How to Create a Happy Work Environment

While speaking at a conference on “happiness at work” in Copenhagen, I met Cathy Busani, the Managing Director of Happy, a training and consultancy business operating in the U.K. Although they only employ 30 people, Happy has won wide recognition for its innovative approach to management and to customer service. I was intrigued by her philosophy and asked her five questions about happiness at work.

Q: Why is happiness at work important? What evidence do you have that it improves business performance?

A: We believe that if your people are performing their best, then your business cannot fail to perform at its best. And people perform their best when they are happy and feel good about themselves. Therefore, ensuring this is the primary job of every manager. We feel so strongly about it, we ask our staff to complete a “happy check” every few months, which asks questions like “How do you feel walking in the door in the morning?” (from Depressed & Despondent to Eager & Excited) or “How stressed do you feel at work?” (from Very Stressed to Never Stressed). Making staff happy is a serious business!

Q: I heard you say that in happy organizations, the employees pick their boss and not the other way around. Can you say more about that?

A: We believe the people who manage staff should be in that position because they are great at it, and not just because they are great at their core job. Therefore, we believe people should have the right to choose who supports, nurtures, coaches and challenges them. If they do choose this person, they are much more likely to value that relationship and get the most from it. So throughout your career at Happy, if you want to change who manages you, you just have to ask. In most cases, we find people don’t change managers, partly because we have picked managers for their people skills. However, sometimes a change is requested. For example, one person chose a new manager because he had taken on a new role and felt the new manager would challenge him more. On another occasion, someone asked to change her manager because they had become friend’s with their current one and this was causing some issues between them.

Q: I love what you say about failure. Not only do you embrace it, but if someone is not failing enough, you assume something is wrong. How do you practically apply this in your organization?

A: We strongly believe that in order for there to be innovation and creativity in the culture of your business, people should “celebrate” their mistakes. In other words, try something out—if it goes wrong, adapt it and learn from it, but don’t try to hide it. We don’t actually throw a party when someone makes a mistake (and we don’t condone somebody getting the same thing wrong over and over), but everyone is very open and non-judgmental. We believe if you haven’t made any mistakes in your first three months at Happy, you aren’t really trying very hard.

Q: In your company, everyone knows what everyone makes, from the managing director down to the janitor. What are the advantages of this? And has it ever caused any problems?

Read the rest of this article on the American Express OPEN Forum

How Small Businesses Can Leverage Crowdsourcing

Open innovation and crowdsourcing promise to revolutionize the way companies innovate and develop new products, create marketing campaigns and solve problems of all kinds. Unfortunately, there is more confusion than clarity about how to best utilize these approaches. Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Dwayne Spradlin, CEO of InnoCentive, one of the early pioneers in the open innovation market. He is the co-author of a new book on open innovation and he shared his perspectives with me.

Q: Your book is called The Open Innovation Marketplace. From my experience, there are many definitions of open innovation. What’s yours?

A: Open innovation (OI) is essentially not traditional or closed innovation, the latter having been the dominant mode for companies throughout the 20th century. In the closed innovation model, innovating relies on internal resources, problem solvers and experts to solve problems or capitalize on opportunities, whereas in OI, problem solvers and knowledge are widely dispersed and may reside outside the company. Additionally, closed innovation is often practiced by rigid “not invented here” cultures that focus too much on who solves problems, whereas companies that have embraced OI tend to have more open and collaborative cultures that embrace external ideas with the focus on finding solutions to key opportunities and challenges.

It’s the notion of challenges, in fact, which lie at the center of OI from our point of view. Challenges are specific, detailed, and actionable problems or opportunities. Via rigorous methodology, problems that matter are defined, prioritized and converted into discrete challenges. These challenges are then formulated and configured for specific channels (e.g., internal groups or divisions, external crowdsourced communities). The tail end of the challenge process involves submission evaluations and triage, legal and intellectual property treatments for the chosen solution, and awarding winner(s).

Q: Large companies like P&G, Eli Lilly, and even NASA using open innovation. How do you see open innovation being used by small businesses and startups?

A: From our experience, some of the best examples come from the nonprofit arena. These organizations are small and have limited resources similar to that of any small business. Nonprofits such as the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, Oil Spill Recovery Institute (OSRI), and Prize4Life have leveraged open innovation to great effect by focusing their efforts on specific challenges or a series of challenges that, with their limited resources, they could not tackle and solve alone. The beauty of open innovation is that it enables all companies, big and small, to leverage the same diverse global communities of problem solvers.

One of my favorite examples of a small business leveraging challenges is Precyse Technologies, a firm that specializes in radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. Like many emerging high tech companies bringing cutting edge products to market, Precyse sought to improve the performance and battery life of its mobile computing products. A challenge was posted to InnoCentive.com and more than 500 problem solvers from 64 countries contributed their ideas and technical expertise to help solve it. Within 90 days, Precyse received 33 relevant submissions—several which offered novel, innovative solutions. The winning solution, which was truly a breakthrough, entailed harvesting energy from radio waves to significantly extend the battery life of Precyse’s RFID tags. The overall experience for Precyse was extremely positive, as the solution enabled the company to get to market faster, lower costs and improve overall utility to its clients in what is a highly competitive market.

Q: What are the mistakes that many companies make when implementing open innovation?

A: The biggest mistake we see is when companies try to “bolt it on” to existing innovation practices and processes. They try to dip a toe in the water and often achieve mediocre outcomes as a result. Or, they approach OI only tactically, and in some cases myopically, as they don’t understand the broader implications of what OI can do to transform their cultures and their businesses. It’s particularly hard for companies that are very rigid and set in their ways. It’s a corporate mindset issue more than anything. The companies that tend to use OI successfully are those that are willing to embrace and combine both traditional modes of innovation (i.e., internal innovation, stage-gate) with newer forms (e.g., open innovation, crowdsourcing), but do it with an integrated set of new processes and reward mechanisms. You can’t keep rewarding people only for solving problems when their job should be finding solutions (inside or outside).

Read the rest of this article on the American Express OPEN Forum

Microwork Sourced Innovation Article

In my blog entry yesterday, I posted an interview with a woman who does “microwork” on the fiverr site. Be sure to read that interview first as context.  Now, as promised, here is the article on innovation she wrote for $5.  Not bad, if you want my two cents…

5 Ways To Make Your Company More Innovative

Innovation is one of the most important things to keep constant in your company. Without new ideas, it’s impossible to stay ahead of the business curve. For a good example of what innovative staff can create, look at businesses like Google or Apple. Both are innovative companies, and both are extremely profitable. It’s easy to see why you should encourage innovation in your staff as a business owner.

1. Hire innovative and creative people for your company. If you continually hire people who lack creativity, or even a spark of passion for working in your business field, you aren’t going to get people who are going to be innovative. When you need to hire an intern, look for an intern who has a lot to say about what the company should do, as well as being able to help out around the office. By hiring people specifically because they are creative, you will create an atmosphere that promotes new ideas.

2. Offer rewards or bonuses for employees who come up with imaginative solutions to normal problems. Giving people an incentive to “think outside the box” is one of the quickest ways to get employees motivated to start thinking differently. If you need to be blunt, tell them flatly, “Any time that you think to yourself, ‘I wish our product had this feature,’ tell us. If it’s a good idea, we’ll pay you a bonus.”

3. Take half an hour to an hour every week to come up with new ideas. Call it a creativity break, call it a brainstorm, but meeting up with employees every week for the sole purpose of figuring out innovative solutions to all sorts of problems is a great way to get the wheels turning. Some businesses even take time off to let their employees partake in creative exercises such as painting in order to boost employee imagination in other realms of work. Moreover, these meetings offer a great opportunity for employees to prove their creative abilities to higher ups.

4. Even if the idea is downright awful, do not overly criticize or embarrass the employee who suggests it. In order to encourage others to share ideas, it’s crucial to avoid making employees regret presenting their ideas. No matter how bad the idea may be, thank them for their input, and encourage everyone to contribute their ideas to the table. Embarrassing one employee will make others think twice about sharing any ideas with you.

5. Keep staff up to date on what other companies are creating. Sometimes, reading a news article about the latest app to hit the market, or a new method of marketing is all that a person needs to jog their creative streak. Keeping staff updated on the latest in your business also will provide the added advantage of more knowledgeable staff on all levels of your business. Encourage your staff to come up with similar ideas every time you forward them an article. Talk about your business field, and keep them engaged. The more they think about the field they work in, the more likely it is that they will come up with a brilliant innovation that can turn into huge profit.

An Insider’s View on Fiverr and Microwork Outsourcing

As readers of this blog know, I am always interested in exploring different forms of open innovation, collaboration, and outsourcing.  Personally, I have used a number of sites including 99designs.com and elance.com.  I have used these for the development of logos, graphics, websites, and research.  In most cases I would pay several hundred dollars for the work.

An interesting trend has emerged: microwork outsourcing.  This is work that can be completed in a matter of minutes and costs only a few dollars.

My favorite microwork website is fiverr.com.  Here you can hire people to do lots of things for only $5.  I saw that someone offered to write an article for only $5, so I hired her to write an article on innovation.  I was impressed with how she could pull together something of high quality so quickly.

This got me wondering: Can she make a living at $5 a time? How long does it take to complete a $5 job?  And why do it at all?

So I invested another $5 and hired her to write another article.  But instead of writing about innovation, I had her answer five questions about her experience on fiverr.

1. How did you write an article on a topic you don’t know so quickly…and for only $5?
Coming up with methods that businesses can use for innovation and creativity actually is something that I know very well. As an ex-model turned writer/teacher/businesswoman, I try to incorporate as much creativity into my life as possible. None of my income would be possible without a high respect for imagination. As a business owner, I realized quickly that low prices sell large amounts of goods, and it also is a very decent gig for me. Eventually, I will raise my prices, but not yet.

2. Why do you sell your services on Fiverr, when you could probably make more money per gig on sites like eLance?
Actually, I tried eLance, but never quite seemed to get any jobs off it. The minute that I tried Fiverr, I managed to get a gig in the first day. When people actually noticed that my work is decent, the orders poured in.

3. Is there enough money to be made doing micro work? Or do you do this for some pocket money? How many gigs can you possibly do in one day?
I do up to 30 gigs in one day. Microwork can be a decent way to make money, but I think having a part time job is also a smart idea. I like a balance of work.

4. How much time do you spend, on average, for each gig? I was impressed with the article you wrote on innovation.
Depending on how much research I do for the gig, I can spend anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour or so (when I decide to watch TV or eat while working). My typing speed is notoriously speedy, so doing research and actually just compiling my thoughts coherently are the bulk of time spent on each gig.

5. Anything else you I should know about you?
Because of the extreme injustices that have happened to me as an inexperienced model, I have recently taken up advocating for women’s rights, as well as model’s rights. One of my photographers gave me a website which I update with my own blogs about various subjects that I feel are important to women, men, and everyone in that industry. I don’t think that many people realize how corrupt, how sick, and how twisted the world of modeling has become. This is the reason why I warn my students’ parents against getting their children involved in child modeling, and also warn young teenagers who want to follow in my footsteps about the dangers of being a model.

All forms of open innovation, crowdsourcing, outsourcing and microwork are evolving.  They are redefining what “work” means for individuals and is creating new career models.  It provides exciting opportunities for both the buyer and the service provider.

Tomorrow I will post her article on innovation.

Why Edison Was Wrong

Researchers often throw around the Edison quote, “I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”

Researchers use this quote because it “validates” the iterative development innovation process, which is the cornerstone of most R&D departments. They have convinced themselves that they learn as much from their failures as they do from their successes. Call it what you want, the 700 attempts were failures.

This viewpoint goes counter to the concept of open innovation (external crowdsourcing). When some R&D people look at open innovation, they see it as linear rather than iterative; post a challenge and get a solution. This seems inconsistent with their belief in learning from failures.

Perhaps the value of iterative development is overrated.

What if Edison found a solution to the light bulb challenge on the first try? Would that be bad? Would he have continued to find the 700 ways that did not work? Did the 700 failures really add that much value? Can R&D organizations afford to fail 700 times? Not in today’s competitive environment.

Read the rest of this article on the American Express OPEN Forum

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