Breaking Down Innovation Barriers: “The Art of Making Babies”

1. Roger Lee
Open Innovation Leader
The Clorox Company

2. “Innovation is as challenging as making a baby. Lots of
good intentions, elaborate plans are made, hopes soar
skyward, then the real work begins.
- Unnamed scientist

3. • Innovation Barriers
•Active Barriers -
•Passive Barriers –
•Setting the Mood
• Open Innovation Adoption – Challenges
of the adoption process
• - How to build an Adoptee mindset
• 4Tips to Open Innovation Success
WhatWe’ll Cover

4. Roger Lee
Innovation Barriers
“Contraceptives”

7. “If you don’t know what your barriers are, it’s impossible to figure out how to tear
them down.”
― John Manning,The Disciplined Leader: Keeping the Focus on What Really Matters
Physical Barriers
Innovation Contraceptives

8. Passive Barriers
Mood Killers

10. • People generally agree, adoption is a
good thing
• Good for the adopter, and the adoptee
• 1,778,000 Adoptees per year
• 115 million households
• 1.6%
American Adoption Statistics
Adoption is like…. Open Innovation
• People generally agree, Open
Innovation is a good thing
• Good for the adopter, and the
adoptee

11. • Idea not Invented/made here
• Internal ideas are better
• External ideas have a history
• External ideas must be flawed
• Expensive and complicated
process
• More risk (IP, other party)
• Someone didn’t want this idea so…
• Takes too long
• Not true flesh and blood
• Adoptees will have lower priority
• Adoptees come with a stigma,
like step children
• Adoptees come with problems
• Expensive and complicated
process
• Higher risk (agency)
• Someone didn’t want this baby so
there must be something wrong
• Takes too long
Challenging Perceptions of
Adoption Open Innovation

12. Glad – Leader in Trash Bags, Food Wrap, and Food storage
Adoption Example

13. • Embed in the business
• Articulate the gap
• Define external success criteria
• Change the culture
Open Innovation Leaders

14. “In the end, management doesn’t change culture, management invites the
workforce itself to change the culture.” Lou Gerstner
1. Stir up the Competitive Innovator in All
• Innovent – Internal InnovationCompetition
2. Bring the External IN
• Burt’s Bees Natural LaunchPad
3. Inspire by Seeing the Outside
• Inventor Networks
• Incubators
• Immersions
• Crowd Sourcing
4. Prove Better Faster Smarter
• External Expert Networks –
• Symposiums
• Advisory Boards
Breaking Down Barriers – Clorox Example

15. Now Go Out and ……
Roger Lee – Open InnovationThe Clorox Company