Spur creativity to build your brand.

• Author: Motley, L. Biff
• Position: Customer Satisfaction

Sometimes it can be useful to borrow examples of success from other companies, cultures or human enterprises to illuminate a new path toward excellence. I was reminded of this truth by an interesting article I read recently about wartime ingenuity. Wartime is a good case study in innovation. And American soldiers have "always been known as creative improvisers on the battlefield. Their approach dates back to the French and Indian War of the 1700s when colonial militias adopted the improvisational fighting style of the American Indians, while their British allies suffered losses trying to do things "by the book."

In 1945, Nazi SS troops came up with an especially vicious tactic as General George Patron's army raced toward Berlin. The Germans noticed that GIs raced down roads in jeeps with their windshields lowered. So they strung nearly invisible piano wire across the highways leading into Germany. Tied between two trees at opposite sides of the road at just the right high, the wires decapitated some U.S. troopers as they rode by. Quick to improvise, the U.S. soldiers began welding lengths of pipe to the front ends of their jeeps. The pieces of pipe were bent at the top so they could catch the wire and break it as their vehicles zoomed past.

Innovation comes from small groups

Author Dan Pinck, a former agent of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II, says such innovation often comes from ordinary enlisted men swapping ideas, "This kind of innovation comes from small groups--not individuals from on high. The more opportunity people doing the fighting have to be their own quarterbacks, the more effective they become."

...