One of Google's most famous management philosophies is something called "20% time".
Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin highlighted the idea in their 2004 IPO letter in which they wrote: "We encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google.
"This empowers them to be more creative and innovative. Many of our significant advances have happened in this manner."
More than a decade later, the 20% initiative has led to the development of Google News, Gmail, and even AdSense – products that now individually account for up to 25% of the company’s $50billion turnover.
Although the web conglomerate recently announced that the “20%” no longer exists, this policy has been adopted and imitated by brands and companies across the globe.
Not long ago, we identified a need in the marketplace for a new technology.
In addition to designing and constructing test rigs to simulate the actual well operations in the field, we identified the use of images, including micro-CT scanning, to help in understanding the damage mechanisms and its impact on the formation.
These sophisticated experiments, developed by the COREX formation damage team, now allow us to provide added value to our clients that wouldn’t be available elsewhere and offers a new and innovative service (and knowledge base) to the industry.
COREX spotted this and wanted to rise to the challenge, and this was done by working on developing our innovation and IP processes in-house, which included allowing staff the time to develop ideas and processes that could further benefit the industry.
Although this is perhaps not a case of 20% of our team’s time dedicated to this - we do ensure and encourage that the team are given these opportunities via internal cultural programmes, COREXPLORE and COREXCELLENCE that support COREX’s new way of working and the values that are important to the brand.
In the workplace, culture is more often than not the driving force behind change, and what bigger change is there than innovative and forward thinking approaches and products that not only drive growth for your business, but give an edge over competitors to your clients?
My advise, to those looking to improve innovation at their work, and become recognised as an exciting challenger brand is that effective communication is vital to drive innovation.
Having good communication across teams means that ideas are not only heard, but also shared and developed upon.
New ways of working and values should identified, considered and created that gives staff the free range to explore and ask questions – "how can this be done better?"
A lot of the ideas might be thrown out, patents might be dismissed and staff may become frustrated at times, but in order to grow as an industry leader – that pushes convention and is respected across the globe, requires a bit more than 20% of your time, but 100% commitment and 110% determination.