IDEO’s Culture

of Helping

Made by: 18104075 Raghav

18104085 Keshav
 Introduction
● In this particular case study we are mainly focusing on the culture of IDEO which has come into
limelight after making observations, interviewing people, and conducting surveys for two straight years.

● In this era of knowledge work, it has now become a culture in top performing companies to share the
workload among its employees and further encourage this behaviour of mutual understanding and
helping.

● This helpfulness must be actively nurtured and promoted in organizations as it does not arise
automatically among colleagues, the reason being that there would be feeling of competition, lack of
trust or conflicting views.

● This is something that IDEO as an organisation has been successful in doing these past few years. When
we ask people about the work culture, they will always mention collaborative help.

● The question for the rest of the organisations is, How has IDEO managed to make helping the norm?
 Leader’s Involvement
● IDEO may seem like a very different kind of company from
others, but it is probably less so than you may think. Other
organisations could too perform the same way if engaged in
effective mutual help.

● Also, when you ask any of the leader of other organisations

you would probably not hear the word collaborative help. But
that’s where the CEO of IDEO, Tim Brown differs from
others. According to him, more complex the work is the more
help it will require.

● Leaders at IDEO proved their motive by giving and seeking

help themselves. For example, there was a successful event
(in terms of new ideas generated) when a C-suite-level helper
joined the team for a session. The help wasn’t necessary but
still his arrival signaled strongly that helping is an expected
behavior.
 Seeking help and Survey
● Seeking help from others isn’t always effective until you know the right
person to approach. Also some people think that getting help from others
can put you in their debt. But IDEO makes a conscious effort to sweep that
hesitation away.

● In the office, nearly every person was named as a helper by at least one
other person, this clearly shows that helping is a top skill within the
organisation. Leaders of different teams provide help to employees of other
teams as well.

● In our survey of the entire office population, people were asked to click on
the names of all those who helped them in their work and to rank their top
five helpers.

● Those items assessed three characteristics: competence, trust and

accessibility. Surprisingly, trust and accessibility were more differentiating
than competence in the helpfulness ratings.
 SLACK IN THE
RGANISATION
● IDEO believes for building a help-friendly organization is that it produces greater efficiency.

● Organizational slack can be defined as the excess capacity maintained by an organization.

Slack can be said to exist when resources. are ordinarily not being completely utilized,
employees are being paid.

● Organizational slack includes employees’ schedules pays off because, as we described earlier,
the accessibility of potential helpers is very important. It allows people to engage with one
another’s work in unplanned ways.

● It’s an expensive commitment, given the opportunity cost, but it makes sense in light of the
nature of design work, with its complex, open-ended projects, and the role serendipity plays
in it.
 Surprising Omissions
● The firm seems not to rely on fancy collaborative software tools or other technologies. Financial
incentives don’t play a prominent role in promoting the culture of help.

● IDEO Executives have help in mind when evaluating job candidates.When a person repeatedly
say ‘I,’ not ‘we,’ when recounting their accomplishments then there might be a problem.

● But if they’re generous with giving credit and talk about how someone else was instrumental in
their progress then they are an asset to the organisation.

● We suspect that explicit incentives in the form of, say, bigger bonuses for the most helpful people
might well give rise to competitive helping rather an oxymoron.

● Rewards should be based on the assumption that people begin with prosocial motivations and are
happy when their helping is recognized.
 STEP TOWARDS
●
CHANGE
If you want your employees to keep finding ways to improve what they do, ways to serve
your customers better, ways to more effectively execute your strategy, then you need
them to be engaging in collaborative help.

● They should not only pitch in to balance one another’s workloads but also examine,
challenge, build, and refine one another’s ideas.

● Helpfulness produces better outcomes than internal competition.

● At IDEO, employees are given something called The Little Book of IDEO, which spells
out the most important values of the organization. Chief among them is “Make others
successful.”

● The same could be true for other companies. Perhaps the other organizations today
doesn’t follow this approach but promoting collaborating help would surely help.
Thank You