Only 1 in 5 chief executives believe their companys investment in innovation are paying off.

A very important article from Kotter.  However, it is not often that I have an opportunity to disagree with John Kotter but here goes...

#1 of his six tips begins "Innovation only comes by invitation."  My take if you are inviting innovation you are not establishing the kind of environment Kotter next describes. 

Actually, you only get innovation by creating cultures of innovation.  Some do it temporarily with innovative events (designs, agile, kaizen, etc).  However sustained innovation only comes with a business designed to be innovative - which also means removing barriers to innovation. 

Here is a good question... Is your organization designed to consistently deliver surprisingly great solutions to customers?.... or is it designed to maximize risk avoidance?   My experience is that it is the later rather then the former.  Which one do you see as innovative?

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A good tip for facing difficult times...when you are not making progress think about the metaphor you are using for building your organization.  I've used the Jazz Model for collaborative work.   

To see your organization differently you have to look at it from different perspectives.  That includes your mental models.

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Getting focus

There is a good design principle at play here - design your organization for focus.  Some of the investment community had become concerned about this great organizations ability to focus.  The recent CEO was serving on more than 20 corporate boards.  Bill Akman - leader of a hedge fund with more than 30 million shares of P&G - estimated that 25% of the former CEO's time was spent attending board meetings.  Not good for focus. 

Here the organization has subdivided from two groups into four.  Make no mistake we are in a period where a type of de-centralization is taking place.  When performance and real organic growth are important organizations need to create focus that gives them the ability to make decisions faster...focused decision.

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Organization Design

As medical entities are scrambling for structures and alignments for survival positions, some interesting forms are emerging.  However, structure will always depend upon behavior...and a healthy dose of trust.  Cooperative models have been around for years with many good examples.  These usually exist and succeed when there is mutual benefit, balanced power and mutual respect.  Great leaders in these organizations will need to manage from a value of collaborative intent.   Overcoming natural self interests for the sake of collaboration benefits will not be easy.

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What limits do you put on your organization design?  Accomplishing strategic objectives could mean that you expand your organization into the world of collaborating with your competitor - as in the case of Toyota and BMW.  In their case, choosing collaboration over competition makes sense.  The need to create new advances in energy storage is driving companies to make strategic collaborative arrangements.

What partnerships should you be considering in your business?

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Mansur Habib reminds us of the a great philosophy in smart, elegant design - The Sweet Spot.  In most designs there are tradeoffs.  Unfortunately, we often skew designs to extremes - as in the case of IT centralization vs. decentralization.   Too much either way and you put something at risk... fail to push the design to the appropriate edge and you miss potential benefits.

Remember in design work there is no rule of one form of organization being better than another... it depends on many factors.  Good organization design considers the whole system and looks for the Sweet Spot.

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