2008‐06‐04
Daniel Bolanowski
The Leadership Perspective of
Promoting Creativity and Innovation
A Case Study of an R&D Organization
S U M M A R Y
This paper focuses on leadership problems and possibilities regarding creativity in a specific R&D organization. This is done with the help of a model consisting of four domains of special interest for R&D leaders. A survey in the form of personal interviews was conducted with leaders and staff members of two R&D sections in the organization.
The analysis pointed towards problems on work load and stress issues. Furthermore the organizational structure of the two sections provided a discussion on optimal structural build‐up in order to maximize creativity. Trust issues arose because of the apparent use of control by upper management as described by lower level leaders and the employees.
Indications showed that the trust issues put up obstacles for learning and dealing with failure. On the other hand the relationships between section management and staff were perceived as good. Also the ground works of a good creative work was laid with the
trusting relationships between fellow professionals within the group.
References 39
C O N T E N T S
1 Introduction 1
1.1 The Nature and Context of Creativity 1
1.2 The Focus of this Paper 2
1.3 The Further Proceedings 3
2 Theoretical Framework 4
2.1 Four Domains for Inquiry and Action by
Leaders in R&D 4
2.1.1 Pacing Productivity 4
2.1.2 Capitalizing on Failure 6
2.1.3 Managing Connection 7
2.1.4 Paying the Price 8
2.2 The Impact of the Domains 9
3 Methodology And Case Presentation 10 3.1 Establishing the Questionnaire 10
3.2 The Company 11
3.3 Selection of Respondents 11
3.4 The Two Sections 12
3.5 The Individuals Interviewed 12
3.6 Execution 12
4 Interview Revelations 13
4.1 Organizational Structure 13
4.1.1 The Matrix Structure in Section 1 13 4.1.2 The Project‐Based Structure in Section 2 14 4.1.3 Leadership Responsibilities 15
4.1.4 Nature of the Projects 16
4.2 Work Load 17
4.3 Reports and Evaluations 18
4.4 Rules and Commandments 19
4.5 Learning 20
4.6 Allowing Creative Roaming? 21 4.7 The Views of the Leadership Role 23
5 Analysis 24
5.1 Managing Connections 24
5.1.1 The Influence of the Organizational
Structure 24
5.1.2 Geographical Spread of Projects 24
5.2 Pacing Productivity 25
5.2.1 Section Management Control 25 5.2.2 Project Management Control 25 5.2.3 Upper Management Control 26
5.2.4 Project Commitments 26
5.3 Capitalizing on Failure 27
5.3.1 Project Cycles and Learning 27
5.3.2 Fear of Failure 28
5.3.3 Peer Review 30
5.4 Paying the Price 31
5.4.1 Creative Control Creates Creativity 31
5.4.2 Breaking Rules 32
6 Conclusions And Recommendations 33 6.1 Staff Dispersion among Projects 34 6.2 Managing International Connections 35
6.3 Trust 35
6.4 Pushing for Pace 36
6.5 Usefulness of the Model 37
6.5.1 How Exactly Do You Pay the Price? 37 6.5.2 Learning versus Managing Connections 38
Acknowledgements 39
Appendix 1: Interview Template R&D
Employee 40
Appendix 2: Interview Template R&D
Leader 42
F I G U R E S
Figure 2.1 The four domains for inquiry and action by leaders in R&D 4
Figure 2.2 Managing connections 8
Figure 4.1 Chart of the matrix organizational structure in section 1 13 Figure 4.2 Chart of the project based organizational structure in section 2 14 Figure 6.1 A & B: Evaluating the two sections on the four domains 33 Figure 6.1 C: The two graphs superimposed for easy comparison 33
1 I N T R O D U C T I O N
The purpose of this paper is to investigate a case R&D organization. This will be done through a concrete model with the purpose of improving the conditions of the workplace in terms of creativity. A specific aim was set, with the help of the model, to form a resolute analysis easy for any leader to interpret in order to take appropriate action.
1.1 The Nature and Context of Creativity
Creativity is an asset impossible to financially quantify a priori in an organization. Before a product or service is available to the market and sales number are unveiled, no one can tell whether or not the costs involved in development was money well spent or completely wasted. ‘Quarterly based’ economic thinking makes long term investment with unknown outcome a very nervous matter in most corporations. R&D is a costly business. Firstly the staff involved is usually a very educated one (and thereby expensive to keep). Secondly the ever‐changing circumstances require customized, high‐end technology to make it worthwhile.
Yet huge sums of capital are put into R&D worldwide (OECD, 2008). The reason for it is the outlook of many markets today, not only are they highly competitive but they are also very transmorphic. New demands appear continuously, replacing old ones. New technology generates new problems as well as opportunities to fix them. The ability to anticipate change and by all means to do something about it has more than ever become a crucial factor for survival.
So then, once you established that innovation is a necessity the next question is; how do you do it? After collecting bright minds and state of the art technology the trick now is to maximize creativity as if was a product. An R&D leader is in the industry of innovation ‐ its means of production is people and their ability to think out brilliant ideas. But because creativity is a complex matter, intimately connected with human reflection and communication, the maximization of production is a delicate matter which is easily dealt with too bluntly in the world of corporate governance.
Part of the problem in attempting to maximize creativity is on one part defining what creativity is. The word has many synonyms and many do not adequately represent the scope of its numerous influences in organizations (Chen & Kaufmann, 2008). Another troublesome part of maximizing creativity is that it is notoriously hard the measure.
Because there often is a lack of rigorous thinking about what creativity is and means for the organization it is very easy for the term to degenerate into blurry concepts of what should b included in the concept. (Rickards, 1991). e
Part of the explanation to the nervous approach towards creativity can be derived from previous studies in this field. Discussions about creativity have traditionally been set on an individual level. Psychological measures have been the primary tools for elaborating and evaluating creativity. This has limited analysis away from the corporate realities where social and environmental aspect play a significant role. No wonder then that many leaders find this topic difficult to handle. Clearly there is a need for a wider approach, one that puts the problems and possibilities of innovation into its proper context. While not excluding the individual perspective, a multi disciplinary approach is recommended to encompass the sum of all factors involved. (Chen & Kaufmann, 2008)
1.2 The Focus of this Paper
With the goal set on creating an innovative environment this paper will focus on the leadership of R&D in the specific case organization. The aim is to avoid arguing around cognitive processes and address issues much easier to put your finger on. Many leaders in R&D are themselves former staff members in product development and usually there are not enough space given to dwell on the intricate meaning of creativity in the reality of corporate work. This paper will aim to break down the concept of creativity into tangible parts recognizable in the everyday work in R&D, thus formulating a handbook for quickly identifying aspects of leadership that could influence innovation.
Leadership can assume many forms, especially in an organization as big as the one being surveyed in this paper. Because of the limited time frame of the investigation there was a need to narrow down the part of the organization which was to be included in the survey. With the analysis model in mind, the type of leaders that work closest to the actual R&D was selected in a belief that this would generate most insights. This is because low level management have a tendency both to be leading and to be lead, as well as a good direct view on how the sum of the different leaderships in the organization affect performance on the R&D function.
However, the discussion will not be limited to the leadership level surveyed. As we will find out higher level management and project managers have a profound effect on the R&D work and leaving them out of the analysis would make our conclusions
seriously incomplete. But we still need to bear in mind that upper level leaders have not voiced their concerns in this paper. Widening the approach to include more forms of leaderships is rather a suggestion for further analysis into this topic.
1.3 The Further Proceedings
A theoretical model on areas needing special consideration when evaluating creativity in R&D organizations will be presented in the next chapter. The model was chosen specifically with usability in mind. It should be easy to patch the model onto virtually any organization; although there is a certain application bias towards large geographically spread companies. Additionally the individual concepts in the model must answer well to the demands on tangibility. That is, problems should be easily identified and the ways of remedy the problems should be straight forward. We will end this pap r by br efly discussing how well the model stands up to these demands. e i
The survey was set up initially, on two separate interviews with two section managers in the case organization. Then three staff members in each section were interviewed on their views on R&D work in the company, both on a personal and on a general level. The goal was to analyze the organization and specifically the two individual sections out of an operational perspective. Therefore the questions asked in the interviews were focused on the day to day activities of how work was conducted and under which circumstances.
The results of the interviews in chapter 4 were then analyzed through the model, consisting of four domains related to aspects of R&D work that have specific influences on creativity. From this analysis we will be able to indentify certain areas of concern that have a good effect on creativity and should be safeguarded and other areas that have a detrimental effect of creativity thus needing special attention. These special spotlights are presented in the last chapter.
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However research (Amabile et al, 2002) points out that a sustained level of high stress has detrimental effects on performance, including innovativeness. Many managers have found themselves questioning why the modes of encouraging innovation by adding pressure that once seemed so effective suddenly cannot help to bolster performance.
The key, it seems, is to keep good control over both break and throttle. Varying the speed at which employees work as well as varying complexity and scope of missions will help encourage a more creative environment. Additionally leaders must know when to inquire at all and when to hold back. Corporate cultures will often slip into promoting action and control over learning and exploration. The emergence of a ‘meeting culture’ is a symptom of such ideals. In the need to always have ‘the answer’ meticulous technical presentations consuming much time for both developers and management is a common recurring theme. All based on a fear of failure and unwillingness to release control.
(Boehlke, 2008) Virtually all literature on managing creativity produced in the last decade will specifically tell you to refrain from excessive control and lowering demands on accountability in order to promote innovation (for example Boehlke, 2008; Sutton, 2001; Andriopoulos, 2003).
Leaders in R&D walk a politically thin line between the need of control and the need to release innovative talent to roam freely. This political behavior becomes apparent when issues shift from the usual managerial aspects of running a project or managing a team (i.e. a more hands‐on approach) and instead is focused on explaining non‐tangible aspects which in many ways are very hard for anyone to explain. Therefore a behavior of defensive routines becomes apparent in order bring level‐headedness into actions that are perceived as ‘loose’ in the corporate business world. Pacing productivity is all about knowing what spurs the creative process and what chokes it.
2.1.2 Capitalizing on Failure
Defect management and profound corporate control can easily come head‐to‐head with the way researchers are used to deduce results. In the scientific method of testing hypotheses, failure is a built‐in mechanism of learning while the ability to assimilate this behavior is often underdeveloped in many organizations (Boehlke, 2008). Instead a fear of failure can creep into the minds of R&D functions because of the need to exercise control.
Fear of failing induces defensive routines that were mentioned in the previous section. Defensive routines are defined as ‘all the policies, practices, and actions that prevent human beings from having to experience embarrassment or threat, and, at the same time prevent them from examining the nature and causes of that embarrassment or threat’ (Argyris, 1994). Even if the routines are spotted by management they are often ignored because of uncertainty in dealing with this sort of behavior, with the management role being cemented into non‐abstract functions such as planning and distributing tasks for instance. It is however essential for leaders to identify and surface defensive routines and keep in mind the underlying reasons for defensive behavior. At least three factors that inhibit a desired an open‐hearted social behavior in discussing failure can be identified:
(1) Individuals experience negative emotions when examining their own failures;
this chips away at self confidence and self‐esteem.
(2) Most managers are rewarded for decisiveness, efficiency and action rather than
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reflection and painstaking a alysis.
(3) Psychological biases and errors reduce human perception, sense making, estimation and attribution
(Cannon & Edmonson, 2005)
It is important for organizations to work on mechanisms for reducing the influence of these three factors. The looks and shapes of these mechanisms may vary but one component is key for uncovering unwanted defensive routines; trust. Boehlke declares that creativity cannot flourish without trust. Trust ensures that no one is watching you behind your back during the creative process and that employees feel comfortable
reporting failures to management which enables organizational learning. That is what Capitalizing on Failure is all about.
2.1.3 Managing Connection
The means of communication are changing and rapidly so. While the world seems to be shrinking our personal networks are swelling. Online social networks like Facebook have blossomed and research findings as well as corporate results can reach all corners of the world within seconds. With this many nodes of connection, R&D work must surely become greatly facilitated? Research tells a different story. Even though people have more peers than ever to connect to, people who state they have no one to discuss important issues has almost tripled from 1984 to 2004 (McPherson, Smith‐Lovin &
Bra esh ars, 2006). And who are these ‘peers’?
It is important to differentiate between connections and relationships. Boehlke defines them by connections being characterized by an exchange of value while relationships sustain mutual value. Further, a study by Cross & Parker (2004) on globally spread corporations describes two types of trust that exists within these organizations; competence‐based trust and benevolence‐based trust. The first one being based on transmitting information – in line with the definition of connections, while benevolence‐based trust is a more profound relationship which promotes more frank communication and thereby encouraging creativity.
Managing Connection is really about keeping things small. Boehlke claims too much outside information kills creativity and passion within a group. Trusting relationship are not opportunistic but are constant and rewarding, especially in a long‐term perspective.
The suggestion is to keep the creative process inside four walls (figure 2.2) where valuable feedback happens ad hoc, in line with the principals of Pacing Productivity. A constant coming and going of information does not foster innovation. This goes for leadership as well:
“The constant thumping of Blackberries and other mobile devices by leaders in and of themselves reinforce perceptions of constant vigilance and necessary control on the part of management, whether intentional or not. This is actually a kind of
‘political’ behavior though few would initially identify it as such.”
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2.2 The Impact of the Domains
All four domains are interconnected by different aspects that could be social factors, organizational factors or any other part of R&D. For instance, by managing connections in a way that limits the amount of outside communication could have a positive effect on stress levels, which is an essential part of pacing productivity. With more effective communication patterns in terms of creativity time could be saved and used for reflection on work done, a way of capitalizing on failure. More examples like this are easy to come up with. Boehlke describes each domain as a lens ‘through which to understand and practice inventions in the other three domains’.
All four domains are susceptible to political behaviors. In fact politics appear everywhere. They can either work to enhance innovativeness or suppress it. Leaders in positions strongly rewarded by immediate results can easily fall into political behavior which for example aims to quicken thing up. If this type of leadership gets a strong hold on R&D processes, creative performance suffers. Likewise a leader working closely with developers might form a more affectionate personal bond with the staff and therefore might try to exhort influence as to satisfying staff needs, for good or worse. The sum of all these influences is what sets up the creative working environment. (Boehlke, 2008)
3 M E T H O D O L O G Y A N D C A S E P R E S E N T A T I O N
The science of creativity is a multidisciplinary one. Everything could and should be considered from organizational structure, social psychology, personal psychology, business management all the way down to ‘cold‐hearted’ measurements such as asset optimization. The scope of subjects considered and the complexity and sensitivity of some of the issues dealt with in the theories explained the previous chapter makes a qualitative interview survey suitable for the purposes of this paper.
3.1 Establishing the Questionnaire
The reason for the method selected is to get as close as possible to the phenomena that we wish to observe and evaluate. The interviews were therefore not too rigidly structured to such an extent that the respondent was held too tight by the questions asked, but could freely communicate his or her views. (In accordance with Holme &
Solvang, 1996, p. 91‐98)
A template was set up which highlighted the special areas involved in the survey deducted from our primary theories (chapter 2). The templates were inspired by an original example from Holme & Solvang (1996, p. 102). The interviews would always start with enquiring about general personal information and then smoothly cross over to descriptions of what kind of work the respondent does. In this way a friendly report was established with the respondent by questions that are easily answered. All to make the person interviewed comfortable with the situation. As the interviews progressed, they tended to diverge from the original setup. Depending on the person and how the interview developed the questions could for example jump straight from work descriptions to reporting down to leadership relationship (See Appendix 1 and 2 for interview templates for R&D employees and leaders respectively). This freedom of expression seemed to result in openness from the respondents leading to a wealth of material for the final analysis.
In retrospect the design of the questions turned to be a little too harmless. Fears that the questions regarding leadership assessments and trust issues would be sensitive and needed to be approached with care, turned out to be unfounded. As the series of interviews progressed the form of questioning changed to more directly hit the core concerns of the study.
3.2 The Company
While it was probably designed to fit many kinds of organizations, the theory of the four domains mentioned previously in chapter 2 was developed from workshops with representatives from larger corporations that were functioning on a worldwide market and with operating branches spread globally. Therefore fittingly, the company taking part in this paper was one with subsidiaries all over the world as well as having products that sell in virtually every country. Moreover the products can be classified as technologically advanced but also taking part of a very competitive market. By those standards the company suits the purpose of this paper particularly well because of its size, but also because it relies heavily on innovation for its long term survival.
The examined organization is situated in Sweden, in a location holding a significant R&D department for a specific set of products. For matters of secrecy and personal integrity both the company as a whole and the persons taking part in the study will remain anonymous.
3.3 Selection of Respondents
Representatives from the human resource function suggested two sections working with developing certain products for the survey. The section managers themselves then picked three representatives from their section who would also take part in interviews to examine the leadership within the organization. It might not be optimal to leave such a large part of the selection process in the hands of the organization examined. However this was partly done because of the time pressure involved in completing this paper but also because this internal selection process was done in two layers of selection. First through human relations that selected the sections and then the section managers picked three respondents each and were told not to select persons too similar in too many aspects. This seemed like fair weight off between the scientific reliability demands and the corporate reality.
As it turned out the resulting material was plentiful. None of respondents had any problems with the questions asked. From the interviewer’s point of view the answers seemed honest and truthful. As mentioned above even the more delicate matters included in the survey was dealt with a very open way. It might have been done easier by that fact that some of the question appeared to have been previously asked in various internal evaluations in the organization.
3.4 The Two Sections
The two R&D sections examined comprised of roughly 15 persons. Section 1 worked on chemical development of products while section 2 developed software for electronic equipment. The scope of work and the routines involved were therefore different for the two sections in many ways. Overall section 1 can be considered an all embracing R&D group both researching new possibilities and developing products, while section 2 is much more focused on pure development.
3.5 The Individuals Interviewed
The manager of section 1 was highly experienced within the company having spent over two decades as an employee after joining as a then newly graduated Ph.D. in the mid eighties. The person then got promoted to the current section managerial role within R&D 9 years ago.
Manager 2 was hired externally as a section manager almost 2 years ago after previously having completed a six month tenure in the company as a consultant working on project management. In total manager 2 has held a manager position for the last 9 years. Both the managers would be considered to be middle aged.
All of the staff respondents can be described experienced within the field. The range of employment time in the current company scoped between 3 to 16 years with ages varying between early 30’ies to late 50’ies. In total one female and seven male respondents were interviewed.
3.6 Execution
All of the eight interviews were held during one week in the late spring of 2008. The managers were the first interviewed in the respective sections. The manager’s interviews had a longer scheduled time span with some general information being shared about the organizational structure, missions and other general properties of the sec
tions that was essential for understanding the R&D activities.
The two managerial interviews took about one hour to complete while the interviews with the six R&D staff members were done in 40 minutes up to an hour. The conversations were digitally recorded with permission of the respondents. To clarify differences and keep track of the two sections they are designated section 1 and section 2 for the remainder of this paper.
4 I N TT E R V I E W R E V V E L A T I O O N S
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he work n 2 was on tasks
This is opposite to the matrix structure where the different skills necessary for one project needed to be picked from sections where they are gathered according to expertise.
The route of communication also became different in this product based structure.
Because the section staff now was working on the same product communication was denser within the section. However the manager of section 2 did add that substantial communications with other sections had to occur because they were also working on the same product, albeit different aspects of it. The organizational structure changed for this specific part of the whole organization one year before the interview took place, from the matrix structure as described above. This was done to get better continuity on the product line by having the same group of people working on it as the products developed. Manager 2 was generally pleased with this organizational transition but did admit it was still too early to call.
4.1.3 Leadership Responsibilities
The section manager duties included staff‐care responsibilities ‐ assuring a good physical and social working environment in accordance with company regulations, including safety requirements. The manager also had to sustain a section budget; one that was by most part set by senior staff but in which the section manager had some say.
Moreover each department held an investment budget out of which the section managers made necessary technical improvements for keeping the research work up to dat
e.
Another important part of the manager’s tasks involved quality control of material such as technical reports that were to be released to the outside world of the company.
Also the progression of projects containing staff from the section were under section manager jurisdiction, by making sure certain milestones was reached without delay.
Finally the manager helped project managers staffing projects with the necessary manpower, should the projects require the specific knowledge that the section represented.
Manager 1 did voice a concern about the information flow from the projects to the section management. The section manager did have stakes in the projects and an obligation to solve upcoming problems. However, since the manager was not involved in the day to day management of the projects (which was the projects manager’s role) there was a risk that the manager only got involved in problems once things got really
bad. The manager commented about not getting a chance to help rectify errors before they developed into serious problems.
It seemed that the organizational structure made it difficult for section management to sometimes barge in on the domains of the project manager even though, from the section manager’s point of view, it could be beneficial for effectiveness. Manager 1 said it was important to keep enquiring avidly into the projects as information did not flow naturally. The manager did admit the communication with the projects’ members, including the leaders, had improved in recent years. Previously the manager could feel left out of the ongoing activities of the staff members because of the slow flow of information but these proceedings had indeed improved with time. Apparently the balance of the matrix has shifted from being very project oriented (the vertical arrays in fig 4.1) onto giving the ‘line’ (read: sections, horizontal arrays) more space and authority.
In the meantime manager 2 expressed that because of the organizational structure of that section, it was fairly easy to get good insight in what the staff was doing. It was specifically stated that this was probably due to the re‐organization that had taken place earlier.
4.1.4 Nature of the Projects
A majority of the projects were held inside the site in Sweden where the interviews took place. However there were projects with multinational participants. Some projects were spread across the corporation’s sites in countries like the United Kingdom, United States and India.
Both the section managers and the staff raised issues about these cross‐the‐border projects mainly regarding the limited means of communication. Problems arose when having to work with someone you could not personally see for the larger part of the project as well as some cultural differences. Complaints were for instance raised over scheduled phone conferences that had to be made way out of normal office hours because of the projects overlapping many time zones. One comment about this distance relation was that people generally were too polite when communication over phone or e‐mail. This led to many unclarities which often could be remedied by simply meeting face to face where it was much easier to get straight points across and talks were more earnest.
Project times in section 1 varied with the shortest ones being a couple of months long. Normally project times stretched from 6 months up to a year, sometimes longer still. In section 2 the talks were about cycles that were dependent on general product development as the ‘project’ was a continuous one. However no generalization about these cycles could be made from the interviews, other than that the section had just left a phase with intensive development because of an upgrade in the product line.
4.2 Work Load
It was widely acknowledged during the interviews with section 1 that the work load on the R&D members was quite high. The section 1 manager recognized having to cut the section members’ working commitments in order to not produce too much over time hours as a prominent managerial task. Overtime hours had to be approved by management but were, at least in stressful periods, a common occurrence.
The first manager also admitted that the co‐workers experienced the environment as stressful. From the yearly employee questionnaire the amount of stress and lack of recovery was a particularly standing out issue. From the manager’s point of view, the sheer number of projects could sometimes be overwhelming for everyone involved in the section. Section 1’s manager did admit having to push employees to complete certain tasks, but at the same time the manager was often involved in putting other tasks on hold while putting pressure on completing more prioritized tasks. Thereby structuring the work (ex. setting priorities to different tasks) for the staff became something in which the manager was much involved with. However there was never any need for the manager to push employees because things were moving too slowly overall.
Manager 1 who had spent a long time with the organization said that some years back, the pace of production was not as high. Nowadays as soon as a project ends R&D workers immediately jump to the next one. Sometimes they even do that before the previous project ends. There used to be a lag‐time in‐between projects where the staff could catch one’s breath and recuperate. That lag‐phase simply did not exist anymore.
The answers in the interviews with section 1 staff was not as resounding. In no way was there too little work to do but the mechanisms for stopping employees getting too much work seemed to operate quite well, at least for some. One of the responding staff members simply said there were loads to do and that the always seemed to be a lack of
resources. None of the three said they worked overtimes hours for any extensive periods.
The manager of section 2 gave a brighter view on the work load and stress levels of that section. Here there were also deadlines to follow and at times there was indeed a lot of work needed to be done. But these peaks of high stress seemed more easily identified and were normally followed by a phase with normalized work load. One problem that could occur was when, in times of high stress levels, upper management did not deliver clear priorities on what should be done primarily and what would have to wait until the storm has passed. But in general the communication with the department managers was good; a view was that was shared by both managers interviewed.
When interviewing the developers in section 2, the work load assessments were a bit grimmer. The team has just gone out of a very intensive two year development stage with very high stress levels during which work over time was a reappearing theme. The
‘peaks’ that the section manager was talking about surely was identifiable, but this one happened to be very long. Pressure was dropping since the more intense phase of the project had passed, but one of the developers added that a new project manager had come in – one that played the gatekeeper role much sturdier than the predecessor (i.e.
blocking too much work coming in). The staff was therefore given more breathing space.
4.3 Reports Evaluations
No in‐depth investigation into the work progress was made by section managers on a continuous basis except for informal talks in the workplace. The staff was expected to independently go on with their shores on the individual projects. The manager in section 2 was planning to introduce a formal reporting system which would equal the reporting that the section manager gave to the department manager, but now of course on an individual level. The different projects held status meeting weekly or bi‐weekly where info
and
rmation about the ongoing work was shared and discussed.
A lot of documentation was created in the R&D organization, but there seemed to be a common understanding towards documenting on account of it helping keeping track of the research. If not for the simple reason to quickly be able to patent or in other ways protect innovations created inside the organization. However, there was not a lot of documenting going on in terms of tracking the status or the quantity of work being done.
Besides getting approval from section management the scientific reports went under internal peer review. A designated senior scientist left opinions on the staff’s work before the reports were released. One of the interviewed staff members of section 1 expressed gratitude towards these proceedings. As both of the persons were working within the same section and sometimes on the same project, the communication worked very well. There was much openness in the discussion preceding the completeness of the reports, before they were handed over for final review by senior managers. This was told to be a very good, as well as dependable, source for inspiration.
The managers held evaluation meetings with the employees quarterly. They were then categorized within three levels; from exceptional talent through valuable member down to underperforming. If a staff member fell into the latter category the number of follow‐up meetings increased to monthly talks with the manager. This was done in order to thoro gh y co e to term with the p oblem needu l m s r s ed to be rectified.
One of the managers expressed some fears from employees involved in the evaluation process. Many were not used to this rather frank method of examining one’s work. The manager indicated that it was not previously accepted in the Swedish corporate culture to hold this kind of feedback talks with staff members. This included giving positive feedback; something manager 1 says had started to come through more recently. The organization was starting to adapt more ‘international’ norms in regards to feedback. Tolerance had become greater and none of the people interviewed expressed any negative concerns about the personal evaluations. Likewise the relationships between the staff and management seemed to be a healthy one and all of staff members interviewed agreed that there was never any problems in coming to their respective manager to discuss problems in whatever form that had arised during work.
4.4 Rules and Commandments
Safety regulations were very often getting high priority on meeting agendas both with midlevel managers and their staff and when the managers reported upwards. In the first section a bi‐weekly section meeting was held where the section member’s work was presented and again safety issues are carefully examined. Also there was a constant stream of information flowing down from corporate governance about these regulations. Manager 1 joked:
“Sometimes it feels you are required to wear a space suite as soon as you are about to step into the lab”
While all the persons interviewed admitted that the regulations are necessary, in part for the well being of the staff but also because juridical accountability reasons (i.e. the company is very vary of law suits). But there was also a consensus that senior representatives tended to overdo it on more than one occasion. One employee described the steady flow of more or less non‐essential information from corporate executives as an annoying interference when the working schedules were already tight. This included web‐based training programs that were not well received by many of the employees interviewed because they were seen as time consuming and infantile:
“You can get the perception it’s not even serious, like being educated on how to open an office drawer” (Staff member in section 2)
4.5 Learning
By the end of projects or certain project cycles the members were supposed to gather information regarding possible improvements of the development work and address issues that had come up during the projects that may have negative effects on work.
However the essence of these ‘moments of reflection’ appeared to have, putting it mildly, not quite made a breakthrough. One of the managers explained:
“In the projects we usually have a thing called ‘lessons learned’ by the end of projects where you (the project members) sit down and discuss what we could learn from this, what went wrong and what can we improve until next time. But how people use that feedback from the projects, that varies. Unfortunately these feedback events take place, someone writes it down in a report and then a new project start and that report is never looked at again”
A staff member concluded that project participants are released at different times, thereby it was difficult to gather all the people again to compare their experiences in order to make solid conclusions about things to improve. The learning was solely on an
individual level whereby your own inner thoughts and experiences evolved into learning for future work.
Besides the apparent lack of time to establish proper project evaluations further problems surfaced. One of the persons interviewed, who also had spent some time as a project manager, said that people often had a defensive tendency when it came to looking back on previous work.
“Some people were scared of pointing out shortcomings in the project because they are afraid that they themselves have missed something that could hit them back”
“There is no problem crying over lack of resources, but no one ever writes (in the evaluation forms) that we came up with bad a method for solving this and that problem. That hardly ever happens.”
Another person interviewed who had previously worked with academic research compared the two worlds. The respondent concluded that university professors tended to be more frank and even brutal in their evaluation with scholars. That type of personal revision on project work was not as common in the organization in this study.
4.6 Allowing Creative Roaming?
It could sometimes be hard for a newly recruited scientists from the academic world to understand the demands in commercial industrial research. Some good ideas had been sent to the bin because they would simply not make profits for the company.
Summarized manager 1:
“You are not just here for your own sake. You are here for the team.
That has to be realized for newly graduated recruits. [...] They seem focused on their own career and picking up merits. That is not how it works in the industry. The company owns the results not ‘Me’”
At the same time ‘orders from above’ about quickly moving resources to certain projects or problems seemed to tire employees. Manager 1 wanted to see more continuity in the
working scheme allowing the R&D staff to focus more carefully on the projects they were assigne t n the f rst place. d o i i
Manager 1 pointed out that the employees were encouraged to find solutions independently and bring in new ideas but there was no official time put away to do so.
All of the staff members were 100% booked on projects, in reality the manager says, they work 85% on the projects and the remaining part is where you theoretically could put in your own research. However most of that time was consumed by section meetings. In the same time each section has goals set up by senior management in which a number of new ideas and patents should be discovered each year. Manager 1 did admit that it might seem contradictory to push for invention while almost all of the employee work hours were solely dedicated to problem solving on a project level.
The other manager shared a similar story. There is some time off from the projects for the staff. Bits of that time are used to improve line production. This could be done by adjusting the development systems in order to make future work more effective. But that is how far off the normal development routines it got.
Officially the company both demanded and encouraged innovation. Goals were set for departments and sections to come up with a certain number of new ideas and register a number of patents. The emergence of ideas and patents were financially rewarded but the staff involved in this survey testified that there is no time for conducting independent work outside the projects. Should something interesting emerge then future research into that matter had to be formalized within the organization and under supervision of management. The general consensus from the respondents was that it should be easier to diverge with ideas without too much red tape. Only one respondent dared to say this would produce better results, but the consensus was that it would at least make the R&D‐workers more satisfied.
Meanwhile the project themselves had been breeding grounds of exceptional ideas.
According to some, this has a lot to do with the composition of the project group. If the persons in a group were happy with each other there was a better probability for positive synergy effects. One developer highlighted the importance of the project manager; some let too much pressure from the outside (for example costumer demands or internal corporate demands) flow into the project causing a stressful environment which inhibited good results. While a good project manager would safeguard the group
from outside pressure thereby contributing to a better working environment which rendered better results.
4.7 The Views of the Leadership Role
Manager 1 explained some difficulties when advancing from the R&D staff onto managing it. The transition from being a ‘friend’ to the ‘boss’ was in the beginning a bit troublesome. The manager still tried to keep an amicable relationship with the section members but in the same time kept a professional distance. This balancing act had with time became easier naturally; because the manager now barely worked with any former
‘equal’ colleagues.
The same manager talked about losing out on a communication network with colleagues when moving to a managerial position. In the beginning this void was difficult to refill before finding the balance recently mentioned and also building a new network with other leaders within the organization. Still the managers felt closely tied with the section, but kept issues regarding regulation and control inside the sphere of other company leaders.
The relationship between managers and staff appeared to be a good one. There was no prestige or loss of prestige between them. In the same way the hierarchical differences were not very apparent and many expressed that the mangers stood very close to the section compared to the perceived relationship between the section managers and their seniors in command. This was done without losing clarity in the professional roles. A couple of the staff members interviewed had been appointed section members for shorter periods, for example as a stand‐in and one of them concluded;
“Being a (section) manager here is more about being a servant than dishing out orders”
Much of the manager’s role was about setting priorities to projects and making sure the staff spent their time and energy on matters that were the most important. Therefore an important task was also to let upper management know how much work one could actually load into the groups without causing lapses in quality. Occasionally the managers would inquire into the work being conducted by the staff, but their overall role was not so much technical but more administrative.
