Respect employees — even in failure
“Innovation is a very human process,” Kohrt says. “We take pride in
that. It’s gratifying.”
Yet many CEOs tend to overlook the need for innovators to feel
respected and honored for what they do — even when things go
wrong.
“It is hard because they’re all passionate about what they do and
intolerant in your lack of interest or knowledge in what they do and yet
want very much to be respected,” he says.
“What helps, but also makes it difficult, is valuing the mistakes.
Often, the most important thing you can learn is what doesn’t work.
Because that narrows the field of what does work very rapidly. Yet, if
it’s viewed as a mistake because it doesn’t work and therefore, you
screwed up, that will cut the spirit faster than almost anything.”
Instead, Kohrt says, ask, “What did you learn?” Then move on.
“A corollary to that are incentives,” he says. “I think it’s underestimated quite often, the role of recognition, even if that recognition
doesn’t result in a monetary reward or product. Probably the bane of
my existence is trying to define what type of incentives, if any, one
wants or should use.
“You have to be very sure that, as the management, you really understand what the consequences and unintended consequences are of
your incentive system. You may think you’re helping when, in fact, it
has the opposite effect.”
Kohrt offers an example from his days as a senior researcher at
Kodak Laboratories.
“Someone had the bright idea that, from a cost-effective point of
view, all of the doors would be locked after 6 o’clock,” he says. “The
people who were running the physical plant facility were getting
(incentivized) on power costs. So if you keep people out of the building, power costs go down.”
The inherent problem with that was it also limited researchers’
access to their work.
“Now, I can’t get in at 8 o’clock to look at my experiment,” he says.
“Who the hell’s idea was this? It didn’t last very long, but that’s why you
have to think of the incentives from a system point of view and be sensitive to that.”
Battelle’s incentives include recognizing teams and individuals for
the number of patents they receive, profit sharing on certain inventions and holding Inventor of the Year competitions. The winner of
this competition gets a reserved parking space, among other accolades. Battelle also has a call for ideas to compete for internal research
and development funds.
“The most important aspect when we give these recognitions is that
spouses and families are invited,” Kohrt says. “There’s gratification in
receiving recognition from others they respect: their peers and, to a
lesser extent maybe, management.”
But being able to share those moments with family makes them all
that much sweeter.