asik and two IEEE IT colleagues were attending one of the organization's conferences in Budapest -- one of Pasik's favorite cities. Sitting in a session, it occurred to him that location often motivates members to attend conferences. Curious, he went to IEEE's website to see how easily members could search for conferences by location. The process was not as intuitive as he would have liked. He leaned over to one of his colleagues, a fellow named Tom Griffin whom he'd hired about a month into his tenure as CIO, and shared his gripe: Wouldn't it be great if IEEE had a Google Maps type of application that allowed users to zoom in on a location and see pins for all the conferences in that area?
"He just looked at me and said, 'That wouldn't be hard to do; I would just do X, Y and Z,' and started describing the whole solution," Pasik said. He realized he needed a dedicated part of his IT department to respond to problems like this quickly, and independent of standard processes. And there was no reason not to start.
"I am fortunate to have an extraordinary IT staff overall that enables me to carve out this function without compromising our existing demands," he said.
Of course, he had someone to head up that dedicated part of the IT department. Griffin, Pasik realized on further reflection, had emerged as one of the members of the department he would turn to when brainstorming. That's when it became clear to him that he needed to create an environment for fostering innovation. Innovative thinking might be squelched by the wrong working environment, and it can't be demanded of everyone.
Organizations that really value innovation, Pasik said, have to be willing to fully invest in making it work for the people who generate ideas. In January, for example, Griffin was relieved of his former duties and took the title director of innovation. To easily keep in touch, Pasik moved Griffin next door to his office. They have two officially scheduled meetings every week, but Pasik's famous pop-ins, to discuss progress on projects and new ideas, are frequent. In the meantime, Griffin's mandate is to focus on innovative thinking -- ideas to make IEEE better for internal and external customers.
"You've got to be able to say, 'I have my little piece of innovation, and that little piece doesn't have to deal with other day-to-day project demands; it has the freedom to focus on new ideas,'" he said.
Individual moves like Griffin's can be done unilaterally, but to institutionalize innovative thinking requires a commitment from the top.
"The key is to get the buy-in at the executive level that allows you to carve out a piece of your effort outside the normal bureaucracy," Pasik said. "The best way to get innovation working is to get everything else out of the way.