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Take the example of Deloitte's Innovation Zone, a coordinated program launched in 2001 to manage innovation from Deloitte's hundreds of thousands of employees worldwide. The programmatic elements included a mechanism to balance external insights and internal ideas; multifunctional resources to screen ideas, manage projects and launch new businesses; a formally defined process and technology; and internal practices that sustain the progress of innovation throughout the firm.
Deloitte also created an incentives-and-rewards program to encourage wider and wider participation. The program, which included elements of a frequent-flyer point system, was offered as a supplement to Deloitte's existing rewards program. It included a framework for an "idea competition," followed by a system to recognize both implemented ideas and those not adopted, and culminating in a group award and, ultimately, the grand prize of, say, an overseas trip.
Unfortunately, some firms believe innovation cannot be harnessed or managed. Without this infrastructure, their practice of rewarding innovation will mirror their internal situation: lightweight rewards for trivial innovations that occur only by happenstance. Trivial innovations, trivial rewards -- and so the cycle continues. A defined, well-supported and broadly communicated innovation machine, with clearly-defined analytics featuring predetermined quantitative and qualitative measurement points, can allow firms to reward for new services that increase value and competitive advantage. A formally managed new-service development function can also make incentives and rewards more easily observable, comprehensible, and internally desirable.
NOTHING TO FEAR. There is a fourth reason why professional-service firms may be less than assertive in encouraging innovation: Providing incentives and rewards, especially if they are structured to require a long-term innovation investment with an equally long-term ROI, means taking money out of the pockets of those who have it now -- ie., partners and senior decision makers. Providing incentives and rewards for innovation will require them to think less selfishly and will likely generate resistance from colleagues. It requires energy, professional passion and commitment to overcome the anxiety that contemplating change inevitably produces.
Which brings us back to Steve Martin's character, Gil Buckman. At the height of his fear-filled imaginary roller-coaster ride, he glances enviously at his fellow family members. As he watches them happily contemplate the ride's ups and downs, anxiety dissipates. He begins to see there is nothing to fear. This is life, with all its thrilling heights and steep plunges.
This is also the professional-service marketplace. Change is continually underway, the competitive landscape changes daily. A firm's survival requires the commitment to pursue service innovation, the leadership to create a distinct internal structure for it to thrive, and the rewards to bring it to fruition and sustain it.
Guest columnist Suzanne Lowe is the president of Expertise Marketing and the author of Marketplace Masters: How Professional Service Firms Compete to Win
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