Michael looked over the new ideas his workers had submitted, feeling increasingly frustrated. As head of the research and development department, he knew innovation was the only thing that would save the company.
He and his team worked for an independent online dating service that tailored its sites to specific lifestyle groups such as adventure travellers, swingers, homesteaders, and even Trekkies. Unfortunately, there had been an explosion of competitive offerings recently, and their websites were getting less and less popular. Other dating sites had much more sophisticated features, including mobile apps, the ability to locate people nearby at the moment, and complex personality matching algorithms based on answers that clients provide to various psychological indexes.
Their traditional “list stuff on your webpage and message each other”
approach just couldn’t compete.
Michael knew they needed some innovative suggestions—he had just been hired six months earlier to lead that exact process—but everything his team brought him had already been done before. There weren’t any truly new ideas. Michael was surprised. He had done several things to motivate innovation. He had made sure everyone knew the hierarchy and that the final decision about new products was ultimately his, so they had better be prepared to impress him. He had then set up a performance incentive. The individual with the best idea in the first year would get a $10,000 bonus. There was no prize for second place, so people were encouraged to keep their projects to themselves to prevent idea theft.
Some of his employees had asked if they could go for training on mobile device application development to help them wrap their head around these capabilities. Michael saw this as a distraction from their main task, so he refused to release funds for it. “Once you have proven you can give us a competitive edge, then we’ll invest in training,” he explained.
Yet despite his best efforts he wasn’t getting the performance he needed from his team. What now?
Discussion Questions
1. Does Michael’s strategy represent best practices in fostering innovation? Why or why not?
2. Propose an alternative structure and incentive system that might help foster innovation at this company. What form would it take?
Be as specific as possible.
3. If Michael were to change his tactics, how should he introduce that change with his team to maximize buy-in and acceptance?
Explain your answer.