Leland Teschler's Editorial: Another 80 Years of Innovation
Appears in Print As: Another 80 Years of Innovation
This issue marks the official 80th anniversary of MACHINE DESIGN’s debut in September of 1929. Despite being published in a time of crumbling economics, the writing in that first issue had a tone of guarded optimism for the future.
What gave rise to this hopefulness was a spurt of innovation in the 1920s led by new developments in automotive and radio technologies. So it is fair to speculate about the advances that will begin to change the industrial landscape as we embark on the next 80 years. In this issue you’ll find educated opinions about where we’re headed from a number of experienced technologists.
Clearly, innovations have set the course of technology. But an increasing number of observers say the culture and environment within the U.S. does not foster innovation. Gerard “Gus” Gaynor is in this camp. He was once an engineering manager at 3M and now is a consultant who has written several books on managing engineers. Gaynor worked at 3M back in the days when Post-it Notes and other classic innovations were emerging. The experience gave him a ringside seat on the development of products now considered textbook cases of innovation.
“The U.S. government is talking about innovation as though you get up tomorrow morning and innovate. They don’t understand the process. That’s not how it happens,” says Gaynor. A frequent mistake is to confuse project management with innovation, he says. And he adds that true innovation seldom comes from the upper ranks of company management. It is more likely to bubble up from the bottom of the org chart. After all, “The Xerography process was turned down by General Motors, Kodak, and other companies,” he points out.
Firms that give employees free time to pursue their own ideas are more likely to spawn innovations, he says, but only if they hire employees with an innovator’s mindset. He cites a time in his own career when he gave one of his engineers several months to work on projects of his own choosing. Within a few days, the man was back looking for an assignment. “Some people crave freedom but don’t know what to do when they get it,” he says.
But Gaynor says many companies today simply lack a culture of idea exchange that promotes innovation. “It used to be that people would go to lunch and keep talking about what they were doing on the bench,” he says. “But when I talk to younger people today, they often say they wouldn’t consider discussing work on their own time.”
He thinks cubicles are another obstacle. “Engineers once sat in bullpens. When you were going to lunch you might stop and talk with someone about what you were working on,” he says. “You’d yell across the room for a print and your colleagues would have a general idea about your problems. Now, people lock themselves up in cubicles and you don’t get the same kind of information sharing. People in cubicles next to each other will communicate through e-mail rather than face to face.”
We might be tempted to add that people holed up in cubicles are also more likely to spend time on pursuits far afield from company business. They may not innovate, but their Facebook page will be right up to date.
— Leland Teschler, Editor
Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2012 Penton Media Inc.
© 2012 Penton Media Inc.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Magnoliacom
Newsvine
Furl
Facebook
Google
YahooAdvertisement
Supplier Search
Plastics Search
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Comments
Micromanaging, Ownership, and Privacy
I had several thoughts on this article, and was glad to see many of the comments reflecting my own perspective.
1) "If you just show up, put in your time, keep your desk clean and do what you're told, you're rewarded with a raise and a nod of approval, even if you did little to "raise the bar" to make products better. "
Couldn't agree more. I can't tell you how many times I've had my hand slapped for doing my job in a way that management didn't understand or value. Like spending too much time on an idea they didn't like, or a lack of appreciation for improving a product (on company time) to the point where I'm personally proud of what we're selling. These days I clean my desk because of what it looks like to other people, and make sure my salute is sharp and clean when I get my next marching orders.
2) "Mr. Gaynor is wrong, however, about bullpens and cubicles. This is a simplistic explanation for an Engineering department’s lack of innovation... In fact, as much as I hate cubicles, I hate bullpens even more (Can we think of more ways to demean Engineers?)."
Amen to that! As an introvert (Meyers Briggs INFP) who processes internally, my best creative, innovative, & clever moments have been in private when my thoughts can run free un-intruded by the unavoidable eaves-dropping into co-workers' conversations. Privacy = efficiency. As far as acoustics are concerned, I work in a carpeted "library" of cubicles, where you can hear a pin drop or the random conversations from any of the other 20 people in the office. Yelling across the room? There's no need; in fact you can't even have privacy in your conversations if you wanted it.
This all boils down to: in conversation, you are incessantly talking with no less than 5 people at a time, maybe no more than 15. Socially and emotionally exhausting to be talking to a crowd the whole day. Bullpens would be so much worse.
Floor to ceiling glass cubicles with glass doors? Now there's an idea. Maybe with windows for communication when you need it 20% of the time, and the accessible acoustic privacy when you need it the other 80. There you have it: Privacy for the engineer, and the available Transparency for how you're spending your time.
3) “But when I talk to younger people today, they often say they wouldn’t consider discussing work on their own time.”
If I have 1) no ownership of my projects (via micromanaging) and 2) an environment which is a constant intrusion to my privacy (and therefore efficiency), why would I want to use personal time to continue either? Quite the contrary; in fact I'm going to use my entire lunch break to get back what I have been denied the entire workday.
In summary, I believe innovation grows best in an environment conducive to the individual's personality and style of work. An environment designed to get the BEST out of an individual. To expect it without paying attention to the needs of your people is shortsighted at best, a willing ignorance at worst.
Innovation
Innovation has suffrered for 3 main reasons:
1) Engeineers are increaingly forced by company and government mandates to spend a greater precentage of time
training and complying with edicts on subjects that often add no value to the companies products. The business majors solution is just that they will have to put in the extra time to do this but the reality is that humans havre only so much energy and these activities drain energy that would otherwise be used to innovate. They also tend to be morale destroyers.
2) Tinkering is discouraged if not downright forbidden. In our situation R&D is the only salaried deprtment that is required to account for its time project by project every week.
3) Related to #2 above, there are whole departments created just to oversee adhereance to metricsadding no value of their own, that are constantly prodding for better performance so workers dont do anything else. In addition they set up multiple database to "manage" that they constantly want updates to and not only does the information in differenrt places often not match because its done in a hurry this again becomes a non vlaue added activity that saps energy.
Stifled Innovation through "Managed Creativity"
This topic is very dear to me, because I believe I'm witnessing a terrible decline of innovation within my company. It was started in the 40's by an engineer/entrepreneur, and so it used to be managed by fellow engineers who came up through the ranks. But many of the old guard have now retired and been replaced with business majors. Hence, the company character has changed dramatically over the past decade to become much more board-of-directors driven. Everything must have a plan for guaranteed return on investment of resources.
I deeply sympathize that business majors don't understand the "magic" that engineers do. But our business and technical staff used to maintain a mutual respect for each other's contributions to the bottom line. Our former methods were clever and gave us dominance in our market, even against competitors with much larger staffs and budgets. But despite this proven track record, the new guard has seen fit to pervert our engineering process in several critical ways. These are not given in any particular order; they occurred simultaneously and work cooperatively to undermine innovation within our company.
The first was to stop recognizing creativity in performance reviews. If you just show up, put in your time, keep your desk clean and do what you're told, you're rewarded with a raise and a nod of approval, even if you did little to "raise the bar" to make products better. But if you are full of ideas, work extra hours trying stuff, if you raise objections when you know a plan won't fly, if you offer instead a more clever approach based on science and experience, if your desk is messy, but the most successful products bear the marks of your innovation, you get the same raise with a reluctant handshake, maybe even a note on your review how you could be a better conformist next time.
The second was to discourage tinkering and experimentation by tightening the grip on time and budgets. Every expenditure and hour has to be accounted for in a deterministic fashion. Everything has to conform and be "on plan" - you can't do anything unless you were told to do it from above.
The third was to adopt "lean Sigma" aka "Managed Creativity" approaches to product development. This approach has appeal to business majors because it has the appearance of defining new products through a turn-the-crank process that can be measured and orchestrated. This fits right in with the critical error to "confuse project management with innovation" as Gus Gaynor states in this article. It begins with a narrow focus on asking customers to reflect on past or competitor products rather than on the synthesis of market needs and emerging technologies with the spirit of invention. This distinction alone is enough to move your company from a market leader to a market follower! The new approach continues by attempting to "level playing field" so that non-technical people get an equal vote during brain-storming sessions. These sessions tend to produce cardboard "prototypes" that have no basis in technical reality.
The fourth is to isolate engineering from the field. Don't let them talk to end users, contractors or field support. Don't let them travel out of the office. Filter everything that they hear (questions or comments), and filter everything they write (replies, suggestions or instructions).
Nerds of the world, Unite!
Innovation:
I think Mr. Gaynor is right about the tendency to confuse innovation with project management. In fact, I’ll go as far to say that project management is often confused with Engineering. It's a part of the job, not the whole thing.
It is the job of the Engineer to innovate all of the time – not just when needed. Innovation isn’t a spigot that can be turned off when you don’t need it.
Innovation is a use-it-or-lose-it deal. Innovation starts with talent and imagination, but it requires learning too. An Engineer has to learn how to go from being imaginative to innovative.
That takes practice.
Mr. Gaynor is wrong, however, about bullpens and cubicles. This is a simplistic explanation for an Engineering department’s lack of innovation. (It’s like when Ross Perot claims that Americans aren’t competitive with the Chinese because the Chinese have to learn a lot more alphabet characters.)
In fact, as much as I hate cubicles, I hate bullpens even more (Can we think of more ways to demean Engineers?).
No, the key to innovation is to get the Engineers out of the cubicles. Efficiency and personality placement is how you do that. Too many companies overstaff and subdivide projects into small boring pieces. Few Engineers in that project have an overall view and those that do are usually acting more like administrators with little time to innovate.
I can assure you that after 25 years of Product Design and Development, on a wide variety of projects, that one Engineer can do an awful lot of Engineering. Companies with lots of Engineers need lots of projects to keep them busy and innovating.
That’s the ideal—Unfortunately, truly talented Engineers are few in number. What’s more, they are hard to hold onto because mundane jobs drive them insane. Innovative Engineers are not hard to find, they’re the guys that apply when you advertise that you have challenging work with a good chance of failure (few companies have the guts to place an ad like that). They also show up with a portfolio of past accomplishments—that’s right, they’re usually experienced.
Many Engineers are what I call “Spreadsheet Engineers”. Those are Engineers that are content to do the “mundane” stuff, the PM, the cost tracking, the testing and the compliance.
And as an innovator, I say thank God for them!
The mistake many companies make is to put those guys in charge and make the innovators work for them. Positioning those guys as support for the innovators is a far wiser and highly effective strategy.
The Spreadsheet Engineers need just enough authority to keep the Innovator Engineers within cost and time margins, but not enough to over manage the design details.
It has to be a shared power and a flattened management structure.
The bottom line is that an innovative company must hire experienced innovators, hire only enough to keep the workload full and keep bureaucracy off their backs.
As for new Engineers, bring them on board and give them the freedom to gravitate to where they feel most comfortable. You’ll have a fresh crop of Innovators and Administrators for the future.
You'll also find that some of those Spreadsheet Enginners will become Innovators. Those that don't will still be valuable resources. Everybody's happy.
Innovation - In Today's Economy Not a Favored Approach
Innovation is valuable. It sets us above our competitors, both domestic and foreign. But to be totally frank, innovation involves risk and funding. In today's economy very few are willing to add risk or spend money not needed for their core product line.
"I command you to innovate."
This title was sent out with the MD Tech Insider and is certainly thought-provoking.
I always find it interesting when Congress (or the President) mandates new fuel efficiency standards, assuming they will just magically happen and cars will remain unchanged in price, performance, size, and safety. So if they can mandate an increase to 35 MPG, why stop there? Ask for 60 MPG or 100 MPG.
Leland's comments about younger engineers not wanting to talk shop at lunch is enlightening as well. I would like to think that most engineers get into this field because they love making things work, coming up with new ideas and turning them into reality. Is that true of these younger engineers, or are they in the field just because a high school guidance counselor recommended it or maybe just because they think they can make a good living doing it?
Bottom line: Passion brings about innovation, and sometimes from the most unexpected sources.
Leave a comment