There are impressive resumes, and then there’s Terry Jones’. He founded Travelocity.com in 1996 and led the company as CEO until May 2002. He also helped to found Kayak.com and still serves as its chairman of the board- in addition to being the managing principal of On, Inc, a consultancy he co-founded to help companies in their transition to the digital economy.
Jones (pictured here) has written a new book titled On Innovation. One of the themes is listening to young people in your company. That’s interesting because I was just emailing with David Neinstein, director, operations, at bisnow Media. He is a young guy at a young company, and spoke of innovation when I interviewed him earlier this year. “We want to constantly innovate and that held true to hiring practices as well,” Neinstein told me. He went on to describe a series of tests they came up with that mirrors a typical day. “So our interview is designed to mimic reality of the job and increase the odds of a fit.”
Neinstein’s new process was successful, and Jones wouldn’t be surprised. “The future for any business today depends entirely on its ability to innovate, and the youngest adults, ‘the idea generation,’ know that,” says Jones. “The millennials are the group known for pioneering new ideas, rethinking processes, end-running hierarchies and solving problems by doing what simply makes sense to them. We need to listen to them; they’re the innovators!”
SIPA 2013, June 5-7, in Washington, D.C., will have two key sessions on this topic, titled Breakthrough Product Innovation. Part I will deal with Idea Generation & Vetting and be led by Dan Brown and Stephanie Eidelman. Part II will focus on Turning Ideas into Real Products and feature Brown and Ed Coburn.
A global survey of adults born after 1982 found that only 26% believe their bosses are doing enough to encourage innovation. The study by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, published in January, reported 78% believe innovation is crucial for growing businesses. Jones says there are definite steps business leaders can and should take to ensure their company is hearing employees’ ideas, recognizing opportunities, and ensuring a clear path to innovation.
1. Build a culture of experimentation. Not every project will succeed but you can’t learn from mistakes if you don’t allow them to happen. The corollary: Always analyze what went wrong. Why didn’t it work? One fast and easy way to experiment is to test options out online. Whether it’s polling customers, measuring which approach gets the best response, or allowing a segment of your customer base to test drive a new tool, the results can be invaluable.
2. Kill projects not people. In many companies, people stop offering up ideas and volunteering for projects because the punishment for failure is greater than the reward for success. Lunch with the boss or a $100 bonus do not compensate for the risk of being demoted or fired, or suffering a tarnished reputation. When a project fails in a company with a culture of experimentation, the first thing you should do is say, “Bob, what would you like to work on now?”
3. Break through the “Bozone layer.” Some of the greatest ideas for innovation will come from the employees on the front lines—those in direct contact with customers or production. But their ideas may never float up to the executive suite because it may be too risky for middle managers to experiment. While you’re turning the culture around, find ways to reach down to the front lines to solicit ideas. Implement them and reward the contributors with a big, public shout out—which will help you start changing the culture.
4. Install “sensors” to pick up customers’ ideas. Don’t just look to employees for innovation–learn from your customers. They have ideas for new products and new uses for existing products, and their customer service complaints are a fertile source of ideas for improvement. Listen! Social media or a forum on the company website is a good sensor for picking up ideas; For customer service complaints, Travelocity installed a lobby phone booth where anyone in the company could listen in on customer service calls. Once a month, everyone was expected to provide feedback on at least two of those calls, and suggest an improvement to eliminate similar future calls.
Attend SIPA 2013 and learn more about innovation!
Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @SIPAOnline