Innovative Model
Culture of Creativity
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Shira White interviewed more than 100 highly creative thinkers,
many of them in the corporate world, for her latest book, New Ideas About New Ideas (Perseus
Publishing). She says if there's a common denominator among
innovative entrepreneurs, it's this: "They tend to have
creative lives, even when they're out of the office." Reiman does. He is an adjunct business professor at Emory
University, where he finds many--but not all--of his illuminaries.
He's into yoga. He has horses in the barn near his house. In
college, he studied and worked for Italian film director Federico
Fellini. A voracious reader, he often hands out business books to
his staff. But mostly, he looks at the world through multicolored
glasses. Even brainstorming isn't brainstorming. He calls it
"heartstorming." When BrightHouse ideates, Reiman has one guiding principle:
Think with your heart as much as your mind. "If you can
actually impact the world, make a dent in the universe, do
something that resonates with the hearts around the world, the
profits will come," promises Reiman. "It sounds
high-flying, and it is. It's soaring." Content Continues Below
Much of it comes down to caring for the customer, which
isn't all that innovative. Or is it? "Considering
what's happened with 9/11, Anderson, the Archdiocese,
Enron--the world is a lot more cynical," says Reiman.
"People are looking for beacons to lead them, and if companies
can really identify and articulate their core purposes, people will
follow." That's why we remember Henry Ford today, and why
people in the 22nd century will be talking about Bill Gates. But if nothing had been invented after 1899, there would have
been no Ford or Gates, and we would have been stuck on the edge of
greatness. Our movies would still be grainy black and white, and
Henry Ford wouldn't have created a car everybody could afford.
Ford understood what Reiman says is a valve at the heart of
innovation: "It's not just about coming up with new
products. It's about understanding culture, and even something
as large as a country." Indeed, that's why Reiman always asks his clients: If your
company were gone tomorrow, what would the world lose? And their
answer had better be focused and nothing less than profound.
"History only has room for one sentence," Reiman likes to
tell his clients. He pauses and then asks: "What's your
sentence?" | A Fierce Case of Innovation | Traction Plus
Inc. is a $20 million company. Its products, ranging
from chemicals and clothing to legal services, are sold throughout
North America and Europe. The company has run Johnson Wax out of
the floor-safety business and is traded on the New York Stock
Exchange. So what's so innovative about it?
Owner Russell Kendzior has not a single
employee. Kendzior operates out of his Bedford,
Texas, office without so much as a receptionist. He virtually
created his own industry--floor
safety--and is constantly diversifying, zig-zagging his
business into a global force to be reckoned with. As a floor-covering salesman in the late
1980s, Kendzior listened when his
customers complained that their floors became slippery
soon after they were purchased. He did some research and
commissioned chemists to develop a soap-free floor-cleaning
product. After sinking $5,000 into research and quitting his job,
Kendzior had his product, but no distributor. Kendzior gave away
his floor cleaner to friends who owned some McDonald's
locations, and within a year, it was the top-selling floor cleaner at McDonald's
restaurants in the Dallas area. Kendzior started off with a warehouse and
two employees, but quickly realized he could license his product
and have somebody else do all the work, freeing him to think up
other opportunities. Today, licensees manufacture and distribute
Traction Plus' wet-floor signs and floor-safety shoes. Kendzior
created and runs the nonprofit National Floor Safety
Institute, and he gives legal testimony in cases
involving slippery floor accidents. If there's a secret to Kendzior's
innovation, it's that he thinks of himself as a virus, "a
very resistant virus. Viruses are very small. They can withstand
radiation. They need a host to propagate and survive, and the
marketplace is the host," says Kendzior. Kendzior has made himself resistant to
antibodies in a number of ways. Not even those who manufacture his
soap-free formula know what's in it because it's made in
several different places. And because Traction Plus has diversified its product and service
line within the floor-safety arena, it's now the
point-company for the industry. Even Johnson Wax couldn't
destroy Traction Plus when it came out with its own soap-free floor
cleaner a few years ago. Johnson Wax, despite its great reputation,
couldn't match the range of expertise Kendzior's business
had. "Being a
micro-organization is great," says Kendzior.
"We're a very resistant, very strong, but very small
company. I don't want to be Johnson Wax. I think they want to
be me."
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Geoff Williams is known around the world for being an icon of
innovation, a creative god, and the man Steven Spielberg and
Stephen Hawking turn to when they need inspiration. This is the
last time we let him write his own biographical notes. Contact Sources
Originally published in the September 2002 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine
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