What does HR have to do with Innovation and Creativity?
"Every company today has the same access, to the same talent, to the same training, to the same technology - but why do some companies rise and others fail?
They build fantastic orgs to support them."
HR and departmental design have everything to do with innovation and creativity.
To be clear, when I say innovation, I don't mean massive leaps in technology or sending a human to Mars. Instead, innovation can be small incremental steps forward in delivering customer satisfaction.
In Part 1, of the series "What tech taught me about business, marketing, and leadership," I discussed how technology companies are great at building mechanisms and tension points. However, they also understand the role organization design plays in building innovative and creative teams.
These learnings can be standard practice in any company.
Invent and reinvent.
So how do large tech companies (Amazon, Apple, Tesla, etc.) invent, reinvent and create at a phenomenal pace? They have the same access to talent and technology as every other company.
They build great orgs!
Get Flat.
Same number of people. But which team will hold ideas back?
The average life-span of companies listed in Standard & Poor's 500 was 61 years in 1958. Today, it is about 12 years. In 2027, 75% of the companies currently quoted on the S&P 500 will have disappeared.
McKinsey
Organizational structures are incredibly flat in tech. Advertising, on the other hand, is traditionally hierarchical by nature. Flat organizations in an innovative, creative and agile business have several key benefits.
Employees have an elevated level of responsibility in the organization (they're empowered to make significant business decisions for their clients and customers).
The excess layers of management are removed, therefore improving the coordination and speed of communication.
And fewer levels of management allow a faster and easy decision-making process - notably, a flat organization will enable ideas to rise to the surface and be approved quickly.
Years ago, I was working inside a large agency on a new vehicle launch, we thought we had a cracker idea. So we showed our CD, who showed the Group Creative Director, who showed the Executive Creative Director, who showed their Global Chief Creative Officer. And along the way, through rounds, versions, presentations, and months, the idea lost its meaning, timing, and energy.
Fast fails
Crazily, business, marketing and advertising are not good at failure. While we talk about giving people room to fail, we seldom do. Tech companies are built for fast fails.
Amazon talks about the difference between "two-way doors" and "one-way doors." For example, committing resources to an invention (an idea) into some new space can be tricky and an opportunity to fail. It's similar to going through a doorway and uncovering that you don't like what's on the other side. With two-way doors, you can quickly retreat, and you have learnings (failings) you can takeaway.
An agile approach to creating and tweaking
In the business of advertising and marketing, the systems that deliver the operational skeleton, systems, finances, media, and creative (outside of CRM and dynamic creative) tends to be built around a legacy approach. And a linear/waterfall system: you make something, walk away and move on to the next shiny object. Yet, my Mac software is version Big Sur (an improvement upon improvement upon improvement). We need to find new ways to engage customers. And even media needs a refresh: while 2020 may be different, the Up Front and New Front media negotiations are constructed under the same premise.
The End
There are challenges ahead, but they can be beaten. And for businesses to be around in 2027, we need to alter our way of thinking; for what made you successful today, is not what’s going to make you successful tomorrow. I