(285b) Using Styles of Innovation for Strategy and Growth

There is beginning to be recognition and consensus around the fact that innovation must replace cost reduction as the primary driver of long-term profit growth within organizations. This is seen not only in public pronouncements from chemical industry executives, but also in the ranking of important issues in many management publications and the high attendance at conferences related to innovation and the ?fuzzy front end? of the innovation and stage gate cycles. This interest is beginning to replace Six Sigma and other process analytical tools as a primary organizational interest. Having a process under perfect control with no defects may increase the market share and reduce the cost of a currently manufactured product, but it does little to identify the next generation product that is needed that in fact may replace the one whose process is now under perfect control.

In addition to common sense changes in business strategy involved in these changes (longer-range customer input, studying future trends, etc.), there has been little thought about the people side of this significant change. There is an organizational expectation that the same people who have survived staff reductions and are heavily involved in current process control and quality management will now be able to transition into innovation roles.

This presentation will review a workshop held in the fall of last year at the Commercial Development Management Association (chemical industry version of the PDMA, Product Development Management Association) in which senior chemical industry executives participated in an exercise related to new business development. The Kirton KAI(TM) problem solving style assessment instrument was used to separate the participants who were then presented with a new business development type of problem. The KAI(TM)is a unique problem solving style assessment instrument that measures problem solving style in a similar way that other instruments (Myers Briggs(TM), 16Types (TM)) measure social and communication styles. The participants were separated in groups according to their KAI (TM) profiles (very structured, adaptive problem analysis and solving styles at one extreme to very unstructured, less structured and throught out analysis at the other extreme), and then presented with a business development problem. This presentation will briefly review the KAI(TM) its relationship to other available assessment tools, and the results from this its use at this executive workshop. The suggestions and business strategy recommendations vs. the participants' KAI (TM)profiles will be analyzed and presented. Suggestions and conclusions regarding its pro-active use in the area of organizational innovation and strategic planning will be presented.