I read recently that the creators of Google weren’t looking to create Google when they discovered the complex way of indexing pages. They were working on a research project for their PhD program and stumbled upon the genius of google page ranking, did a little more exploration, and the rest is the incredible history of Google. In fact, I also read where, learning from their history, Google allows employees up to 20% of their time to explore new ideas and innovation.
It made me think about how organizations function. Are we organized to discover the next Google?
Let your team explore and you’ll discover some great stuff. Finding the “next big thing” is certainly more difficult without the exploration.
Plus, it’s damaging long-term for a team to be limited in this area of growth potential. If your team isn’t freed to explore:
- They grow bored
- Growth stalls
- Valuable discoveries are never found.
What new insights is your team discovering?
More importantly perhaps, are they being positioned for discovery? Do they even have the freedom, built into your system?
The problem some organizations have is that its difficult to show the ROI on that kind of loose informal learning. Its a lot easier to try to exploit what they already know and turn it into marketable products… problem is that later they find themselves having fallen behind.
Innovation is all about unstructured experimentation. The companies that empahasise this will always be ahead of the others.
I agree. Thanks!
Exactly
Sadly or unfortunately, such innovative practices are not built into the system of many organizations. They feel that such 'ideating' is a waste of time or drain to their precious time resources. Google is one of the few exceptional organizations which does such activity.
I agree…it's a waste of talent in the organization.