Driven to Perform: Innolect Client Case Study

“Even within innovative companies such as ours, this type of approach is not common. Drive to Perform, as a team development opportunity, was one of those occasions that should be recommended for both its objectives and its achievements. The learning experience has lead us toward greater success.”

Being #1 or #2 in the world in what you do probably means that you have solid strategy, extreme capabilities, bleeding-edge technology, many proven “best practices” and that your acquisition for top talent is a no brainer-- right? Of course you have a large pipeline of new opportunities and lots of R&D money for the “next best thing.” A given, for sure.

No, you say. It doesn’t work like that. Even with the industry’s largest market share, double-digit profitability, the expense line under control, and new product launches waiting in the wings—your organization is scrambling because the competition is taking new and virulent forms. Your industry is convulsing with break neck demands and there are unprecedented changes in how the leaders in your industry (and, that’s YOU!) are learning to accelerate speed-to-market cycles and work in tandem with new strategic alliances and partners. Your latest and greatest (just three months ago when it got all the accolades and even a Performance Excellence Award from the CEO) is but a faint memory. You must find something else fast.

Ask any pro athlete or competition team and they will tell you that the best has to keep getting better. Being #1 or #2 is one thing—staying there is everything else.

One of Innolect’s primary clients (in the Fortune 50) explained that they needed to double their revenue in five years and that they knew they had to get very creative with their talent. Despite capturing and holding the lead in several product lines for many years, disciplined cost cutting, leveraging resources, and a hefty commitment to R&D to assure a steady pipeline of new products, this client knew instinctually that something radical had to shift in how they were doing business in order to make the gains in the time allotted.

Innolect was pulled into strategy discussions with the client to capture the Big Picture and became part of the SWAT Team. The challenge was to develop innovative ways to engage the organization in change that would produce the results the company needed. Innolect worked closely with senior leaders and then collaborated with a few select teams in the organization to pilot some new approaches. This case study focuses on one team.

The R&D team had very steep objectives realizing that discovery and corporate growth were on their shoulders. Review R&D’s objectives as they were identified for Innolect and the actions that we helped design and facilitate. The resulting learnings and intended strengthening and development of new competencies are also recognized.

Objectives

Action

Learnings/New or Strengthened

Competencies

Deepen perceptions and understanding of internal/external factors that drive or inhibit team’s best performance

Improve early decisions on what opportunities to pursue in the pipeline

Expand the opening of the pipeline to include a variety of venues that had not been developed or managed

Use of Innovative Intelligence approach; use creative and innovative tools

Decision process analysis; include stakeholders in key decisions; learn new ways to listen/think

Market analysis of how opportunities are generated; identify and explore readiness of strategic alliance partners

Be curious to discover and listen in a new way; expand awareness, shift perspectives; confront fear, think fresh

Gain confidence in collaborative decision making and act more wisely earlier

Get closer to the front end of the pipeline—identify new opportunities and ways to work with new partners—accelerate profits

Objectives

Action

Learnings/New or Strengthened

Competencies

Strengthen internal work processes to achieve greater performance

Enhance teamwork, communications, and cooperative capability—especially given multiple and recent mergers-- to address key challenges and develop innovative solutions

Work process flow review; identified synergies and key linkage

Inspire development of the merged culture-- vision, values, mission; align people around mission and goals

Greater cross-divisional and team alignment; identification of trouble spots for improvement

Deepen understanding and appreciation for colleagues as people and professionals; greater role clarity and synergy

Okay… can you just project yourself into our client’s world and feel the pain? Innolect believes that people are smart and actually have the capability already inside to accomplish a great deal. Most people just need to be asked to reflect to find out what both their gut and experience lead them to believe.

Innolect uses an approach called Innovative Intelligence which guides people through a process that begins with curiosity and wonder where creative insights lead to new ideas. This new thinking begins to gel and form breakthroughs to try new things. People become more comfortable with taking risks that often lead to a discovery or innovation that opens a path toward new products, work processes, or a significant strategic alliance. People become engaged in trailblazing amidst constant change and uncertainty. They increase their confidence in decision making and action. They learn to support one another for making such inspired choices. They take a profound interest in the success of their new ideas and learn why things work or why they don’t. Mostly, they learn to think and act quickly and in unison and keep focused on the higher ground.

We collaborated with the R&D team in designing a series of interventions that included the following:

Senior team alignment, focused on developing shared understanding and mutual accountability for goals and one another
Executive and team leader coaching to help leaders identify strengths, create bold goals, and share accountability for achieving them with one another and their teams
Facilitation of key R&D meetings and updates for members to develop plans of action and share accountability on all mission critical initiatives
Inclusion of teambuilding and communication catalysts to promote new learning, effective and timely links to what was happening, who to go to in the organization, and cultivating a cohesive and evolving work culture
Troubleshooting to gain process improvements
Market and stakeholder analysis focused on expanding and improving pipeline opportunities
Decision making exercises to develop a creative process that expanded how options are identified, force field analysis in forming a path for early decisions, and follow through evaluative criteria to see how decisions were impacting goals and the “big picture”

Innolect designed many ways to assist the R&D team in making strides to achieve the corporate challenge for growth and profitability. One of the most significant goals for the R&D leader was to enhance cooperation and achieve real collaboration among three significant teams within the organization related to identifying and managing the pipeline opportunities. Teamwork and mutual commitment were essential to increase the odds of converting pipeline opportunities into profits. Emergent technologies had increased the odds for more success. However, time-consuming and costly parts of the R&D process depended much more on the discipline and dedication of people—as well as their agility to make wiser and earlier decisions about which opportunities to pursue and which to cut loose.

There was an increasing trend in the industry for companies (as large as our client) to shift some of the product development to alliance partners. The larger companies needed to move more quickly into other aspects of product development such as securing strong product launches to accelerate market acquisition and creating a highly successful alliance partner management process.

In fact, identifying, building, and managing key stakeholder relationships—internally and externally—became more and more significant to our client’s success. Yet, to get there the R&D leader had to engage his cohorts in a radical change of how they worked together to achieve the phenomenal success they needed.

The key challenge was how to encourage these bright people who already knew a great deal about being successful— to take the next leap and go after even greater collaboration, even smarter strategy, new ways to work, and new alliances to accelerate profits. Enter Innolect’s latest creation of innovative learning experiences-- Driven to Perform—The Richard Petty Driving Experience and The Pit Crew Challenge- developed with our alliance partners The Richard Petty Driving School and Pit Instruction and Training 5 Off 5 On. The following is an account from our client of what they experienced during and after Driven to Perform.

Ø The NASACR environment proved the perfect arena to enhance the team experience—it was fun, provocative, logical, inviting, and safe. Driven to Perform prompted us to achieve a deeper personal understanding of ourselves and colleagues and how we operate in teams by learning to look through a totally different lens. This enhanced awareness of one another and how we think and work has resulted in strategic insights and action plans related to the challenges and opportunities that we face.

Ø This exciting experiential learning experience helped us raise interesting questions, provided an opportunity to offer new perspectives, and suggest new linkages. Driven to Perform unleashed new insights—the foundation of creativity and strategy—and triggered internal “knowing” that will definitely increase our speed to market—that’s the bottom line.

Ø In addition to the actual Pit Crew Challenge and weighing in on the driving challenge to take the racer around the track, a critical element of Driven to Perform was the second day to reflect and build on connections and parallels to the real job. Accomplishments were real, building on the teamwork and achievements from the track and resulting in a number of concrete and collaborative action plans.

Ø We have worked hard and remained focused on building a highly cooperative, flexible operation despite the challenges presented to us. Driven to Perform offered us an opportunity to discover more of our own assets, identify exciting new opportunities, and to leverage them and our own teamwork for greater success.

The R&D client reports that they continue to utilize Innolect’s Innovative Intelligence Competencies as they assess their approach to understanding the marketplace, pipeline, internal processes, and all relationships. The core Innovative Intelligence Competencies that Innolect shares with clients include:

Clarity - Clarify and focus on what is most important
Collaboration - Collaborate and play to team strengths
Courage – Be courageous and deliberate now, to go fast later… and,
Creativity – Unleash your natural, first-guess insights and contribute your ingenuity to your team!

It is that fourth competency— be creative! Shift your lens and experience your own deep knowing. It is the new insights, breakthrough ideas, risk taking, innovations, and teamwork that propel a company to be #1 or #2—and, stay there.

For more information call your corVISION representative 877-364-7485.