Creating a Culture of Innovation, Part 1: Do you have it?

Culture of Innovation

I believe that innovating is a key part of your culture for any growing, thriving organization. Innovation itself is important. I’ve been a part of organizations that say they innovate only to have systemic processes that put “innovation” in a part of the organization responsible to “innovate.” Making innovation a part of the culture means everyone is responsible for innovation. Mass innovation. Everyone innovates. I believe this culture of innovation is required to have a world-class development team.

There are tons of organizations that do not have innovation at the center of what they do. They’ve still been successful. Many are larger, more traditional organizations. Some organizations don’t have this issue; they’ve grown up with innovation and freedom as a part of the culture. Examples that get mentioned commonly in the press are Google, Facebook, smaller start-ups, companies where innovation was required to survive/grow/dominate. Many of us find ourselves in organizations not on the cover of magazines about how innovative they are; these tactics are for us.

I spearheaded the transition of a fairly large team (75 people or so across many teams) to take on a culture of innovation between 2012 and 2014. The firm I worked for was highly successful, growing at a rapid clip and taking on new technology and new products very quickly. The process required new product ideas to come through a central part of the organization and the rest of the organization helped develop, sell and deliver those new products. We had an untapped potential of very smart development and delivery folks who didn’t feel they were a part of the innovation process. I had a problem because the individuals on my development team didn’t embody a culture of innovation.

What we could be?

We needed to push beyond the label “innovation” and look at the behaviors that yield the feeling of innovation. Translating that feeling into specific behaviors makes the next steps actionable. So I took a look at the actions I saw that I liked, or didn’t like - and worked to figure out how to create incentives for the innovative behaviors.

Do you have it?

Here are some of the telltale traits I’ve come to believe reflect that we missed the culture of innovation. Our teams didn’t spend time on ideas that generated within the team. Our teams didn’t tackle things that were outside of what they had done before. Our people were stressed about delivering on existing commitments. We rarely changed course from one iteration to the next based on new information we learned. The team wasn’t celebrating the impact on the users of what they were delivering. Our people were focused on titles, position, winning and losing.

Not all of these traits are just about innovation, but I believe without this foundation were unable to innovate fully. We weren’t going to have each individual on all teams be willing to propose an idea, share new learning, inform the creation of a better product and suggest disruptive new technologies that would change our capability as a product development team.

Spoiler Alert: We Succeeded

We succeeded in creating a culture of innovation across many teams, in many office locations, in many different product areas. I’m going to dedicate a series of posts on some of the key learning and activities we employed to make the change effective.

Book Review: The Hard Things About Hard Things

I recommend The Hard Things About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz. It's a book that chronicles experiences and lessons he’s had through the founding and running of an Internet company over many years. It’s written in an easy to read format, in plain terms that I can relate to. Not to mention it quotes rap lyrics which sings to me in particular.

The book is organized but not so processed that the lessons are too abstract. It provides insight into specific difficult times - raising money, laying people off, pivoting a business. It’s up front with the idea that there isn’t necessarily a theme except that these are hard things that any CEO may encounter, most specifically someone leading a start-up.

The examples in the book come from Ben’s specific experience in starting a company during the dot-com days. I also started a small tech company during that time, and I found the stories very relatable. Even if my experience was smaller his experiences mirrored my own. In particular, in the section "when things fall apart." There are hard things you can’t be prepared for, but you must deal with regardless. There are decisions and options you never knew were coming. I found the lessons relatable even for an executive in a leadership role in a larger company, particularly "how lead even when you don't know where you're going."

The book walks through the history of being a CEO through tough times. In particular the stories of how to continue to survive are very real. The chapter on taking care of "the people, the products and the profits" outlines examples. Pushing yourself to see all the options, even those you don’t want to pursue, is at the heard of being a scrappy start-up. And as a leader, you have to make tough choices. He talks about changing the focus of his business, letting people go, hiring the right people and firing the wrong ones.

He also brought some insight into situations such as when to bring on people who have “big-company” experience. His description of what the difference in small-company and big-company leaders helped me understand my own transition from small start-up experience to my recent work experience with a larger company. How you work and prioritize your time is very different, and as someone responsible for taking a company from small to big I can imagine it’s hard to know when you need folks with each kind of experience.

Ben has turned his experience and observation of how tough it is to be an entrepreneur into a style of venture capitalism. VC with sympathy for the entrepreneur. The books describes how he and his partner, Marc Andreessen, manage their relationships with start-up founders. They recognize that although they have the capital, the founder is very much on the hook for results to everyone involved.

There are great key lessons that I took away from this book. On how to execute layoffs. On exploring all your options. On leadership and supporting your staff. On seeing things through and sticking with it. On how hard it is to lead, especially at the top. And the importance of advisors. 

In the end, I like that the book talks as much about running a business as it does how to make money. And it avoids the trap of just talking about "how to make an exit" that you might expect from a VC.