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INTERVIEW: ANDERS KNUTSEN
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International gurus of recognised prestige are invited to participate in the specialist conference cycle of the master of management programmes. This is seen as a way to encourage a spirit of innovation. With this issue of IDEAS we feature a second “Notable Expert”. Anders Knutsen shares his perspective on managing creativity, design and innovation.
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Knutsen began his career in Personnel with Bang & Olufsen and moved through the company in various positions until 1992 when he was appointed President & CEO, the position he held for 11 years until July 2001. He assumed leadership at a time of severe crisis, rescuing a tradition of immaculate design and engineering, by combining it with modern efficiencies.
TEN COMMANDMENTS CONCERNING INNOVATION AND DESIGN
Applying technology is an area in which Bang & Olufsen has always been world class. My greatest success there was when I made the decision to change this very product-driven company into a vision-driven culture. Historically, innovation had been exclusively related to R&D, but when I left in 2001 –after 30 years– innovation was beginning to be part of all processes in the company.
Since then I have been trying hard to bring that message to the general debate in Denmark and the rest of the western world. These Ten Commandments are essential if you want innovation and design to be hallmark in your company culture.
1. Innovation must be built into the vision – the company’s guiding star
When Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen started B&O back in 1925 they built the company on a very strong vision, which has been the guiding star ever since: “Large scale production of radio receivers requires a great deal –a factory, the right work force, the right colleagues, the best materials, etc. However all of this is not sufficient. Equally important is a SPIRIT OF ENTERPRISE… a
never failing will to create only the best, persistently to find new ways, improvements– all that enhances the name’s reputation and creates respect for the radio receivers bearing the Bang & Olufsen brand name. This is why each receiver which leaves the factory in Struer carries the name with pride – the best of the best, both as regards interior and exterior.” Note there is not one single word about technology.
2. Innovation must be lead by the company’s values
Values express who you are, how you think and do things - not who you would like to be or who you would like to resemble. The Bang & Olufsen brand is built on products, each with an innovative idea behind it and a unique personality - yet unmistakeably members of the same family. The wording of the vision today is: Courage to constantly question the ordinary in search of surprising, long-lasting experiences. And the vision has always been the overall design philosophy too.
3. The vision and the innovative spirit must drive the entire company
Bang & Olufsen has slowly moved from selling products to selling systems and to offering customers experiences. Customers of today buy the entire company and what it stands for. They identify with the values, or they do not. During my last years there I realized that only product development in Bang & Olufsen was thinking differently. Everything else the company did was more or less like the rest. Therefore I took the initiative to gradually change Bang & Olufsen into a vision-driven culture. ONE vision, driving not only R&D, but communication, service, shops, etc.
4. People become innovative when they feel part of something meaningful
The backbone of a great company is a great, unique vision and different ways of doing things, compared with the rest. Communication, though, is the leader’s most important task. Personally I “walked the talk” and involved people, to make them feel part of something larger than their individual tasks. Whenever Bang & Olufsen introduced a new product line, all involved were invitedto presentations of the whole product and marketing strategy. And at yearly meetings with all employees of the company worldwide, I told them all the good and bad news, and I listened to what they had to say.
5. Innovative people are motivated by challenges
One of the Bang & Olufsen values is “synthesis”, explaining why Bang & Olufsen has continuously been able to differentiate itself from all the other players within the audio/video industry. Let me give you an example from my time there: the designer proposes a loudspeaker with the form of a pencil, a slim sculpture; the engineer says that this is impossible: you cannot have the necessary excellent acoustic performance from a shape with so little space. The designer never accepts the answer, so they all start innovating. Together! Bang & Olufsen represents the synthesis between the designer and the engineer, the artist and the businessman – between technology and emotions.
6. Innovation must be lead by visionary decisions and brave attitudes
Bang & Olufsen has never had a design manual. In Idealand, freelance designers come to work with the employees of the company. Half of the time is spent on products that top management ask for; the other half is up to Idealand. The results coming out of the innovative processes are sometimes so creative and courageous that it takes a lot of leadership- courage to put them to the market.
Take Beosound 9000. All dealers were crying for the CD changer. Everybody else already had a box in which you could hide a number of CDs. The designer asked: but why not put them on display? We came up with a brand new, unmistakeably Bang & Olufsen expression that was not expensive, but it certainly cost a lot of money.
7. Innovation means swimming against the current
To be innovative means to find the courage to think and act in a way that makes you stand out from the crowd. And once you have invented something great – you need the courage to speak up. To let the world know. When all the others kept launching loudspeakers, hidden in boring boxes, Bang & Olufsen presented
their colourful designs saying: music is alive.
8. An innovative culture takes good care of it’s talents
People make the difference, but not all people are equally talented when it comes to innovation. Talents create growth, and therefore talent is sought after and must be nursed.
9. Design is the universal language of ideas
Design is a language, a way to communicate what you stand for, an integrated part of the company and its concepts. If Bang & Olufsen has proved anything it is that design can be a strong strategic weapon. My belief is that more and more people will ask for products and services with poetry, instead of just seeking the lowest price. Companies will start delivering that and at the same time attracting innovative talents to work for them, because they are also hunting for meaning beyond money.
10. Profit does not drive innovation, but without it there is no freedom of choice
Profit can never be an end in itself to visionary, innovative companies and people. Let me quote from one of my favourite books, Built to last: “Profitability is a necessary condition for existence and a means to more important ends, but it is not the end in itself...”.
And let me add: without innovation there is no profitable life for western companies in the future.
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