, structure is becoming less important, while processes, rewards, and people are becoming more important. - Jay Galbraith

The quotes above were from a whitepaper on the Jay Galbraith website that provides a great, high level summary of the Star Model. Also below is a short video on the model, as well as Kates Kesler's Five Milestone Design process.

Active Talent Management

I had the opportunity to speak with a Talent Acquisition Partner with one of the Big Four (banking) recently and got some interesting insights into best practice human capital acquisition and development.

The main item I got out of the discussion was that turning what some organisations do passively into an active and planned process can bring a wealth of benefits. By active and planned I am referring to not simply considering these items at recruitment time but having these as ongoing processes that exist alongside other business functions.

Below are some thoughts:

1. Understand and (know how to) seek out the company values.

There's a difference between simply stating the values and ticking a box to having a conscious criteria in order to identify and select talent that displays them. Talk to senior leaders to unpack what the core values mean to them - you might be surprised. In any case it's important that the business is consistent in its understanding when it builds culture around a values piece.

I was listening to a podcast this morning on HR Examiner where Jason Averbook (thought leader and CEO of The Marcus Buckingham Company) referred to engagement specifically driving performance. Here he was talking about measuring engagement however in relation to my point here - if a company's values are a true representation and platform from which the company culture grows; then one should be able to successfully identify talent that will engage with those values.

2. Understand and assess managers' needs. 

A natural progression from the point above. What does the manager need tactically and strategically in order for this role add further value to the team and the organisation? When a vacancy arises, this is an excellent opportunity to move things around with greater ease than you can with an incumbent already in the role. However going back to my point on being active around talent - this shouldn't only be considered when a vacancy arises. It can involve development plans for current employees.

Through a manager considering their human capital strategy, they can paint a better picture of what talent they have now and what that needs to look like 12 - 24 months down the line. With that knowledge a talent professional can then integrate that into their function when screening, providing gap analysis support, advertising to candidates etc (Whatever their touch point in the function happens to be).

3. Build a talent pool both internally and externally. 

Expressions of interest for non-live roles can be a useful way to assess the market both internally and externally in the organisation. Just make sure that you are honest and upfront about the process however so you don't unwittingly mislead external candidates or internal employees.

Having a talent pool internally allows you to identify high performers and act on development opportunities within an organisation. If we take a hypothetical example, let's say Manager A is has an upcoming project and you know Employee B (situated elsewhere) is keen to develop in this area and has relevant, transferable skills. This could be a great opportunity for development via a secondment across the business however it may not have eventuated if systems were not in place to identify and capitalise on it.

Sure Manager A would have solved the issue one way or another but it may have come at the expense of an internal development opportunity. Let's not forget that this can also foster cross pollination of skills within the business.

5. As a side point on Graduates - Look beyond just the grades.

Finally, an as an aside to the flow above... this is something I assumed however it was nice to hear it from another professional in the field. Graduates are interesting because they often (due to their very nature) don't have the same amount of work experience to build off when justifying their competence. Given this, a natural point to turn to can be academic grades.

Is academic ability important? Certainly. However academic grades are one dimension of picking a successful candidate and shouldn't come at the expense of the correct values and culture fit. A disengaged employee is a disengaged employee regardless of their Distinction average.

Graduates are an investment an organisation wants to make over the long term - which would explain why so many graduate processes are particularly rigorous!