3m Phylosophy
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How 3M (Minesota Mining and Manufacturing) Keeps New Products Coming
From Managing Innovation, Henry and Walker, Sage Publications, London, 1991
Jorge Alves
GIT 2005-06
1
3M – A company build upon failure
• Company founded by 5 Minesotans: A doctor, a lawyer, two railroad executives, one meat-market managers • Bought plot of land to mine corundum • Got financing, bought equipment, hired workers, to produce sandpaper • Started mining, realized there was no corundum, just plain sand
Jorge Alves GIT 2005-06 2
3M – a company build upon persistence
• Started producing sandpaper, with corundum imported from the East • Difficult times, investors left, 3 of the initial founders remained • They invented a popular abrasive cloth for metal polishing
Jorge Alves
GIT 2005-06
3
Shaving with sandpaper
• Francis Okie, used to cut his face shaving... • ...in 1922 he thought: why use a sharp razor to shave when you could shave smoothly with sandpaper? • He developed and defended this idea for many years • The idea never caught on... but Okie was never discouraged by the company, much less fired for promoting a weird idea
Jorge Alves GIT 2005-06 4
Success when and where you least expect it
• Okie’s misses were more than compensated by an unexpected success • He had developed a fine grain sandpaper that worked well when wet • The then emerging auto industry needed fine grained sandpaper to polish paint, that should work wet to smooth finish and reduce dust • 3M had tha answer, it was its first real success
Jorge Alves GIT 2005-06 5
A question of organizational culture
• If management is intolerant and destructively critical when mistakes are made, I think it kills initiative William McKnight, Chairman and CEO, “spiritual father” of 3M
Jorge Alves
GIT 2005-06
6
Creative spirit alive and well
• 3M catalogue of products numbers more than 60.000 products • In 1988, sales reached 10 billion dollars, 30% of which from products 5...
From Managing Innovation, Henry and Walker, Sage Publications, London, 1991
Jorge Alves
GIT 2005-06
1
3M – A company build upon failure
• Company founded by 5 Minesotans: A doctor, a lawyer, two railroad executives, one meat-market managers • Bought plot of land to mine corundum • Got financing, bought equipment, hired workers, to produce sandpaper • Started mining, realized there was no corundum, just plain sand
Jorge Alves GIT 2005-06 2
3M – a company build upon persistence
• Started producing sandpaper, with corundum imported from the East • Difficult times, investors left, 3 of the initial founders remained • They invented a popular abrasive cloth for metal polishing
Jorge Alves
GIT 2005-06
3
Shaving with sandpaper
• Francis Okie, used to cut his face shaving... • ...in 1922 he thought: why use a sharp razor to shave when you could shave smoothly with sandpaper? • He developed and defended this idea for many years • The idea never caught on... but Okie was never discouraged by the company, much less fired for promoting a weird idea
Jorge Alves GIT 2005-06 4
Success when and where you least expect it
• Okie’s misses were more than compensated by an unexpected success • He had developed a fine grain sandpaper that worked well when wet • The then emerging auto industry needed fine grained sandpaper to polish paint, that should work wet to smooth finish and reduce dust • 3M had tha answer, it was its first real success
Jorge Alves GIT 2005-06 5
A question of organizational culture
• If management is intolerant and destructively critical when mistakes are made, I think it kills initiative William McKnight, Chairman and CEO, “spiritual father” of 3M
Jorge Alves
GIT 2005-06
6
Creative spirit alive and well
• 3M catalogue of products numbers more than 60.000 products • In 1988, sales reached 10 billion dollars, 30% of which from products 5...