A little story at ING: the Barcelona sales team had not been meeting sales targets for the last three years, by the time I joined the company. Its area Director was a real team player. He was committed and spent a lot of time and company resources in motivating his team. Parties, incentive trips, tickets for this and for that... every time he had a sales motivation campaign, of course he had people meeting targets, but they just weren't achieving yearly results. I only had one question in mind for our first meeting: when you don't meet your targets what do you do different? The answer was "this or that", which translated into "more of the same, but harder". I asked about the spending in sales incentives and the actions undertaken. Again, more of the same. One year it was about soccer tickets, next year about tickets to the Cirque du Soleil. But it was a "one size fits all" incentive, which of course worked, but not in its full potential. So, we did a little exercise: they had to write in a piece of paper, which was their hobby, dream or thing that just "turned them on". We all have one; it could be very expensive or very cheap. Price was not the issue here, besides everybody new that ING's money could buy pretty much whatever dream they could have. So they did. I recall a Branch Office Manager who collected champagne corks, and that was very special to him. I took their "dream list" home with me and estimated the cost for the company. Based on the cost, I calculated what sales levels each had to accomplish, and sent each one a personalized letter stating: if you accomplish this target you will accomplish your dream. Needless to say it was the first year Barcelona met their sales objectives, and by the way, the last until now as after I left the company they just stopped doing it: it took somebody's heart to do it... not just an incentive system.
Innovation and creativity aren't the same. Creativity is a necessary ingredient to innovation, but it takes a lot of planning, perseverance and the ability to land a project for that "creative, neat idea" to become an innovation.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author only and do not represent the views of the Techman/Kanata or of any of its directors, officers or employees. The author, Mariana Ferrari Quijano, can be reached at marianaferrari@procesoi.com |
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Last but not least...innovation is a synonym for Joy and Happiness, and should not be made a "serious business strategy". Joy, because creating, learning, making mistakes is fun, and happiness because achieving far-fetched, almost unbelievable results makes everybody happy. Don't just take my word, ask Steve Jobs.