Tim Brown: Don't just let them talk -- have them build things. The other key to innovation is that you have to build stuff. You have to prototype. As one of our guys says, "Never turn up at a meeting without a prototype." When you start to make an idea tangible for other people, they can get a hold of it and start to participate in it.
Linda Yates: I've always said that investment isn't the scarcest resource -- imagination is. It goes back to your earlier point about tension. Tension comes in many ways. For example, you don't throw $5 million, $10 million, or $15 million in financing to a company. What you are seeing now is the maturing of corporate venturing. People are creating a new venture process for both internal and external ideas and to bring them together.
Rusty Rueff: We've found that we need to provide structure in order for innovation to occur. When we were trying to develop games for the PlayStation 2, the only way we could think of to move faster with bigger ideas was to bring people from our 13 different studios together around their disciplines. For example, we had a group of artists who didn't want to create independently on the new platform. They wanted to be so much better than anybody else in the industry that they were willing to come together and share their ideas. We thought that was wild. So we immediately created the artists' counsel. Then we created a technical counsel, a graphics counsel, and a sound-and-audio counsel, and we started bringing these people together on a regular basis with some structure. Soon, ideas started to come out of the group. That's what we can do as leaders: Provide the forum and the structure to bring people together who otherwise wouldn't have met.
Linda Yates: There's an ecosystem of innovation inside big companies, and it requires at least three players: the idea person or the entrepreneurs, the angels or the VC equivalent internally, and what I like to call "mercenary managers." Those are people who may never have an idea, but they provide the functional excellence that actually takes an idea, executes on it, and creates innovation out of it.
Beth Sawi: Ideas are a dime a dozen; getting them into the marketplace is much harder. Rarely does the idea that's written on paper show up that way in the marketplace. We use the analogy of sailing: Your destination's here, but you have to tack over here, then over there.
Alan Webber: Last round. What's your actionable advice for creating a more innovative organization?
Ron Beegle: Simple. Have dreamers, have planners who can take the dream and put together a plan, and then have executors who can make that plan a reality. And let all of those people interact and work very closely together.
Simon Jeffery: Surround yourself with excellence. Don't accept the first people who walk through the door in a job interview. Make sure that you get the very best people for every role.
Tim Brown: I would argue that many of the best innovators are also the best implementers. Some of the best idea people are most satisfied by seeing their ideas get out there. The really valuable ones are those who have been around that cycle a few times. Whatever you do, don't lose those people.
Beth Sawi: Focus on making your customers' lives better. If they can't see that your innovation is going to make their hotel experiences better, their game experiences better, or their shoes better, you might as well stop now.
Arno Penzias: Change starts with the individual. So when I get up in the morning, the first thing I ask myself is, "Why do I want so strongly to believe what I believe?" Constantly examine your own assumptions.
Linda Yates: We need to create a new, tangible venture process inside organizations. Ideas need a home. They need a place to go. They need people to review them.
Rusty Rueff: The most powerful tool that we have to give people in order to be creative is recognition. One of the most creative people in our company always says, "When I deal with my developers, they have two questions: 'What's in it for me?' and 'What do I get out of it?' "
Mike McCue: Do what you love to do, and surround yourself with people who also love to do that thing and who are full of talent. If you do that, you can build a great business, you can build a big business, or you can build a small business. But you will be passionate about it, and you will be innovative as a result.
Chip Conley: The best ideas can come from your newest staff member. So we have a program called "Fresh Eyes." Usually, an employee in a service business gets a top-down review after 30 days; we have a Fresh Eyes review. The employee doesn't just review us in terms of our competency; she also asks us questions such as, "Why haven't you done it this way?"
Peter Moore: I'm a child of World War II from Liverpool. My parents grew up during the Blitz, and they enthralled me with stories of how Winston Churchill got them through as they sat in rooms with blackout curtains drawn, listening to a crackling radio, with bombers flying overhead. I have a plaque with a Churchill quote on it next to my computer. It says something like, "The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist, the opportunity in every difficulty." My advice is to see things the way an optimist does. Innovation isn't a difficulty -- it's an opportunity.
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