3M Innovation Culture – Supported from the top and lived from the bottom-up

I recently was invited by Rainer Schüller-Fengler of DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt e.V.: übersicht | LinkedIn), the German Aerospace Center, to talk about our 3M Innovation Culture. It was a very interesting journey to think about the talk, since I spent the last 25 years exploring innovation from various angles. I have experienced innovation culture in corporate and medium-sized companies. Most recently, I have been more involved working with start-ups. An important and very insightful part of that journey started about twelve years ago when I joined 3M as part of an acquisition.

3M has a strong innovation culture dating back over 100 years. The McKnight principles from William McKnight (The Basic Rule of Management that Propelled 3M (fs.blog)) and our 15% Culture program, which started with the masking tape development by Richard Drew, date back to the 1920s. Now, over 100 years later this resulted in more than 130,000 granted patents and over 55,000 products. The past, present and future of 3M Innovation, in my opinion, is based on a strong commitment from the leaders at the top—represented by our vision—and senior management actions in combination with a very lively community driving 3M Innovation from the bottom up. But what are the elements that make up 3M Innovation? There are mainly four:

(1)??? Commitment to our customers and listening to their needs

(2)??? Our foundational science represented by our 49 technology platforms

(3)??? Our collaborative culture

(4)??? Gaining insights and turning them into actions

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Customers:

There are many ways to segment divisions into business groups, but at 3M they are defined by customer interactions. Our Safety and Industrial Business Group with $11 billion in sales in 2023 is typically providing products to converters and distributors. Markets are broad and therefore customer needs are broad, too. In comparison, the Transportation and Electronics Business Group with $9 billion in sales in 2023 is based on a spec-in business model. Finally, the Consumer Business Group with $5 billion sales in 2023 has products we might know from our own experiences.

Each of these channels has to be approached differently, but we see in all three that understanding the importance of challenges and weighing them, for example, applying the Kano model (Kano model - Wikipedia), enables products that serve our customers’ needs better. Recognizing “when” and “where” these customers' challenges become apparent and whether they will become a global trend is, in my opinion, another important dimension of understanding our customer needs. In my previous role, working on solutions for Thermal Management in Automotive Electrification, automation was a requirement, which was first voiced by automotive OEM in Germany and later became an industry standard globally.

Technology Platforms:

In my last post I covered my experience with our 49 technology platforms (3M Technology Platforms?| 3M United States &(3) 3M Science based on 49 Technology Platforms | LinkedIn). As a member of the 3M Corporate Lab, I have been involved filling four of these platforms with technology building blocks. The key is that these platforms belong to the entire company, so all divisions can build new products by taking one or by combining multiple of these technology platforms. By doing this, novel solutions can be created at high speed. This explains one of the foundations of how 3M was able to generate more than 130,000 patents. For example, the “Nonwovens” (Nw) platform is used for breathing protection, abrasives, cleaning tools, and air filtration home products. All three business groups make use of this platform to create quite different products and solutions for their customers. Another example is “Microreplication,” (Mr) which over the years has transformed many times to create highly effective abrasive products, helping to make the application of films easier and improve the ability to decorate your home.?

That 40% of our technology platforms are related to our manufacturing is another key to differentiation. As a material scientist, I very much appreciate the power of transforming materials into microstructures in a controlled way to create reliable products. It is the combination of materials science and processing that creates differentiation.

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Collaborative Culture:

As pointed out above, I think one key to a strong innovation culture is that it is lived from the bottom-up. At 3M, 15% Culture and Tech Forum are two paths to personal empowerment and collaboration across the company.

I have shared here before how 15% Culture shaped my career ((3) How 15%-Culture and "Spazierendenken" Shaped My Career | LinkedIn-). 15% Culture is our corporate program that allows employees to use up to 15% of our time to work on something we are personally interested in and that has a benefit for 3M. One thing this also entails is that 3Mers don’t have to ask for permission to help a colleague in their 15% time. This is a 15% Culture of empowerment ((3) 15%-culture of empowerment | LinkedIn)! It allows 3Mers to learn and explore new areas. By connecting, trying new things, and failing safely, we explore our ideas and finally embrace and promote the promising ones. Internal grants and collaborations with our peers help to drive innovation across the company.

Has this been successful? When I was the 15% Culture committee chair of Tech Forum, we analyzed the 3M patents in the 3M patent hall of fame by interviewing 3Mers involved in the inventions. We found that 70% of these patents have either been started in or benefited from 15%-time contributions to make them better. Often, it is that “Friday afternoon” experiment trying a new idea that turns out to differentiate the product. The other 30% were historic patents we could not ask for details on their creation. In none of these very important innovations for 3M did 15% Culture not play a role at all. Every year, we honor recent innovations based on 15% Culture with the Richard Drew 15% Story Award and again this year 5 teams showed that this program continues to be an important driver of innovation at 3M.

Tech Forum is our global network of scientists and innovators. It currently has more than 6,500?members and is organized globally. It offers internal and external presentations to help 3Mers stay up to date on technologies and provides countless moments for colleagues to connect and start collaborating.

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Insights:

3M has dedicated processes of foresight analysis to identify today’s challenges. In the last iteration, four established markets were identified: Automotive Electrification, Safety, Consumer Electronics, and Home Improvement. In parallel, emerging markets were identified: Climate Tech, Sustainable Packaging, Industrial Automation, and Semiconductor & Data Center. Once identified, we need to understand “when” and “where” these markets become relevant and identify the specific challenges. These insights inform our innovation and development process, and we begin applying our 49 technology platforms in new ways. Getting the timelines right for both pathways is essential to deliver products into the market that solve key industry challenges just in time.

My role as Hydrogen Technology and Business Architect is to generate these insights together with my peers and translate them into technology needs. Ideas by our scientists will become inventions and these will be transformed into products by our innovators. Key in emerging markets are the business builders that understand the market dynamics to create future revenue. Personally, being positioned at the intersection of our Corporate Lab and our New Growth Ventures organization gives me the opportunity to connect all these elements to target medium- and longer-term opportunities in the Hydrogen Economy. Innovation today is also about partnerships in these emerging markets where start-ups can play a key role. 3M has recently made venture investments in the Climate Tech space to help us accelerate our understanding of the market dynamics.

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The essence of 3M innovation is a combination of understanding the customer needs, uncovering insights from key markets, and using our collaborative culture to innovate with our 49 technology platforms to power new growth. As the Hydrogen Technology and Business Architect, I see these gears working together to form an innovation engine.