Novozymes is an interesting company that puts lots of efforts into building a strong and sustaining innovation culture. I know this from my interactions with the company some years ago and it was also shown, when Frank Hatzack, Head of Innovation Development, gave a talk at a conference in Copenhagen.
Hatzack likes to share things so you can find his presentation on SlideShare here.
I really liked how Hatzack spoke about values and behaviors in the context of collaboration and innovation and I liked how this sentence in particular:
COLLABORATIVE BEHAVIOR = intellectually compelling + emotionally engaging AGENDA
He also explained some egoistic reasons for collaborative behaviors for young as well as older “lions” in a company:
The young ones focus on BUILDING fame, networks, influence, career and income where as the older ones focus on MAINTAINING status, respect, recognition, level of involvement and relations to the top level.
At the end, Hatzack shared some key learnings on internal crowdsourcing campaigns. They are:
1. Secure absorptive capacity in the receiving business function
2. Do not oversize your crowd – otherwise you will exceed the absorptive capacity of your screen team
3. Run short, intense campaigns to ensure fast learning cycles
4. Be open & involving to your crowd during all campaign steps to sustain crowd engagement
Check out the presentation here: Innovation Culture at Novozymes
