Jonathan Rosenberg On Rules To Foster Innovation

Jonathan Rosenberg was Google Inc. Senior Vice President. Prior to joining Google in 2002, he was a founding member of @Home's product group and served as Senior Vice President after the merger of @Home and Excite. Prior to that, he managed the eWorld product line for Apple Computer. And prior to that, he was the director of product marketing for Knight Ridder Information Services.

Jonathan Rosenberg:

Fostering innovation, 5 rules. So how do we foster this innovation? Most companies manage creativity in order to manage risk, that just doesn't work. Do we have an artist here today? Go do your art from 10 to 12 and be very creative, 12 to 4 is the management meeting. It doesn't work. Innovation comes from creativity, creativity cannot be managed, it can be allocated, it can be budgeted, it can be measured, it can be tracked and encouraged, but it can't be dictated.

Innovation rule 2. Create a culture of yes based on optimism and big thinking. Organizations developed anti-bodies to change, that's why big companies stop innovating. If you're the innovator you're like the virus, the anti-bodies wanna kill you. Many people think it's their function to do nothing but say "thou shalt not". Leaders protect people from anti-bodies, your focus should be thou shalt. Create a spirit of optimism, pessimist don't change the world.

Innovation rule 3. Never stop someone from moving forward with their good idea because you have a better one. There's a bull market for innovation, and a Darwinian process for reading out the bad ideas. You will do best by simply encouraging all of them. The best will win and the others will fail. Thomas Edison said: " Have a great idea, have a lot of them."

Innovation rule 4. A leader's job is not to prevent risks but to build the capability to recover when failures occur. There is no such thing as a good failure and a bad failure. Or there is such a thing as a good failure and a bad failure. A good one happens quickly, and it provides plenty lessons. Sometimes you have to look at these lessons in the data. A bad failure takes a long time and you don't learn anything. Leaders don't prevent failures, they prevent bad failures.

Innovation rule 5. A good crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Whenever the public endorse a crisis, ordinary citizens start to wonder how and whether our institutions really work. We no longer take things for granted. It is only then change becomes possible. Many management challenges are in fact teaching moments. The crisis is the built-in narrative, so use it.