Ideo 's Creative And Internal Systems Culture

People clearly are an organization’s most critical resource. Their knowledge and skills along with their commitment, creativity, and effort are the basis for competitive advantage. It is people that have creative ideas for new products or for process improvements that devise marketing strategy or take technologies to the next level.

In today’s economic environment everything changes rapidly not only the economic indicator but also people’s life-style or pattern of consumption. In such a rapidly shifting milieu, creative ideas, knowledge, and innovation are the only stable sources of capital (D. Oliver, “Achieving results through diversity: a strategy for success,” Ivey Business Journal Online, vol. 69, no. 4, 2005.) So developing a more diverse workforce can make the business full of creativity and vigour and the most important thing is that creativity and innovation are the indispensable factors in social

Executives refer to business as a team sport for a variety of reasons. First, many business organizational structures arrange departments either in cross specialty teams or task oriented teams based on operational design and expected outcomes. These teams are designed with members who are assigned roles that increase overall team productivity. The team members bring talents, knowledge and a skill set that uniquely contributes to collective intelligence and resourcefulness. Through collaboration and team work, Successful teams achieve synergy, or “exceeds the sum of each individual’s contribution”.

The employees at Quicken “express an appreciation for the inclusive and creative culture, nurtured by leaders who encourage them to innovate without fear of failure along the way”. (Fortune, 2014)

Recreational Equipment Incorporated (REI) is an innovative retailer of outdoor equipment and apparel. Since 1938, the recreational retailer has strived to provide its customers with the best equipment, at reasonable prices, while supporting conservation and education initiatives. Utilizing the mission statement “We inspire, educate and outfit for a lifetime of adventure and stewardship,” REI is an exemplary example of how corporate diversity can boost a company’s productivity and innovation (REI, 2014). This case study will discuss the internal and external diversity initiatives of REI and their effect on the organization’s performance. Topics will include a general background of the organization and industry, discussions on the types of diversity in the company, organizational procedures that support diversity and an analysis of how the organization can improve in the area of diversity.

The CEO of the Camp Bow Wow claims that it is the best way to make people committed to the organization and its goals. The key objective here is to let everyone in the company communicate their ideas. As each person has different set of skills, different experience and different view, they can come up with different amazing ideas that otherwise would have never been discovered. The employees of the organization are the great source of new creative ways to approach business, new products or even new strategy. However, it is essential to remember that there needs to be balance between the new ideas offered by employees and what is better for the brand. This point is important, because any business at some point should come up with innovative ideas to at least keep stable profits. The world is changing every day and business owners should react quickly and adapt to the new circumstances. Usually, people working on different levels of organization are most familiar with their particular field and can offer new ideas for development and growth which the CEO or anyone from another department would not be focused on. The best ideas usually appear throughout discussion and healthy conflicts; therefore, it is important to make sure that employees are empowered to speak up.

Creativity and innovation are necessary in life, whether it is for evolving and adapting to new surroundings or for pulling a company out of a financial crisis, we use our creative abilities and innovate every day. In order to develop and grow the ability to think creatively, one must first understand where these ideas come from and in what environment innovation flourishes. Steven Johnson, Edward Burger, and Michael Starbird suggest change comes from productive thinking and working collaboratively in a group. Effective thinking can be broken down into five essential elements, while working collaboratively in a group setting allows for different views on the topic at hand creating a stronger more defined product or process.

If we can acknowledge that our current culture is ineffective we can modify the vision in which we as an organization can adequately relate to this particular market segment. Organizational or corporate culture covers many facets of organizational life, such as management styles, appraisals, rewards, and communication styles used by employees. If we can adjust too many varying styles of management, which includes myself, I believe that our control over this new market will be so strong that many competitors will attempt to become strategic partners. If this does evolve into new business partnerships then our leading edge towards new and improved innovation will be the benchmark for other corporations to follow. Not only will we be a leader in

And while it’s easy to make quick hires so that you can lighten your own load, doing so can be lethal to the organization. Bezos was brutal in his hiring discipline. But he had to be if he wanted to firmly establish the right culture. There are a number of things that define your culture, but the people you hire are the most influential in creating culture. They bring to the table their beliefs, values, and behaviors which shape culture from the very beginning. Bezos said, “Cultures are these fantastic things. Cultures are not so much planned as they evolve from that early set of people. Once a corporate culture is formed, it tends to be extremely stable. It stays around. It ends up building on itself” (p. 49). To create or protect a healthy organizational culture, you’ll need an effective hiring process. Furthermore, you need to know what types of questions to ask. I don’t believe you have to hire people exactly like you in terms of skills. In fact, doing so may keep the organization from gaining traction. But you must recruit people with the same DNA. Skills determine if a job gets done. But DNA determines if the organization stays true to its vision. Question: What have you found to be a practical way to shape the culture of your organization?

The design stage of IBC began on a cold January morning with a three-day camping trip to the Teton Mountains. In three feet of snow and sub-zero temperatures, it could not get any better. The goal of this trip was to build team unity and narrow fifteen ideas down to one. Team building activities were both difficult and challenging, but were designed to see how others work in different environments and find those that step up into leadership roles. The two-hour drive back home gave plenty of time to reflect on having just been chosen as CEO and what was necessary to launch the new business of selling handcrafted, home décor products online.

The case study detailing the dilemma faced by the organization known as Box, Inc., is one concerned with the challenge of maintaining organizational culture in the face of rapid growth. The organization began as a classic start-up company that evolved out of a garage by a few friends. Beginning as a simple organization with few team members paved the way for the successful culture that would permeate the company for years to come. The challenge facing Box, Inc. in the study is not one of loss, but, rather, one of gain. The organization has rapidly expanded in the last few years, now hosting multiple sites around the globe and over a thousand employees. This rapid change presents the top executives, such as CEO Aaron Levie with the difficult task of preserving their start-up culture that breeds ingenuity and success. One managerial solution the top executives implemented was their institution of a rigorous and highly selective hiring process. This solution was highly effective in maintaining the organizational culture within Box, Inc., in light of the multiple organizational behavior theories that describe the strong correlation between selective hiring and cultural sustainability within a company.

IDEO has a flat organization; there are no formal titles, dress codes, organizational charts or permanent job assignments. The company is made up of project teams organized around IDEO's innovation process, which is focused on constant brainstorming and prototyping; where no idea is a bad idea, in the early stages of a project, and trial and error is an expectation on the journey to getting it right. The organization is driven by team collaboration and performance, built around creativity, innovation, and idea and information sharing to develop breakthrough products and achieve customer satisfaction by understanding customer needs and input. It is an adhocracy of two core groups tied together by IDEO's

Teams consist of personnel with varied backgrounds, experience, education, and intellectual ability. These differences will, by nature lend themselves to varying perceptions in business, its problems and solutions, which result in

There is no doubt that today¡¦s business world is changing rapidly and many factors are also simultaneously interacting. Perhaps these factors are created by diversity.

In today’s knowledge-based economy, innovation has become the principal source of competitive advantages in global business; the success of firms now depends more on their intelligence capability – such as employee creativity – than traditional material assets (Amabile et al., as cited in Zhou, Zhang & Montoro-Sa ́nchez, 2011). The creative capability of individual and collective knowledge workers is the fuel that powers innovation in firms. While creativity leads to the production of new and useful ideas in any domain, innovation is the successful implementation of those creative ideas within an organisation (McLean, as cited in Zhou, Zhang & Montoro-Sa ́nchez 2011). In highly dynamic business environments innovation and creativity have become crucial for creating competitive advantages for the