The same day I posted on behaviours of innovative companies, swedish technology magazine NyTeknik published an article on Samsung and their strategy for innovation, titled “Samsung: To fail big is our secret”. The article is in swedish and is based on the interview with Injong Rhee, one of Samsungs Senior VPs for R&D of enterprise security solutions. Here’s some highlights from the article translated back to english.
“New ideas must be challenged, criticised to be able to create anything of value. But it is about focusing the critique on the ideas, not the persons.” sais Prof. Rhee.
In the interview he describes his view on how to create that environment where courage to fail with new ideas are created, by managing what he calls the engineering conflict and creating very early prototypes. Challenging ideas, not people is one key according to Prof. Rhee.
“We don’t do brainstorming-meetings. I don’t like those. Brain farts is not particularly useful. Ideas must be challenged. Define the goal and seek solutions. It takes real concentration to come up with new ideas.” sais Prof. Rhee