In promoting innovation in your organization, how do you identify and characterize the roles of leadership, pay incentives, training,

and education? Creativity and innovation are on the menu of skills that companies are now looking for in recruiting employees. This is why companies are increasingly hiring graduates of arts schools. For existing employees, according to a Boston Consulting Group survey, not enough companies link incentives to innovation, while many companies clearly recognize the potential impact of metrics on behavior, very few firms attempt to aggressively leverage it by tying employee incentives directly to metrics. Indeed, less than a fourth of respondents said their companies link the two consistently, and nearly a third of our respondents said that their companies do not link incentives to innovation metrics at all. Measuring Innovation 2006 PDF attached I know from my own experience that while many companies may not have explicit incentive programs to motivate innovation, many recognized innovation implicitly in their mainline compensation programs. However it is up to the supervisor to recognize an employees innovation contribution. There are however, some employee suggestion programs that offer incentives for innovation. One example is Canon when employees make a suggestion for a new idea to benefit the company, they are awarded variable amount of points. Every year the company has a Presidents Award to the top 20 employees who have acquired the most points since the program began. They are awarded cash and a gold medal. While employers indicate that creativity skills are important, they are not doing much to train their employees. According to a study by the Conference Board, Educators and employers both feel they have a responsibility for instilling creativity in the U.S. workforce (83 and 61 percent, respectively). However, their current creativity building offerings dont match this desire. Ready to Innovate PDF attached Despite these findings, there are companies who not only realize the importance of innovation and creativity but they are looking to the arts to foster innovation and creativity. In my article How Business is Using the Arts I display how some companies are using the arts to foster creativity and innovation.

How Business Uses The Arts

COMPANY McGraw Hill Companies American Express Unilever UK Halifax PLC Principal Financial Group PricewaterhouseCooperss Bristol-Myers Squibb Barclays Quest International (ICI). Jet Propulsion Labs ARTS-BASED METHOD Theater, Jazz Music Visual Art, Music, Theatre Theatre Visual Arts Theatre Storytelling Music Art (Paintings) Storytelling BUSINESS OUTCOME Leadership Development, Corporate Values New service ideas Corporate Culture Improve Communication Skills Generate new ideas, new ways of solving work challenges Leadership Development Knowledge Management Team Building New Product Development Capturing Tacit Knowledge

http://clevelmanagers.com/id4.html b. What is the role of leadership in creating, managing, and sustaining innovation in your organization? The key to fostering innovation is leadership and how leaders influence the corporate culture. Leaders must build a culture of trust, one that promotes information sharing and a clear statement that creativity and innovation are encourage and will be rewarded. Here is an example of what is needed, Seth Waugh, CEO of Deutsche Bank Americas, cited culture as a critical factor in promoting innovation. Business leaders, he said, create this environment by offering incentives for workers who innovate and by making it clear that innovation is expected. "You must have people with that hunger to always learn, who are always open and who think about things in a different way. You always have to reinvent yourself tomorrow." http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1569 I remember early in my own career when I suggested a similar program and was quickly rejected. The culture didnt get it. If I worker for a company such as Deore Consultancy Services my idea would have been approved since their culture statement includes, All of our managers care strongly about people who have stake in the organizations business (employees, customers, suppliers, etc). They also value leadership and other processes that can promote innovation and initiative. http://www.edeore.com/culture.html

c. What are the ethical implications of an individual reward system? Support your answer. While there is substantial material on Business Ethics in finance, executive behavior and other business functions there is little on the ethical considerations regarding compensation or reward systems. However, ethics as applied to rewards or compensation systems involve how these systems are designed to encourage employees to go beyond legal compliance and motivate them to act in morally, ethically manner. It also places a requirement on leaders to fair in how employees are compensated and rewarded. Here is an example, The bank identified five core values, namely: confident, creative, responsive, international and trustworthy. They educated their internal audience in a series of communication exercises. They did not stop with that. They have instituted a system that ties up individual employee behaviour within this value framework to the individual reward system. I found it remarkable how they have found a balance between performance and values. They have retained the performance appraisal in the proverbial 1 to 5 scale. But significantly, they have a parallel, A to E grading, for values practised, based on all round feedback. So, an employee can be a 4C, 3E etc, making it a twin snapshot of his performance and his values, both of which the bank values. The bank demonstrates it by linking salaries, increments and bonuses to both the scores. http://www.ashokleyland.com/ceospeaks.jsp?CEOId=6 d. Would you describe your organization as innovative or non-innovative? Why? Explain your answer. FOR this Question Please look at a Company that maybe in the Import/Export field. I would select 3M and Deore Consultancy Services as described above. In addition, BusinessWeek magazine has an annual Most Innovative Companies report. Apple Computer was number 1, for three years. Innovative products such as the i-Pod, industrial design and superb stores. I know this first hand. I went to an Apple store to buy a hard disk. Even though the store was busy, and this was in the morning on a weekday, an associate quickly approached and the service was excellent.