When two groups of employees are brought together under one umbrella, what’s the best way to make sure everyone is on the same page, while still acknowl- edging individual responses to the change? That was the challenge when
Boston Scientific held a meeting for 5,000 employees at the Minneapolis Convention Center to launch a new cardiology, rhythm, and vascular divi- sion and brand—the result of com- bining two divisions under a new CEO and new leadership. The meeting’s overar-
ching objective was to create an interactive envi- ronment that would allow attendees to experience the brand’s story— and the vision and pulse of the company— in a way that resonated with them
style” setting for the meeting, engaging employees with a variety of interactive methods for gather- ing feedback, sharing ideas, and creating conversations with the leadership team. Communication channels
included technology-based interac- tions with laptops, monitors, and video playback, allowing employees to provide input and make individ- ual or group videos. The meeting environment also included options for employees
that, as of 2008, people sent and received an average of seven phone calls and 12 text mes- sages each day. Fully 25 percent of employees at large com- panies say their commu- nications—voice mail, e-mail, and meetings— are nearly completely unmanageable, accord- ing to a McKinsey survey of more than 7,800 work- ers around the world. The result of all these
intrusions? Employees are overconnected, over- committed, overworked, and overwhelmed. One in three report their communications are “out of control.” Is it any wonder that
one of the most com- mon barriers to innova- tion that my client surveys reveal is “lack of time to innovate”? It inhibits creativity by crowding out reflection time that can produce fresh approaches. If you can’t find time, how can you gather information about an idea, or catch up on your reading, or dream up your next breakthrough? Nevertheless, “lack of
Left, attendees could add their signatures to wallboards. At right, acrylic circles with attendees’ faces printed on them were linked to create a 16-foot chandelier, the meeting’s central design focus.
individually, said Cheryl Kranz, CMP, the owner of Creative Events by Kranz, which produced the event in collaboration with a media produc- tion company and 10 independent event producers in the Twin Cities area.
The event team used what Kranz described as a “museum- 76 pcma convene December 2010
who preferred to communicate anonymously or to use less technical applications—they could choose to wear lapel buttons carrying messages, sign wallboards committing to a corporate quality statement, and vote or comment on ideas submitted by fellow employees.
time to innovate” is an assumption. The ques- tion at the heart of this assumption is this: If you and your colleagues had more time, would you produce more innova- tion?Would there be a greater tendency to dis- cover and implement better processes, prod- ucts, and services? Would hiring more peo- ple and cutting people’s workload lead to more innovation? Or would the tendency be to sim- ply expand the remain- ing workload to fill the available time? Here’s what I discov-
ered: An abundance of time does not guarantee more creative output any more than a lack of time always means less innovation. Innovators often point
to a time crunch to meet a deadline that led them to stop ignoring a prob- lem and come up with a novel solution. During