FedEx Delivers: How the World's Leading Shipping Company Keeps Innovating and Outperforming the Competition

Chapter 8

Encourage Collaborative Development of Creative Ideas

You don't possess all the wisdom. You must collectively search for the answer.

—Norm Wilcox, Former Managing Director, FedEx Subic Bay, Philippines

At this point in the innovation and performance culture development, employees are actively involved in improving the business enterprise. They are acquiring updated knowledge and skill bases and are generating what-if ideas. The work environment is conducive to the free flow of creative thought, and managers feel secure accepting those ideas even if they conflict with their stated and preferred approaches to solving the problems.

The fourth leadership responsibility for creating a thriving innovation culture is to encourage collaborative development of raw, creative ideas (see Figure 8.1). Before an idea can be implemented, it must be made palatable to the many people it will affect. The raw idea must be developed before it is ready for implementation.

Depending on the scope, any idea and the resulting change will affect multiple departments in the organization. A business model change will affect every department in the enterprise. A business process change will affect every function involved in that process.

FIGURE 8.1 Innovation and Performance Culture: Fourth Dimension

When you ship an overnight package in the United States through FedEx, it is processed by at least ...