Case in Point
Nokia
Nokia has an informal rule that no one should
eat lunch at their desk or go out for lunch. People are encouraged to eat in
the subsidized cafeterias and to mix with people from outside their
department. They have found that the informal meetings across departments
are beneficial in sharing ideas and understanding.
Case in Point
Oticon
An impromptu setting can help spark cross-pollination of
ideas and team chemistry. "When the Danish hearing-aid company Oticon
discovered that spontaneous interactions between employees located on
different floors were taking place on stairwells, the firm wisely broadened
the stairs to encourage the multidisciplinary interchange,"
says Tom Kelley, the author of
The
Art of Innovation,
Cross-pollinate
Within
Your Organization
To face today's complex challenges, you need to
incorporate a wide range of styles, skills, and perspectives, and build
knowledge communities. In the new era of
systemic innovation, it is more
important for an organization to be cross-functionally excellent than
functionally excellent. Firms which are successful in realizing the full
returns from their technologies and innovations are able to match their
technological developments with complementary expertise in other areas of
their business, such as manufacturing, distribution, human resources,
marketing, and customer relationships. To lead these expertise development
efforts,
cross-functional teams, either formal or informal, need to be
formed. These teams can also find new businesses in white spaces between
existing business units...
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Cross-pollinate with
People Outside Your Organization
Sharing ideas and
observations with an outside board of directors, consultants, lawyers,
accountants, bankers, and peers will help you to build your
cross-functional excellence, to broad your perspective in a complex environment, and keep
solutions on-target. Exchange of ideas among peers, e.g. within networking
groups, such as executives organizations, is not only useful within an
industry; it is also a means of learning about best practices in related
industries.
Sharing company information once protected as
proprietary has become a common practice – in
strategic alliances,
partnerships,
joint ventures
and other linkages that may involve even your competitors.
Today, it is
difficult for one business to have all answers, but when you network and
link with multiple companies to bring total solution to your customers, you
become a much more valuable supplier...
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