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Thinking outside of the box: How to Use an Innovation Council to Drive Change

Charles Rizzo
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Charles Rizzo is CFO at John Hancock Mutual Funds in Boston, Mass. and a member of the MIT EMBA class of 2013.

What can an investing company learn from a huge retail store like Wal-Mart? As I saw from our leadership coursework, the answer is: a lot. From Wal-Mart’s concepts of sustainability to its constant focus on generating cost savings, improving operations, using data, and eliminating waste, the company’s business practices inspired me to think about how they could be applied to our businesses at John Hancock. 

I had been looking for a way to get my professional staff more engaged and connected to our business aside from their normal day-to-day responsibilities. I wanted to create a structure that would be fun and at the same time unlock their creative side while working together as a team. In other words, I wanted to find a way to inspire them to think outside of the box.

Establishing an Innovation council

After learning about Wal-Mart’s efforts in this area, I created an “Innovation Council”, a committee to discuss areas of business opportunity around concepts of sustainable business practices and innovation.

What is an Innovation Council? It is:

- a cross-functional team with representatives from information technology, human resources, sales and distribution, project management, accounting, compliance, and fund operations
- comprised of volunteers who wanted to engage and are interested in innovation and sustainability
- charged with the mission of discussing opportunities that can generate value for our business as well as the shareholders in our company

Getting Started

To get started, I put together a presentation with examples from the book, The Wal-Mart Effect, to illustrate the numerous innovative methods the retailer utilizes in developing sustainable business practices and value for its shareholders. These points, while not exactly comparable to how a mutual fund business operates, immediately jumpstarted a lot of discussion on ways that we could generate sustainable business practices. Looking at an outside example built excitement within the team and illuminated a path to achieving success in the project.

No boundaries

As for boundaries, I didn’t set any for the Council. They can look at any areas they choose. As for a team structure, they don’t have one. Instead, I wanted the group to organize themselves around the broad objectives of the Council and let the leadership develop organically within the team. Too much formalization would stifle the creativity so I decided to leave it “rule-less.

As the Council seeks ideas and filters them among team members, the best ones chosen by the group are presented to a senior management steering committee. So far, they are off to a great start.

How have you inspired your colleagues to think outside of the box? What lessons can you draw from successful businesses in other industries?

20 Jun

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Comments

Charles,

In your research did you find specific examples of how to keep an innovation council from stagnating after the euphoria has passed for being appointed a council member?  How do you motivate when people are balancing the current and added roles?

Thanks

By Marc Rowley on Jun 22, 2012

Hi Charles:
I was excited to read this experience and was amazed to see how class room discussions are impacting real life initiatives.

I thought of sharing a few of my own experiences and learnings:

-It is important to get the innovation culture into the DNA of the organization otherwise this will be short lived. My company, a Global IT consulting firm had implemented a few initiatives to drive innovation. Some were successful but others lost heat.

-Recognizing active contributors and high impact ideas will help energize your associates. In my experience I saw most of the contributors were usually entry level and mid-level associates. They are hungry for growth and visibility. Tapping them will create the innovation culture across the organization.

-Each of your Business Unit leader should have it in his/her KRA to ideate a certain number of ideas this way it will drive the culture thru.

-My company also had focussed innovation campaigns on topics of interest. These can be leveraged to achieve any short term goals by setting a deadline and also awards.

-Best ideas presented and selected should be taken forward to execution. The result should also be show cased probably in your board meetings etc. In many occassions ideas get short listed, awarded and then it remains there. Taking it to closure and reaping benefits from the idea is definitely key.

I look forward to hearing from your experiences and enriching myself.

By Chait Balasubramaniam on Jun 24, 2012

Dear Charles: 

It is indeed a great idea to establish the Innovation Council.  The biggest challenge I see is simply to define the term “sustainability” in the context of your company.  In my opinion, if the boundaries are not well defined within the framework of what is practical, I fear the council’s work will drift into areas that are great to evaluate but impossible to achieve. 

Small steps is the key based on my own experiences.  Nonetheless, it is a great initiative. 

By Irshad Ahmed on Jun 25, 2012

How do you plan to keep the council from losing momentum?  By its nature, an Innovation Council is more likely to focus on quick wins and opportunities identified by the cross-functional team.  At some point, the focus will need to shift to long-term opportunities - unless that is part of the original charter.

I’m also curious about how ideas generated by the Innovation Council will translate into resources and budgets.  Will the management steering committee be able to provide support for these? 

my point: I like the idea of the Innovation Council, and I can see the value.  But I wonder if some of the formalization and a longer-term strategy might help to keep the council energized even after the initial enthusiasm wanes.

By Diane Rucker on Jun 25, 2012

Mr. Rizzo, this idea is innovative and will add great value to any organization that decides to implement it.

I am wondering how will you kick-off and execute your innovate council? Will you adopt a methodology later or just adopt “Rule Less” all the way through?

Although I have not constructed a cross-functional team,I can only contribute to this by adding that in my brainstorming meetings, at first, I ask everyone to forget about the tools, methodology and standards but to focus on the question. After we have some initial ideas down, then I implement structure, so that a result of some sort is produced out of a session/meeting. So, I have a few or series of meetings to achieve the creation of a proposed first idea.

By Cynthia Garde on Jul 05, 2012

Marc Rowley:
Very good question. You need to meet with the council and engage them with their ideas and your own. I have a a senior manager on my team who is assigned to the council as a mentor/advisor to keep process moving. I meet them on a quarterly basis but also send them articles I think they may be interested in to spur their imagination. Recent article was on Melissa Meyers and her ideas around innovation.

They are currently very engaged in a work-from home strategy and e-delivery initiative. They recently came up with an idea to set up a table in our lunch room to get employes’s of the company aware of the council and to get our other John Hancock employees to submit ideas to the council and win an iPad. Got to make program fun.

By getting people outside of their day to day world is motivational in of itself as they get to network with other employees on the council, work together to discuss ideas and be part of a fun process that hopefully will make a difference to our company. It is one of many strategy’s I have utilized to keep employees motivated. I started a job rotation program as an example of another program that keeps my top performers learning and getting exposure to new things and work on challenging assignments.

By charles A Rizzo on Sep 30, 2012

Chait Balasubramaniam

Thanks for your insights. I will keep you posted as the council moves along. I agree with your points and will discuss them with my management team.

By charles A Rizzo on Sep 30, 2012

Irshad Ahmed :

Thanks for your insights. I agree that we need to be careful to solution only these ideas that are practical and have a reasonable chance at success. They are currently very excited about work from home strategy’s and e-delivery initiative. We also are looking at digital mailboxes to reduce print and mail costs for outbound shareholder communications and marketing materials.

I will keep you posted.

By charles A Rizzo on Sep 30, 2012

Diane Rucker:

Nice points. Yes, I am looking for quick wins so we can build up momentum with team as well as within organization. Important to keep team motivated. To the extend we come up with an idea that is a longer term initiative, we will evaluate at it and determine if practical to move ahead. I have no problem no anticipate an issue with budgeting additional $ so long as the organization sees the value, which is another reason why getting some wins under our belt is important. Currently, the ideas that team is coming up with I can rationalize as being mutual fund expenses as the initiatives underway benefit fund shareholders. However, to the extend we need systems/tech costs or additional resources beyond council commitment I would need to get approval. If council is producing value, and can demonstrate that it is helping employees engagement I would expect program will continue to get support.

Your point about what the longer term strategy should be for the council is worthy of some discussion. Thanks for point.

By charles A Rizzo on Sep 30, 2012

Cynthia Garde

I kicked off the council with a powerpoint using examples from Wal- Mart. While not a mutual fund company my idea was to get council to think broadly and learn how another organization came up with ideas and innovation. Point was we can do the same think we just need to think. A lot of this is not rocket science and I have found when you read and link, dedicate some time to brainstorm u will come up with ideas. The council is not focused on an idea a meeting, but rather I have asked them to discuss their individual ideas at the meeting and then prioritize as a council to determine best ideas to pursue and present for approval.

By charles A Rizzo on Sep 30, 2012