How 3M Forged a Culture of Collaboration

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Such collaborations can also involve the business units. When 3M's automotive aftermarket division asked the corporate research lab to help it develop a better system for mixing and applying the putty used to repair dents, for instance, one lab scientist immediately thought of work he'd seen at a TechForum event: a technology developed by the 3M ESPE's German lab to efficiently mix and apply the material used to make dental impressions. The lab adapted the dental technology for use in body shops. (In cases involving business units, there are more formal processes—one unit might buy a technology from another unit, for instance.)

Collaboration's Dividends

The company launched Filtek Supreme Plus in 2002, and it is now the industry's leading composite for restorative work. "Bringing nanotechnology into dental materials was a great breakthrough," says Andrew Spector, a founder of Gentle Dentistry, a private practice in Haworth, N.J. And 3M wouldn't have made that breakthrough if it didn't recognize collaboration as an essential element of innovation and create the systems to support it.

What can executives learn from 3M's approach to collaboration?

Support networks. Build Web-based social networks that help employees with a problem find those with an answer. Support grassroots networking initiatives such as 3M's TechForum—an employee-run group that organizes speaker events to stimulate thinking and also serves as a kind of mixer, where scientists from different labs or divisions can connect in person.

Build collaboration into your employee evaluation system. Reward employees not just for developing an innovative technology, idea, or process, but for spreading it. No company reaps the benefits of collaboration if their employees or managers are hoarding innovation in order to look good at the next quarterly meeting.

Encourage curiosity. 3M allows employees to spend 15% of their time on projects of their choosing, giving them permission to develop ideas or technologies that may be outside of their regular work focus. Such policies increase the odds of collaboration, as the path of curiosity often leads employees beyond their knowledge base, to a place where they need the advice and insight of others.

Create innovation funds. Group or department managers focused on core-related projects often don't want to spend money exploring or developing innovative ideas. To overcome this common roadblock, companies should create an alternative source—3M calls these Genesis Grants—that employees can go to for funding of innovation projects that don't fit neatly into existing departments.

Don't underestimate the value of physical proximity. When 3M's Post-it Note team wanted to accelerate product development, it had the team's marketing, financial, and other nonmembers move into the same building with the tech folks. If different functions have to be housed in different buildings, pay for a shuttle service that makes it easy for employees in different departments to visit each other.

Jessie Scanlon is the senior writer for Innovation & Design at BusinessWeek, where she covers the intersection of design and business.

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