Innovation, What?
We recently had the pleasure of sitting with Michael Luh, Managing Director of Emerging Tech Investments for Worthington Industries, to reflect on mindset and innovation shifts post-pandemic. With masters in Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Design, Michael Luh has established a colorful and diverse background, ranging from working on Ronald Reagan's Star Wars Defense to taking part in innovating Pampers diapers for P&G.
Know Your Culture
“Success at a firm comes from culture, not from innovation.”
Michael Luh has managed innovation teams for different companies for a large part of his career. During the pandemic, it wasn't innovation that pulled his team together, it was the culture. He stresses that the most critical characteristic that led to success through the pandemic was team trust:
"Our team went really smoothly because I hired the right people. I trusted everyone. I've never been a micro-manager but I also had people that I felt were mature and could handle the work and complete it with great quality.
For me, I'm glad we spent a lot of time building team trust. Whether it was improvisation or bearing of souls. My team was very tight.
The start of the pandemic was pretty much seamless for my team after we familiarized ourselves with some new tools. I could let those guys go and we were almost seamless from March to April through that shift (the pandemic). We were working from home, but because there was so much trust, we were able to move forward. I think that the teams that struggled were those who did not fully trust their team members and we had some of those in our company. Some of the managers were problematic because they felt like they had to physically see people doing work. Watching people do work is boring for me, personally. As long as the work gets done, I really don't care where or when it's done."
FF Key Takeaway:
CULTURE EATS STRATEGY EVERY DAY.
MAKE SURE YOU FOCUS HERE FIRST.
Know Your Team
"We've always had this belief that no one of us is as smart as all of us. We all recognized that we all have overlaps in capabilities and each person also has their individual strengths and weaknesses."
Luh stresses the importance of acknowledging team members' backgrounds and skills. This facilitates including the right people at the right time for the right projects. Being aware of these backgrounds also avoids awkward situations or team members feeling unrecognized.
"I've seen cases where someone says that they're good at x,y,z, and a meeting is held about x,y,z but the person who has those skills isn't invited to the meeting. You end up with hurt feelings and resentment. That didn't happen on my team because we knew each other's backgrounds really well and we played off of each other. On the other hand, know that if you are committing to doing something, you make sure you do it to ensure trust."
Know Where to Work
Reflecting on mindsets before the pandemic, we asked Luh what he thought would be 10+ years out that has now become the new norm. His response was hybrid working.
"It can go without saying that the pandemic has facilitated the acceleration of implementing remote work. Although the technology may still seem "clunky" at times, Luh recognizes the important tools that have greatly benefited his team's workflow such as document sharing or collaboration tools like Miro or Zoom. Luh also explains that remote work has changed how people work dramatically and finds that organizations that do not offer a hybrid or remote model will have a hard time with employee retention. The flexibility that remote work offers is just too valuable to be overlooked for everyone's work-life balance.
"Working remotely or being 100% remote, like your company Faster Future, before COVID, was unheard of. Not many companies did that. But you're starting to see mo,re companies adopting that."
Know Your Resources
Other changes that Luh has seen since the pandemic is in innovation and business processes.
"Something interesting that Covid has done in the world of innovation is that now you have to think about your supply chain so much more. If your innovation requires cobalt that comes from China, you may now need to pivot to somewhere else. We have to rethink many of our supply-chain issues. In some of our businesses, there has been little change in other cases, we had to make significant changes. Independent from Covid, is the Ukrainian War. When I look at that, it changed markets in a huge way because many European countries are in the process of pulling out of Russian natural gas. That affects industries very quickly. We make cylinders to contain compressed natural gas. We make systems that fit up and down that supply chain. The repercussions from the war forced us to pivot from what we were preparing for with our global strategy to shifting our focus back to Europe. Those types of changes have been dramatic for us.
In other cases, we were in the right market and at the right time. Conveniently, before the pandemic, we partnered with a company that specializes in germ killing in the air for office buildings or schools. And then Covid hit and we thought, 'well, this is good timing' and now we just can't make it fast enough which is a good problem to have."
Know Your Limits
"How do you innovate in a way that is sustainable for your people?"
Luh confesses that one problem he has seen arise during the pandemic is burnout. His solution for burnout is encouraging managers to ensure that their employees are practicing mindfulness.
"Something that managers fail to do is empower their people to say no. When you have your computer at home, it's hard to walk away from work. Some people were working 70-80 hrs a week and were burning out. One of the things I have instilled in our people is to walk away from their computers. I'd tell them 'Close your computer, go spend time with your family, go walk in the park, whatever it is because that is equally as important as your work.'
I don't care how many hours your laptop was open. What I do care about is seeing great quality work from my teams for the long haul. Working 120 hours, you can't keep that level of work up sustainably in the long run. Of course, there are times when we have to work extremely long hours, but it should only be done periodically. Most working days should be normal 40 hour work weeks.
I want the best thinking from my people, not just busy work. Some of your best ideas come when your mind is relaxed. We talk a lot about 'aha!' moments when someone has stepped away from work while doing something mundane like showering or walking the dog. That is one mindfulness activity that we put into practice, which I lovingly call 'sweeping the floors' it's the mindless activity that you are doing that lets your brain relax enough to come up with unobvious connections to discover a creative solution to a problem. Your brain is essentially doing the work in the background. It may not seem productive, but it is actually super important."
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