Asked to facilitate a roundtable discussion recently with 70 manufacturing CEOs, I said I’d be glad to do it. I suggested that we call the session “Winning in Today’s Global Manufacturing Environment.”

The association president agreed, and when that day came, I began by asking the CEOs about issues they are
dealing with in light of the global operating environment. To my surprise, they all stared at their shoes.

With more encouragement, one CEO mustered up the courage to go first. Soon they were discussing why they can’t compete on a global level because of excise taxes, foreign exchange rates, NAFTA, the unpatriotic use of cheap overseas labor. One even said our country needs a secretary of manufacturing, like a secretary of agriculture, to protect manufacturing in America.

After what seemed like an eternity (although my watch said it was only 13 minutes) I said, “Time out. I think you’ve got the wrong guy to lead this discussion.”

“What do you mean?” they asked.

I replied, “Well, when your president asked what I thought our discussion should be named, I said ‘Winning in
Today’s Global Manufacturing Environment’. But there must have been a typo in your invitations. You all seem to think it said ‘whining’ not ‘winning’!”

Many present were gray-hairs and no-hairs, as mature as myself. “Let me ask you folks some questions,” I said.
“Most of you will probably not be running your companies in 10 or 20 years. How many of you believe that our
government will intervene to equalize foreign currency rates during that time? Or implement protectionist measures against unfair excise taxes? And do you really want a czar of manufacturing in the federal government, telling you what products to produce, how many to make, and at what price to sell them, as the government does for farmers?”

Boy, that got their combative juices flowing! But I went on, “How many believe that it is the CEO’s job to create
jobs in America?” Nobody raised a hand. I asked, “How many believe it’s your job to make a profit for your company?”

Hands went up all around the table.

I continued, “Isn’t the average pay for skilled labor in the U.S. about $2,200 per month, while in China it’s about
$100 per month? Why should I as a consumer be forced to buy your products when I can buy theirs cheaper? What the hell is so unpatriotic about that? America is all about free enterprise, isn’t it?

“Can we conclude in the next 10 to 20 years, the government is not going to intervene, and cheap foreign labor is
not going to go away, but that your responsibility to create profits will stay?” Heads were nodding.

“So let’s stop this stinking thinking, and focus on what you can do instead,” I said. “America is the land of innovation. Recently we haven’t always been on the process side – which is how to do it faster, better, and cheaper. But so what! Nobody should underestimate our ability to innovate.” I thought I had permanently alienated myself from this group by calling them whiners, but the room was abuzz for the remainder of the session.

Then guess what? I was invited back some weeks later to pick up where we left off. Before they all got on the
whining bandwagon again, I suggested that we make a list of the things out of their control. It was an exhaustive list, including items from the previous session. When we were done, I tore the list off the easel, ripped it into pieces, and stomped on it.

“There. These issues are out of our control, and we’re not even going to talk about them,” I said. For the remaining threeand- a-half hours, we had a fruitful discussion about the things within their control, including marketing, selling, developing new products and applications, and making process improvements. We also discussed strategic alliances, partnering, and merging to leverage strengths, under the umbrella theme of innovation.

Now don’t get me wrong; I have a heartfelt respect for this group of hardworking entrepreneurs. They simply needed to hear the message that they will go by the way of family farming and smokestack industry if they don’t innovate.

We had a productive session, but usually when the word “innovation” is mentioned, images of out-of-control
brainstorming sessions at off-site meetings come to mind. You know the ones – everyone is supposed to think “outside the box” or of “new paradigms”. After a few days of brain frying, everyone returns to the same old routine. A few ideas survive, but are eventually mangled to death when people fight over who gets credit, become scared that change will make their jobs obsolete or require them to learn a new skill, or argue over whose budget it should come out of.

Besides, innovation doesn’t just happen overnight or once a year at some mystical off-site management meeting. It is the CEO’s responsibility to create a corporate environment in which innovation is just part of what people do. CEOs can do that by communicating a clear picture of some future state of the organization, and helping everyone understand how their job fits into the bigger picture of the company’s goals and mission. If all employees are in touch with the big picture, they’ll be able to come up with better ways of doing what they do, strengthening the innovation process.

CEOs should also promote taking realistic risks and sharing ideas. History is kind to Wilbur and Orville Wright,
but few realize that their competition, Glen Curtis, was the first to sell an airplane, to fly from one city to another, and to obtain a pilot’s license. The Wright brothers spun their wheels for five years, being so afraid to share ideas that they wouldn’t allow anyone to see theirs. Curtis believed in shared success and collaborated with others to solve problems and make improvements to his airplane, eventually becoming more commercially successful than the Wright brothers.

In the same manner, people in organizations today hold their innovations tightly to their chests, fearing that
sharing them will rob them of recognition. Unmeasured damage is done in terms of lost opportunity.

I recently read about some interesting research conducted by Genrich S. Altshuller (1926-1998), a Russian engineer who formalized a process for innovation. He analyzed and categorized more than 200,000 patents, identifying common templates in the creative process. His students further developed his ideas and today the TRIZ technique (that’s a Russian acronym for “theory for inventive problem solving”) is widely used by engineers throughout the world.

Altshuller’s templates of innovation are the basis for work done by researchers in Israel, who have found that most successful product innovations fit into at least one of five patterns: 1) subtraction – removing components or attributes from a current product; 2) multiplication – copying one or more existing components and altering them in some way; 3) division – dividing an existing product into its component parts; 4) task unification – assigning new tasks to components to unify their functions; and 5) attribute dependency change – creating new dependencies between a product and its immediate environment.

While there’s obviously a lot more to their process, the point is that these researchers start the innovation process with an existing product, rather than a free-for-all brainstorming session about customers and their unmet needs. The researchers have found that people work best within the constraints of a defined problem. Facing a blank slate with the label of “innovation” paralyzes most of us.

So let me challenge you, like I did my manufacturing CEO friends: Solve your problems by forgetting the things
you can’t control. Instead, limit your efforts to the things you can control by being more innovative. And stop whining so you can start winning!