Get the edge by cultivating innovators

Ideas guru Tom Kelley tells Gabrielle Monaghan his new book reveals 10 key roles that any manager can adopt to stimulate innovation in their company

What do Apple Computer's first mouse, the Oral-B toothbrush for kids and Polaroid's I-Zone cameras have in common? They are all the brainchild of California-based Ideo, one of the world's largest innovation and design consultants.

The company started life in 1991 as a merger between David Kelley Design, which created the first mouse for Apple, and ID Two, which designed the first laptop computer and was run by British interaction designer Bill Moggridge. Ideo was recently named as the 15th most innovative company in the world by BusinessWeek magazine.

It has worked on more than 3,000 innovation programmes for clients such as Vodafone, the BBC, Nestlé, Diageo and Proctor & Gamble. While Ideo was best known in the 1990s for designing user-friendly high-tech products such as the Palm V, it is now focusing on showing multinationals how to focus on the consumer and how to build innovation into the fabric of their business.

Tom Kelley, general manager of Ideo and David's brother, played a major role in growing the company from a staff of just 20 designers to a firm that employs more than 450 today in Palo Alto, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, London, Munich and Shanghai. He regularly addresses business audiences worldwide on how to use innovation to transform an organisation's culture and strategic thinking.

After publishing the bestseller, The Art of Innovation, four years ago, he is launching The Ten Faces of Innovation in Europe this month.

In his latest book, Kelley reveals the strategies Ideo used to foster original thinking and overcome naysayers who stifle creativity, arguing that the corporate practice of playing devil's advocate to test the robustness of ideas is toxic.

He has identified 10 key roles developed by Ideo that any manager can adopt to stimulate innovation in a company, in a belief that companies are valued more for what they can offer tomorrow than what they offer today.

"The Art of Innovation was about the tools of innovation but, after speaking to business people all over the world, it occurred to me that you can go beyond someone who uses these innovation tools and become the innovator yourself," the author says.

"There are people out there who have latent abilities that are not brought out by managers or leaders. If we can draw out these abilities, you not only make a contribution to innovation but you give them a more rewarding work life."

Kelley says The Ten Faces of Innovation is about the roles that people can play, not just celebrity chief executives such as Steve Jobs, but the "unsung heroes" who work on the front lines of entrepreneurship. The 10 chapters of the book highlight 10 people-centric tools developed at Ideo, or personas for innovation.

The first three faces of innovation - the anthropologist, the experimenter, and the cross-pollinator - are "learning roles", according to the author. These personas are driven by the concept that, no matter how successful a company is, no employee can afford to be complacent.

The learning roles help keep teams from becoming too focused on what's happening within their own organisation, Kelley says.

The anthropologist is the person who brings new insights into a company by observing human behaviour and understanding how people interact with products, services, and experiences in order to develop new innovations.

The experimenter learns by a process of trial and error, testing and retesting potential scenarios to make ideas tangible, while the cross-pollinator explores other industries and cultures and translates these findings to fit the needs of their own organisation.

"If you're a good manager, you're a good observer of people," Kelley says. "For instance, if an employee, let's call her Rebecca, is going to a trade show, you, the manager, could tell her to do a little lunchtime seminar over pizza about what her key learnings were from this trip.

"This way, Rebecca listens better at the conference - because she has to report back - and your team actually learned something even though they didn't go on the trip. The real payoff is that, if she is good at it, she will get positive feedback from her peers and from you, and she's a 'cross-pollinator' for life.

"You've now set in motion a process by which Rebecca is helping your organisation learn at every opportunity. Multiply that by the 10 faces of innovation and your company is radiating possibilities that a company down the street is not."

The next three "organising" personas - the hurdler, the collaborator and the director - realise that even the best ideas are always competing for time, attention and resources, and are savvy about how organisations can move ideas forward. The hurdler has a knack for overcoming obstacles. Kelley gives the example of the 3M worker who invented Scotch tape and whose idea was initially rejected. He refused to give up, and staying within his $100 (€77) authorisation limit he signed a series of $99 purchase orders to pay for vital equipment needed to produce the first batch.

The collaborator values teams over the individual and coaxes people to form multidisciplinary teams, while the director not only gathers together a talented team but also helps spark their creative talents.

The four remaining personas are "building" roles because they apply insights gained from the learning roles and channel the empowerment from the organising roles to make innovation happen. The experience architect maps out how to turn something ordinary into something distinctive to connect to customers' latent or expressed needs, often commanding a marketing buzz and premium prices.

The set designer creates work environments that celebrate the individual and stimulate creativity, while the caregiver works to understand each customer and create a relationship with them.

The final persona, the storyteller, builds morale and external awareness by using compelling narratives of initiative, hard work and innovation. Companies from Dell to Starbucks are known for their corporate legends that support their brands and build camaraderies within their teams.

Kelley's new book comes amid growing recognition that a culture of innovation is critical to a company's success. Nine out of 10 senior executives believe generating growth through innovation is essential for success in their industry, according to a recent survey in almost 50 countries by Boston Consulting.