We’ve all heard of the 80-20 rule. 80% of your results come from 20% of your time. Google has applied this concept with their engineers. People can choose to work on anything they want outside of their normal day to day responsibilities approximately one day a week and get other people involved with them to work on those projects. Google has developed an internet site where people can post something like “Wouldn’t it be cool if……” and then others can respond saying I love the idea and have talents that could be used to accomplish this task. Many of their key initiatives such as Gmail have been accomplished with this idea. Other companies have expanded on the concept, one in particular let Customer Service Representatives spend one hour a week to foster an idea or master a new skill. New training products have been developed as a result of this initiative.
I would bet what has made this initiative so successful is that it has given people the power to choose how to spend 20% of their time and talents. Most of us when given a choice will use our time in an activity that we are good at and enjoy. However, it’s sometimes easy to come up with a really cool idea but more challenging to gather the right people with the right talents around you to implement the thoughts into action. The key to both of these examples is commitment from the top. Leaders need to support this initiative, by assuring that people do get the time to spend as they want and then some accountability and follow-through to assure that the ideas get acted upon.
However, it’s a great way to foster creativity and growth and build a culture that supports it.
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