Benchmark Study

Organizational Management

Nipa Patel

MBA-580-R5034

Dr. Alyssa Dassa

22nd August 2021

Organizational Management

3M's Experience towards Innovation

  3M takes a long-term approach to the new-product-development process by creating a culture of innovation that encourages risk-taking, endures mistakes made along the way, and rewards achievement. This involves accommodating ideation sessions in which the innovation champion creates an environment of trust and openness. Only by breaking out of their usual comfort zones can teams create truly disruptive technology. However, it does not put too much structure on innovation, making it hard for its implementation to be hard through some strain

3M strategy is the science and art of using the resources of the business to execute approved plans as effectively as possible. A culture of 3M manage innovation means that senior management encourages employees to spend a substantial percentage of their time on products and research that go beyond their usual scope of responsibilities. Employees need to feel that the organization supports their innovation through its resources and incorporation of the project in product development frequencies. The outcome is seriously controlled by leadership support, mainly the top leaders such as CEO. The strategic employment apparatuses are made possible by setting stretch targets, allocating resources as relaxed, encouraging employees to innovate as they get the support, they all need, and providing resources support along the process.

The organization uses an experimental by fire approach to encourage product title holder and develop a clear and consistent pool of resources to enable the innovation process. Enabling the process is pooling together all the innovation and strategic teams such as project managers, marketers, and technical knowledge staff; needed to create awareness and breakthroughs in the innovation process. 3M engineers understand customer product needs by getting out to the customer in their natural environment and spending time with them. They look for and listen to their customer’s point of view. 3M maintains that customers inspire their innovation and when listened to them, customers will help solve problems. Allow employees to work on what they are passionate about. Give employees authorization to experiment and work on projects that they love. Promote innovative ideas and empower employees to look at their daily tasks through an innovation lens. Despite the fact people are encouraged to work on their ideas, they must complete their billable work first. When innovative ideas make it through the ideation phase, employees are given technology grants to pursue these ideas. Using social media technologies to promote relationship across the enterprise; crowdsource good ideas within the organization and capitalize on those innovations. Establish committees to grant duties to individuals and groups for the new ideas.

Significant features that promote innovation

At 3M there are many different reward and recognition programs aimed at encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship e.g. Inventor Recognition Program, Technical Information Exchange , Engineering Achievement Award of Excellence, Alpha Grants for innovation in administrative, marketing and non-technical areas, The Technical Circle of Excellence and Innovation and to recognize manufacturing breakthroughs, Corporate Quality Achievements, The Process Technology Awards, The Genesis Program, The Carlton Society, Pathfinder Program and Innovation Stories. And as 3M puts it: “Innovation thrives on personal recognition matched with financial support” (3M, 2002: 41). To drive long-term change, financial rewards must be associated to a company’s mission. For 3M, this meant HR professionals had to analyze recompense and benefits plans and shift plan designs to more directly link pay and performance. For performance-based programs to be effective, the target-setting and rewards for achieving targets must be perceived as justifiably fair; otherwise, trust depreciates. It is not so much the amount of pay but rather whether the amount is perceived to be fair. 

The importance of permission to play is that it allows employees to create a room out of their daily routines and further their innovative projects before they reach the level that will require the organization's involvement. senior management encourages employees to spend a substantial percentage of their time on products and research that go beyond their usual scope of responsibilities. People will be willing to exploit and push their innovation time with a freedom that makes it better than if there was no permission to play.

At 3M, the culture traditionally revolved around collaboration, individual initiative, tolerance for mistakes and the absence of pressure for short-term results. 3M have continued to accept mistakes as a normal part of running business. It's important to add, however, that they expect to have creativity in their mistakes. They can afford almost any mistake once; 3M had promoted mistakes as a method of discovery and learning.

Comparison between 3M and case scenario

The main difference between the two organizational structures is the approach towards innovation. The organization case study follows a centralized and standardized approach in making decisions centrally from the top pyramid. The organizational case study feels firmer and complex regarding innovation as there is no proper channel and criteria for the innovation. The outcome leads to a organization that can slow any innovation process that might not even be clear in the first place. 3M's can be said it has all structures supporting innovations; senior management encourages employees to spend a substantial percentage of their time on products and research that go beyond their usual scope of responsibilities. Employees feel that the organization supports their innovation through its resources and incorporation of the project in product development frequencies.

Formal project management approach consists of using traditional project planning, scope, and benchmarking in order to manage a project. The technique consists of using traditional tools and techniques for managing a project. Whereas; informal project management approach doesn’t involve using strict standards and rules for managing the project. The management approach focuses on open communication and greater flexibility. The difference between formal and informal innovation management is that one has the freedom to play along and change it as the innovation evolves and develops. And the other expects that it's already ready and might be just remaining implementation.

Innovation is entirely related to communication as the members or employees are never sure if the innovation idea in their mind will be accepted and even considered. If there are no clear organizational structures like in the case study, employees might decide to stay quiet. 3M’s innovation is the cornerstone of their past, present and future success. They have always allowed their employees to be entrepreneurs within the company. However, in 3M's, there is room for expressing innovation, and they can be supported to pursue their ambitions. 3M has made communicating corporate messages accessible to all. The company uses the all three channels of communication, vertical, horizontal, and external, to communicate company messages and information.

Process gaps for the organization

In the organization overview, the organization structure needs to change from being standardized and centralized but distributed, and middle-level managers have some clearance concerning motivating employees. A clear innovation channel is needed towards every innovation idea than working on all projects in multitask, which can make it hard to know the real promising ideas than being busy for nothing. Organizational structure can only support innovation if roles are distributed and communication is seamless. The organization needs to have a more open communication and encourage their employees to get out of their comfort zone to create innovations.

An effective way of incorporating fundamental and extrinsic motivators in the job is to combine both rewards. Provide financial / physical encouragements through bonus, cash, shares, and additional holiday.  Importantly though remember that not all are of equal value in the eyes of the employees. Some will appreciate the time off, for example, more than pay whilst others may prefer to pay and even like to work extra hours. Also provide non-financial rewards and recognition for innovative ideas. Provide support for trials of new ideas.  Reward creativity with promotion opportunities, job rotation, international assignments but being aware of different needs. The organization could reward innovation with responsibilities, flexible working, work away from work, and one important reward to encourage innovation would be to encourage employees besides the mistakes and help them improve their mistakes.

The organization needs to examine its timeline to identify how long-term projects can succeed by investing in SMART. Setting a series of SMART goals and significant milestones will not only help to measure success as the project unfolds but also make it easier to notice which adjustments need to be made to ensure it stays on track.

Sources

3M. (2002). A century of innovation: The 3M story! 3M Company