With many companies downsizing, rightsizing and reorganizing lately, human resources is about as popular as bird flu these days. But savvy companies have a real opportunity to rethink the role of HR - into the engine that drives the cultural changes needed to achieve sustainable innovation, according to Rowan Gibson.
There are two key reasons why downsizing is bad for innovation. Neither is immediately obvious, explains Jeffrey Baumgartner in this must-read article.
Instead of conducting wide-ranging brainstorming sessions so generate hundreds of ideas in search of the one "big one," author Jack Hipple recommends a TRIZ-based approach that focuses instead on clear problem definition and looking at past patterns of invention for potential solutions.
