Creating a spark to trigger innovation

Google’s legendary reputation for investment in innovation is based on a fundamental belief that latitude for creativity
is an essential part of any business plan.

Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google spoke with McKinsey Quarterly in September 2008 and his comments still ring true today.

“Innovation has always been driven by a person or a small team that has the luxury of thinking of a new idea and pursuing it. It was true 100 years ago and it’ll be true for the next 100 years. Innovation is something that comes when you’re not under the gun. The creative parts of one’s mind are not on
schedule.

We try to encourage [innovation] with things like 20 percent time and small technology teams, which are undirected. We try to encourage real thinking out of the box. We also look for small companies that we can acquire. Often it’s small companies which have the great new ideas. They have gotten started with them but can’t really complete them.

"It was true 100 years ago and it’ll be true for the next 100 years."

We don’t necessarily know which ideas [will succeed]. But we know its portfolio theory. We have enough groups that a few [innovations] will pop up. And we cull the ones that are not very successful. We push them to try to do something different, retarget or cancel.

One of the things that we’ve tried very hard to avoid at Google is a divisional structure that prevents collaboration across units. It’s difficult. But by doing that you cut down the informal ties that, in an open culture, drive so much collaboration.

If people in the organisation understand the values of the company, they should be able to self organise to work on the most interesting problems. If they haven't, or are not able to do that, you haven't talked to them about what’s important. You haven’t built a shared value culture."