Page 218 - How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win

THE WHY OF WORK

FIGURE 8.1 An Experimentation Protocol (continued)

Step 4: Invest
Successfully piloted ideas are ready for further investment. An expanded field test
is one way to ensure sustained value before gearing up for a full product or service
launch. Strategic investment will require clarity around services, distribution channels,
and geographic scope.

Step 5: Integrate
For experimentation to endure, new ideas need to be integrated into old. With product
innovation, this means that new products and/or services both complement and
cannibalize the old, and both must be dealt with realistically. With strategic innovation,
it means that new business models become commonplace throughout an enterprise.
With administrative innovations, practices that worked in one division must become
integrated across an enterprise.

Step 6: Improve
Experimentation does not end but evolves. It requires successive improvement
where lessons learned are constantly codified, adapted, and implemented. Leaders
committed to learning constantly monitor the product life cycle. Is the experimentation
still creating value? Quarterly or semiannual reviews of product, strategic, or
administrative experiments can focus attention on the next wave.

pen, these approaches enable employees to feel personal
ownership and accountability for business results.
Leaders can also sponsor continuous improvement infor-
mally through what they attend to and ask about. One of
the most useful questions leaders can ask when an employee
poses a problem or question to them is “What do you think?”
Generally (not always), the employee has spent more time
thinking about the problem and potential solutions than the
leader. When leaders give employees license to solve the
problems they identify, employees find more meaning in
their work.

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