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Dear Reader,
Welcome to the July 2007 edition of Innovation
Matters. A lot has happened since the last edition. I have
been in Mexico visiting my old friends at Selther as well as
creating a network of local representatives to sell and
deliver creative4business branded services within Mexico.
Whilst in Mexico I was overtaken by a Taxi with a coffin
strapped to the roof, got stuck in a car park, climbed to the
top of the pyramid of the sun, went shopping for play
dough (all in the cause of work) and had my luggage mislaid by
Continental Airlines. Was it worth it? Of course, my head was
bursting with ideas when I returned.
In this newsletter I take a different look at
'Lean', the transferability of the Innovation model and
provide some tips on time management courtesy of Ricardo
Semler, author of Maverick and The Seven Day Weekend.
I hope you continue to enjoy these articles and the
regular trivia/tips items.
Happy reading and enjoy your summer
holidays Derek Cheshire
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 Is it good to be
lean?
Many people believe that lean 'everything' is
good without knowing what it really means. Even the term 'Lean
Innovation' has been used. How can a process that can
potentially generate hundreds or thousands of new ideas by
described as, or made lean? Could it be that we do not know
what lean actually is?
I started thinking about 'lean' whilst on holiday. I
booked a last minute break to Greece and was expecting the
worst, only the sun could make up for the horrendous time I
was expecting to have. Nothing could have been further from
the truth.
We did not have to pick up our tickets at the airport, we
had brilliant transfers, we picked up our hire car in the
middle of nowhere without signing any paperwork .... Hang on,
you said ....Yes I know it sounds odd but it was just
symptomatic of the way in which the holiday company, car hire
company and all of the rest of the components were plugged
together.
On our Greek island it would be impossible for a coach to
visit all of the accommodation but we all had hire cars. The
solution was to leave a line of hire cars by the side of the
road, drop people off and let them drive to their villa and
fill in the paperwork later and let the car hire company
collect it in the evening. This was heaven compared to waiting
for 2 hours in blazing sun in Majorca before picking up a car.
Their answer was cold drinks but it still took 2
hours.
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 Innovation and
culture
Whilst talking
to many people about innovation there is one question that
they all ask. 'Do you have experience of of working in my
industry sector?'. Quite often the answer is is 'no' and the
conversation ends there as many people are risk averse. I have
always maintained that the good innovation models (mine
included of course!) can be used in any industry and any
country.
The drivers for innovation, the support processes that
need to be put in place and any other strategic concept are
all transferable. What is not always transferable is the local
detail e.g. how do you manage knowledge locally, impart ideas
to those from a different culture or even run training
courses. I always maintain that the greatest experts in any
industry are the company themselves. They have the knowledge,
they need a model. Why pay huge fees to buy often
contradictory advice from a company or consultant that claims
to have industry specific knowledge.
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| Time management - the Semler way
Ricardo Semler is best known for his alternative
methods of running Semco. His ideas on time management are not
quite so radical. If they work for him it they will work
for you. Give it a go!
- Begin at the end. Set a time to leave your office and
stick to it. If you normally leave at 7pm make it 6pm.
If you take work home at weekends, give yourself 60 days in
which to stop.
- Sort through the papers on your desk and prioritise
them. Giving them equal priority is cheating so go back and
start again. Priority items that can only be handled by you
should get your attention. Items that can be handled by you
but are not urgent can wait, items that someone else can
deal with should be delegated and those articles that would
be nice to read but remain unread should be put into the
bin.
- Invest in new equipment, at least one new waste bin. Ask
yourself, what is the worst thing that can happen if I throw
this out? If this does not give you palpitations or cause
you to break into a sweat then throw this document/clutter
out too.
- Think before accepting lunch appointments or other
invitations. You can always say 'no I can't fit you in' or
'let me know what happens'. Remember this is your time you
could be wasting.
- Take a look at your meetings. Are they necessary or can
a phone call be used instead? Make sure they start on time,
have an end time and a prioritised agenda. Keep reports
short, avoid overhead or data projectors and never turn out
the lights. If an item looks like it will overrun then give
it to one or two people to run with outside the meeting.
- When telephone messages are taken, ensure that the
caller is asked for detail about the call, not just their
contact details. If there is no detail, ignore the message,
they will either provide detail or give up (cold calling
salesmen fall into the latter category).
- Give yourself time to think. This can only be done in
leisure time, not whilst you are busy doing something else.
With no time to think you cannot be
creative!
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