By Christopher Murphy CHAPTER 13We’ve all heard of Google’s “20 percent time” — it’s lead to a wealth of
interesting ideas. When Google was just a star in the sky, however, 3M was
embracing the benefits of flexible working that its very own 15 percent
time offered. Believing that “creativity needs freedom”, 3M has offered
this “dream day^1 ” as time to explore and space to reflect, since 1948 — a
remarkably open-minded approach if you stop to consider it. Encouraging
employees to spend 15% of their working time on their own projects, the
company also offers resources to staff and grants them licence to self-or-
ganize and build their own teams. This approach enables 3M’s people “to
follow their own insights in pursuit of problem-solving.”
As the company puts it:^2
In today’s fast-paced, pressure-packed business climate, many companies take
a very short-term approach to the new product development pipeline. Because
innovation does not occur on a set timeline, 3M takes a different path — thanks
in large part to the principles that former CEO, William L. McKnight instilled
in the company. McKnight believed in the imperatives of hiring the right people,
tolerating mistakes and giving employees freedom to explore in order to foster
a culture of innovation. 3M has put the McKnight Principles into practice by
encouraging employees to dedicate a significant portion of their time to projects
and research that go beyond their core responsibilities. Although it may take
years for such innovative “tinkering” to bear fruit, the results of 3M’s storied 15
Percent Time are truly remarkable. Examples include Scotch® Brand Tapes, Post-
it® Notes, Scotchgard™ Fabric Protector[...]If you break the McKnight Principles down into their constituent
parts, you might notice the same three factors outlined earlier, factors that
lead towards ideas and innovation: allow people to tinker and learn new
things (in short, give them the space to prime their brains); allow people
1 http://solutions.3m.com/innovation/en_US/stories/time-to-think
2 http://smashed.by/3m