IDEAS- Issue # 4 (May 2006)

Monthly newsletter dedicated to organisational innovation, creativity and change.

The Magic of Stretch Goals

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth." These words, spoken on 25 May 1961 during a speech to Congress, by then U.S. President John F. Kennedy triggered one of the greatest innovations in the history of mankind.

Despite skeptics who thought it was not possible, America went through a series of technological and engineering innovations to turn Kennedy's vision into a reality. Eight years later, on 20 July 1969, Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong took a step--first by mankind--on the moon, leaving a dusty trail of footprints.

We may not be in the business of leading a nation like Kennedy, but it is better to know this phenomenon:

As human beings, when faced with a formidable challenge, we automatically start thinking out of the box and come up with new ways to meet the challenge. In other words, we innovate when faced with mighty challenges.

This phenomenon has played again and again in the history of innovation both in the context of businesses and nations.

Ibuka, co-founder of Sony, used the same strategy to trigger innovation at Sony. One day, he called the people who were working on video cassette recording format. He then took out a paperback novel from his pocket and challenged his team to come up with a video cassette of the size of the book with one hour's recording capacity. The end result was Betamax system, Sony's proprietary home videocassette tape recording format.

When GE's Power Systems business was preparing to bid for some big orders in China and India, they assembled a team of engineers, marketers and financial people. The team was given a goal to redesign a 660-megawatt steam turbine-generator with dramatic reduction in its weight and cost. In record time, the team managed to trim the machine's weight by a million pounds, cut its length by 20 percent and reduce its cost considerably.

STMicroelectronics has announced a voluntary pledge to reduce its U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent per manufacturing unit from 2000 to 2010.

Basically, progressive enterprises have long known that the way to get people in innovative frame of mind is to challenge them with stretch goals.

>>IDEA: In any company, typical business processes like production, selling, accounting, distribution, etc. happen out of duty and sheer necessity. Innovation, however, is not a process that happens automatically. That's why few companies innovate, most don't.

Innovation needs to be deliberately triggered. That's important to remember.

The second point: A proven way to trigger innovation is by setting stretch goals--goals that are neither easy nor impossible, but challenging enough to inspire people to stretch their imagination and start thinking out of the box.

What about your business, division or department? If you want to shake off the dust of status quo, try setting a stretch goal and that should get people thinking.

Daniel Burnham(1846-1912), a 19th-century American architect has put it nicely: "Make no little plans! They have no magic to stir men's blood."

Atul Mathur

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***Copyright 2006 Atul Mathur***

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