Ep.197 - Enabling Innovation

Jason addresses listener question: How do you capture bottom-up innovation as organizations grow bureaucratic and less nimble? He reveals the framework: regional leadership sets minimum standards, provides framework and boundaries and support. Teams exceed standards, stay within framework, innovate. Spend time with your best people, send best people to anchor projects, if you send everybody to crap projects you're incentivizing everybody to be crap. Fresh eyes meetings at project start, one third, two thirds. Jim Collins discipline: Do you have discipline to fire when they don't meet expectations, keep best people on best projects and not dispatch them to play savior?

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Framework revealed: Regional leadership sets minimum standards, framework, boundaries, support. Teams exceed standards, stay within the framework, innovate.
• Anchor projects strategy: Send best people to anchor projects not crap projects, creates competition and motivation, incentivizes good behavior not whining
• Parenting analogy: Spend time with good kid, if you always play savior with bad kid the good kid will go off deep end for attention
• Fresh eyes meetings: Project start, one third, two thirds, diversity of thought prevents drift into failure, tour each other's jobs mandatory
• Localize everything: Set goals on the job not centrally, clarity document on job, training on job, let them have own systems for own customers
• Jim Collins discipline: Fire when don't meet expectations, reorganize failing teams, keep best people on best projects, let teams have autonomy, decentralize anticipation of problems

Regional leadership tells what the expectations are, project teams say how and reach goal with right support and resources.

Also, here are links to our YouTube Channels:

· Jason Schroeder YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4xpRYvrW5Op5Ckxs4vDGDg

· LeanTakt YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/leanTakt

· LeanSuper YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzQDevqQP19L4LePuqma3Fg/featured

· LeanSurvey YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Ztn3okFhyB_3p5nmMKns