MIT Sloan Management Review Article on If You Cut Employees Some Slack, Will They Innovate?

Giving people time and resources to pursue innovation projects can produce extraordinary outcomes — but only if you match your “slack strategy” to employee type.

The idea of using slack resources — in the form of time, technology, and support — to bolster employee innovation falls in and out of favor. The return on slack innovation programs can be prodigious: 3M Co. attributes the development of the Post-it Note to its 1948 decision to allow employees to devote 15% of their paid time to side projects; and Google says its “20% rule,” which upped the ante on slack time devoted to innovation, yielded Gmail, AdSense, and Google Earth. But few, if any companies, have stuck with time off for innovation and other slack-based programs for as long as 3M. Even Google has reportedly waxed and waned in its commitment to its 20% rule.

About the Author

Yasser Rahrovani is an assistant professor of information systems at Ivey Business School, Western University. Alain Pinsonneault is a professor of information systems at Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University. Robert D. Austin is a professor of information systems at Ivey Business School, and an affiliated faculty member at Harvard Medical School.

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