Employee Engagement Through Innovation

Recently, Ancilla Enterprise Development Consulting launched a movement for national innovation by inviting Herman Gyr Ph.D. and Lisa Friedman Ph.D., principals of Enterprise Development Group, a consulting company based in Palo Alto, California to conduct a CEO Forum and an Innovation Skills Boot Camp. Gyr and Friedman have consulting practices that span Europe and the United States. Being at the center of innovation that is Silicon Valley, they came to share their insights and impart innovation tools and skills.

Sponsors to the events among others are national associations such as the AIM Alumni Association, People Managers Association of the Philippines, the Philippine Society of Training and Development and the Organization Development Practitioners Network and the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

We are fortunate to work closely with them as partners and we had the privilege to have deep conversations that resulted in this interview article.

Tita: Why is innovation so important in this day and age?

Lisa: For two reasons.  One, today many economies are struggling. Manufacturing is shifting. Business is shifting. Whole industries need to reinvent themselves. Many countries are losing their manufacturing base. They have to find solutions solve economic problems. They have to invent solutions to revitalize their economy. Second, man today is facing many big problems that did not exist before and they need to be solved. These problems are global warming and environmental disasters. He has to seek solutions and this means to innovate.

Herman: There is a third reason, the digital revolution. Look around you in this restaurant, people have gadgets that did not exist when I visited the Philippines 16 years ago, three people using Ipads, even that two year old watching a movie through a tablet, everyone with a cellphone. In the world today, things change very quickly all the time. There is the constant digital revolution, speeding up of new technical developments. A whole new world is opening up with potential for whole market. Take for example the apps stores innovated by Steve Jobs. What is wonderful is the world can benefit from innovation. A relatively poor person can have access to all information. This is a revolutionary moment, where we have access to information to express ourselves, to innovate.

Lisa:  Even the nature of change is changing. Everything is  speeding  up. People have always been changing but the difference is change today is exponential. Changes also have completely changed culture. Exponential changes are happening almost every 18 months. It all began with the microchip.

Tita:   Does man have the capability to cope with all these changes?

Herman:     Creativity is not a limited resource. Man is capable of developing new ways of thinking, learning, communicating and managing information. For example there is a physics experiment today that can only succeed if 7000 scientists are connected to each other, trying to discover the building blocks of the universe, how did it all started. During the time of Einstein he worked probably with a small group. Today with technology, one can study in collaboration with others, complex problems, thinking of things the world has never thought of, it is a new era of innovation.

What is exciting about this moment is that technology is very cheap with instant connection with the world, there is  no difference where you are in the world today. It gives the small country an advantage. Take for example the Philippines.  English provides you the opportunity to connect to the world, you have a global language, no reason why  you cannot develop a Silicon Valley here.

Lisa: In fact in the United States, many young people leave stable jobs and start things on their own. This is the story of most successful innovations.

Tita: Today the Philippines is a major business process outsourcing center from IT, finance, human resources, customer service. Over a million people are employed in said companies. Can this industry lead to innovation?

Lisa: Definitely, people working in these industries acquire skills that can be put at the service of innovation.

Tita:  How do you differentiate creativity from innovation?

Lisa: Innovation is taking your creativity into something that creates value in the market. This is innovation.

Herman: It is creativity that delivers a value to a market. Something new is not necessarily innovative. Innovation delivers value, creativity is an important quality to enable innovation.

Tita:  In the case of developing countries like the Philippines, can’t we just be followers, can we just wait for innovation to come in?

Herman: Innovation is all about creating a community of users. Community is built by a first mover. If we just improve a little bit, we fall behind exponentially. Innovation is an economic engine, that must remain viable. Innovation means innovating processes and products to existing customers who want more. It is all about inspiring and engaging employees and getting them involved in the process of innovation. If you don’t innovate you fall behind. You have the capacity to do things better. It maybe corporate culture that holds people back, if you make people wait, this destroys the innovative spirit, people lose energy.

Tita: Talking about culture. Can national culture be holding back our ability to innovate? Filipino culture is often described as one that has high power distance with a strong respect for authority, more collective than individualist, more short term in thinking and risk averse,

Lisa:  The opposite is in fact true. Philippine culture has all the ingredients for successful innovation. It is not the individual alone but the group, the team that innovates. It is not about being reckless but it is about truly delivering value to the customer by managing risks.

It is about creating a value proposition that pays off. It is about leadership inspiring innovation.

Herman: Let us debunk the negative myths of innovation. What is best for innovation is doing it with others, not alone. It is not taking big risks, but managing risk taking. Venture capitalists do not take unnecessary risks, the idea they fund has great chances of being successful in the market. What is the market opportunity? We teach the discipline of innovation.

Lisa: We teach how to do innovation in person or on line. We have tools where people can vote, teams work out their value propositions, we have judges who sit in panels, we have contests that surface best ideas tapping the wisdom of the crowd, we look at which value propositions get the most votes, the customers are your gauge.

Herman: This is the age face book and twitter where human activities and exchange of ideas are happening in virtual space, we can solve things together.

Lisa: We can have bottom up  campaigns that can lead to strategic areas. Leaders can ask  for innovation, people look at leaders to run innovation campaigns. Working for example with a client in London they will be running a campaign that will supports the summer Olympics, where leadership defines an area of strategic importance. People and leaders must know how to develop innovation, people should not be punished for innovating.

Tita: How did you get interested in innovation as a consulting practice?

Lisa:  We felt and saw the need. The companies and industries we were consulting with were changing rapidly. They needed to be redefined from television, newspapers, post office, telecom, health care. There is potential disruption in these industries due to change. Innovative processes are needed. There was need to reinvent industries, some growing quickly, others smaller and more streamlined. It grew out of the work of the dynamic enterprise we wrote in our book ten years ago. It is about how to look at the future.  This is the work we have been doing for 25 years. It is also being based in Silicon Valley and proximity to Hollywood the center for entertainment. We have developed powerful innovation tools that we have seen succeed across continents.

Herman: We are truly happy being able to share to Filipino CEOS and people who will support innovation what we have learned for the past 25 years.

In closing, we are grateful to the Principals of Enterprise Development Group for their selfless support to our campaign for national innovation.