Hire Good People and Tolerate Mistakes

 

Unique ‘15% rule

• 3M engineers and scientists can spend up to 15% of their time pursuing projects of their own choice, free to look for unexpected, unscripted opportunities, for breakthrough innovations that have the potential to expand the pie

• Rich tradition of telling the stories of famous failures that subsequently created breakthrough products. Examples: Weak adhesive that inspired Post-It note

 

Seed Capital

• Inventors can request seed capital from their business unit managers; if their request is denied, they can seek funding from other business units. Inventors can also apply for corporate funding in the form of a Genesis Grant.

 

New Venture Formation

• Product inventors must recruit their own teams, reaping the benefit of 3M’s many networking forums as they seek the right people for the job at hand. The recruits have a chance to evaluate the inventor’s track record before signing up. However, if the product fails, everyone is guaranteed their previous jobs

 

 

"Mistakes will be made. But if a person is essentially right, the mistakes he or she makes are not as serious in the long run as the mistakes management will make if it undertakes to tell those in authority exactly how they must do their jobs.”