People power

This issue of eIQ focuses on R&D’s most precious resource: people. Because we know that people’s time is their most valuable personal resource, we’re introducing eIQ Action Points, lists of ideas to remember and implement in your organisation. They’re embedded at the bottom of each major feature and directly accessible from the links below. Each major feature also includes an executive summary with shortcuts to its main topics.

Competition, globalisation and open innovation are increasing the pressure to recruit people, manage them well, and work effectively with those you can’t hire. Our first feature looks at getting the best out of teams with different cultural backgrounds, whether they emerge from a place or a role. Our second feature looks at a way to assess the fit between a company’s strategy and its people, skills and resources. These pieces are complemented with a Viewpoint from the interface between public and private sector research, and a discussion of how Philips creates a consistent global approach to IP.

Other pieces look at what it takes to develop an innovation culture throughout a large corporation, and explore Schlumberger’s approach to recruiting thousands of graduates. News articles describe how China’s science and technology base is evolving, and how a European project is helping make doctoral training more relevant to industry. There is also a report on the Knowledge for Growth conference held in Toulouse in July 2008; and a discussion of the difficulties of being truly green, based on presentations from the Copenmind conference held in Copenhagen in September 2008.

Our Country Profile focuses on France, which currently holds the EU presidency.

The detailed contents are as follows:

Feature - Making the most of multiple cultures

This article looks at managing multicultural teams. Such teams should offer diverse approaches to problem solving, but if badly handled can descend into division. It’s important to recognise cultural diversity and its impact on how people think and interact. The article outlines common mistakes in multicultural management, provides practical advice on avoiding them, and describes a tool for exploring cultural assumptions.

eIQ Action Points – Making the most of working with multiple cultures

Feature - Competence mapping: keeping track of capabilities and skills

Competence mapping helps organisations work out the fit between their strengths and their resources, and how they compare with their competitors. Some companies use competence maps to drive innovation strategy. Others use them to understand the skills of their workforce. The article discusses the importance of taking care when developing competence maps, since the measures they embody will drive corporate and individual behaviour, and stresses that the technique should be seen as a continuing process not a one-off project.

eIQ Action Points - Keeping track of what you
know and do

IP - Creating a consistent global approach

This article explores how Philips creates a consistent global approach to IP, despite the diversity of the organisation and its partners. Among the keys to its approach are developing a good sense of the context within which its partners and employees work. It also tries to be flexible about how it protects its IP, and carries that flexibility over into its open innovation strategy, in which the goal is to ensure all parties win despite their differing corporate cultures. The overall message is to recognise cultural differences but work with them to maintain a consistent approach to IP.

eIQ Action Points - Creating a consistent global approach
to IP

by Tony Tangena, country manager Netherlands, Philips Intellectual Property and Standards (IP&S)

View from the interface between private and public research

This article discusses ways to develop successful collaborations between public and private research. The author highlights the importance of understanding the differing purposes of the two forms of research, and how this affects the motivation of the people working in them. He then discusses how to structure industrial teams for successful collaborations with public-sector research, and concludes by reminding us of the importance of picking the right type of public sector partner for your needs.

eIQ Action Points – Tips for good relations between public and private research

by Didier Roux, vice president of research, Saint-Gobain

View from corporate innovation

Embedding innovation throughout an organisation demands change from people and processes. Change needs champions, who can rework the core of an organisation to support innovation, and unlock the creativity of all its members. The end result of a successful program to embed innovation should be an organisation whose people and processes work together as if choreographed, rather directed from the centre.

eIQ Action Points - Ten tips to help people adapt to an innovation culture

by Karen Morris, chief innovation officer, AIG Product Development

A Day in the Life of ….Olivier Peyret, former vice president for university collaborations and recruitment at oilfield services company Schlumberger

This article discusses how Schlumberger recruits thousands of graduates a year. The first step is to have a global outlook. The next is a rigorous assessment process. Although Schlumberger has taken a lead in global recruiting, it is evolving its process to stay ahead of competitors, by building closer links with academia. Making deep relationships that pay off takes time, but is proving a useful way for Schlumberger to access multidisciplinary thinking.

eIQ Action Points – Hiring large numbers of graduates

News - China relies on people power for its position in science and technology

The recently published OECD report on innovation in China gives an insight into a rapidly developing industrial nation. It says China is now the third largest investor in R&D, after the US and Japan, spending $73.5bn (measured at purchasing power parity) in 2006.

News - Rethinking doctoral training for life beyond academia

Half of all doctoral students won’t become academics, yet most of them are trained as if they will. The DOC-CAREERS project aims to change this by emphasising the value of also teaching doctoral students the skills they will need to be successful in industry.

Issue 15 Winter 08