This month, with great fanfare Georgia Tech University in Atlanta, Georgia announced the opening of its $400M Coda building. It is designated as a “Lab for Creation”.
The 21-story building in unlike any other one because it features a grand piazza at its base where a food hall and outdoor furniture welcomes students, faculty and tech company workers to mingle. Mini soccer pitches adorn the roof of its wings.
The center hinge of the L shaped edifice contains a “Collaboration Core”, which is a series of six three-story vertical atriums connecting the two wings. A spiral staircase links the atriums and it is believed to be the longest continuous helical staircase in the world.
Coda will combine Georgia Tech researchers, students and staff, as well as employees from private sector firms, to use innovative new technologies to solve real-world problems.
Coda is All About Making Innovation Enjoyable
Jack Portman, CEO of the builder, John Portman & Associates said there are six three-level atriums, that line up with the adjacent floors, thereby enabling the floor’s personnel to use it as their living room. “They use that to go hang out to go meet people, to brainstorm with people”.
“Tech came to the conclusion that people — they’re not like these wild scientists of the 1920s that go into a dark room and come up with great ideas; ideas are spawned by interaction with other people having ideas. It’s a laboratory for creation and expanding ideas.” This is an ideal setting for people developing innovations by asking “what if…”.
Luca Maffey, who headed up the design of the structure for John Portman & Associates said, “You can break boundaries between people. We’re talking about students with crazy ideas who probably don’t even know how to talk about them, and then CEOs who are thirsty for ideas and they want to make new businesses. The only ways to make these two worlds come together is food, games and maybe sports.”
All of the above adds up to trying to make innovation fun.
How to Make Innovation Fun
People do what they are motivated to do.
That is the whole idea behind commissioned salespeople, piecework, or pay for performance. However, the majority of companies fail to properly incentivize innovators, while highly achieving innovative companies do in fact recognize their people who contribute to their innovation efforts.
The key is to make innovation and the effort involved in being creative fun for your personnel. In the long run, no matter how much you pay someone, if they are asked to do something that is not enjoyable and rewarding it will fall by the wayside.
However, if you make it fun and properly recognize them for applying themselves to being innovative, they will get stoked and excited about it. As they get recognized for their actions, non-participating employees begin to be jazzed about innovation and want to join the effort.
Recognizing Innovation
Recognition of the innovator is an integral component of a successful innovation program. Many innovation experts consider recognition as more effective than monetary rewards or prizes because it is easier to administer than a cash-based reward system. Therefore, non-financial recognition may be the most important element in fostering innovation.
For instance, Emerson Electric recognizes innovation by having a wall of fame adjacent to its front lobby in its St. Louis headquarters, displaying pictures of project leaders, innovation champions, and project teams. The company also publishes a magazine called Innovations, with feature stories on innovation projects and project teams, and also a technology awards section.
At Kraft Foods, Division General Managers award employees token light bulbs for creating ideas; there are also awards for Innovator of the Month and Innovator of the Year.
At Gruddfos, a major Danish pump manufacturer, the company’s annual report only has two pages detailing its financial statements, but six pages devoted to innovation. It features stories on recent new products and articles written by the president expounding the need for innovation. Additionally, as part of its innovation campaign it uses wall posters to encourage people to “be on an innovation project team” or “submit that winning idea.”
Recognition can be done in many ways, including innovations being covered in company newsletters and annual reports, social media, being included in the entity’s website, distributing video interviews with the innovator to company employees, displays at company offices and award ceremonies.
Where to Start
Determine how you wish to use non-monetary recognition to acknowledge innovation within your organization. This could involve including the innovator on a Wall of Fame, being noted in company publications or receiving nonfinancial awards. Additionally, winners of various innovation contests and campaigns can be honored in displays at company offices or in award ceremonies.
If you could use assistance with how to use recognition to make innovation pleasurable to your employees (so you get more innovation), please contact us using the information below so we can be a resource to you in this important area.
Fountainhead Consulting Group, Inc. is an Innovation and Business Planning firm. During the past 17, years we have shown over 1,200 companies how to achieve their goals by using our unique, comprehensive, and systematic FastTrak Innovation Program™, Innovation Academy™, and Structure of Success™ methodologies. Using the components in these methodologies, each month we examine an aspect of how to transform your business or organization into a true 21st Century enterprise.
Office: (770) 642-4220
www.FountainheadConsultingGroup.com
George.Horrigan@FountainheadConsultingGroup.com
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