FEATURE ARTICLE
Creating Cultural Change in a 115-Year-Old R&D
Organization
Over a five-year period, Timken R&D worked to improve the speed and quality o f its decisions and its alignment with the
business.
Leslie Christensen
This case study highlights the practical steps a 115-year-old company’s R&D organization executed to change
its culture—a change that was critical in order for the R&D group to improve both speed of decision making and alignment
with its business units with regard to project selection and prioritization. The scope of the cultural changes extended beyond
traditional product design and development. The case study describes the communication methods the R&D organization
used to change others’ perceptions of it from a corporate overhead that delivered little value to a resource necessary for the
profitable growth of the enterprise.
O V E R V IE W :
K EY W O R D S:
Cultural change, R&D alignment, R&D strategy
For almost 100 years, the Timken Company’s R&D organi
zation focused on one product category: tapered roller
bearings. In 1898, Henry Timken patented a tapered
roller-bearing assembly that revolutionized freight-wagon
axles. A century later, over 90 percent of the company’s
sales continued to be generated by various embodiments
of tapered roller-bearing technology. Needless to say, the
Timken R&D organization was comfortable working in that
space; not surprisingly, the R&D group had developed a cul
ture based on deeply entrenched norms and assumptions—
a culture that was increasingly misaligned with the needs of
the business.
In 2001, Timken decided to expand its product offerings
in an effort to serve changing markets. Initially the ex
panded product offering was achieved through acquisitions,
which had minimal impact on R&D, but over time, it be
came clear that innovation was required across the full
breadth of the product portfolio. Traditional competitors
were no longer the only competitive threat, and past ap
proaches to innovation were no longer sufficient.
Leslie Christensen is currently the manager of upstream marketing at the
Timken Company. Throughout her career, she has led innovations ranging
from creating a new function within a division to implementing new pricing
structures. Her experience spans technology roadmapping, innovation
portfolio management, marketing, market research, pricing, project man
agement, application design, and database design. She holds degrees in
applied mathematics/computer science and business administration from
Kent State University. Ieslie.christensen@timken.com
DOI: 10.5437/08956308X5803316
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Over a five-year period, guided by a desire to deliver rel
evant technologies to the company’s business units, R&D
leadership set a course to improve the visibility of its efforts
and facilitate meaningful portfolio management discussions
with business unit leaders. Building support for radical in
novation projects and increasing alignment with business
units required two efforts: a process to identify and priori
tize new ideas and a process to execute those ideas from
concepts through commercial applications. The existing
gate process was expanded to become the Concept to Com
mercialization process. The concept part of the model related
to upstream, long-term technology projects; commercializa
tion was the focus of near-term new-product development.
The concept portfolio was fed by revamping the existing
technology roadmapping process.
During the transition of the concept portfolio, behavioral
changes in project governance and deliverables were coupled
with attitudinal changes around the value and focus of frontend R&D efforts. Accepted norms regarding roadmapping
were challenged, which resulted in changes in R&D m an
agers’ responsibilities. As a result of these efforts, the vision
to deliver relevant technologies through improved visibility
and meaningful discussions about the concept portfolio was
achieved.
T h e N e e d fo r C h a n g e
The roots of Timken’s R&D culture can be traced back to the
1970s, when the R&D organization was physically separated
from company headquarters, allowing it to develop its own
culture, isolated from that of the business. By 2009, the
Timken R&D organization could be described as having a
consensus culture. A single informal dissent could kill an idea
or keep one alive. Technical project reviews relied on infor
mal decision making that was not consistently documented.
Worse, R&D was perceived as having goals that were
disconnected from the needs of the company’s business
units. An "us" and "them" attitude prevailed, with busi
ness unit leaders complaining that, for instance, "They
[R&D] only work on science projects." Business unit lead
ers, who influenced R&D funding, perceived that R&D was
advocating new technologies that were not aligned with
their needs. This perception was not entirely unfounded,
but it was the result of an executive mandate from the
early 2000s, when the R&D organization was charged with
developing breakthrough products, under the assump
tion that business unit managers would accommodate any
new products that emerged from R&D. As a result, R&D
developed some technically sound, novel, fully functional
prototypes—only to discover that they lacked commer
cial viability or were not aligned with any business unit’s
strategy.
In turn, the R&D team perceived that the businesses
viewed it as an order-taker and felt it was being directed to
develop solutions without a clear understanding of the un
derlying problems and priorities. This impression was rein
forced by the company’s innovation process, which was fed
by a collection of technology roadmaps created by multiple
business unit teams using multiple formats. These tended to
focus on near-term new-product initiatives provided by the
business units; a single roadmap could include over 120 tac
tics across a dozen vectors (Figure 1). Other roadmaps were
TREND-A
TREND- B
TREND-C
v
w
w v
TECHNOLOGYTHEME – A
W
TECHNOLOG5YTHEME – B
vAv ^
TECHNOLOGYTHEME-C
2010
2011
2012
FIGURE 1. Sample tech n o lo g y roadm ap from 2009
Creating Cultural Change in a 115-Year-Old R&D Organization
simple lists of high-level bullet points, such as "reduce costs,"
with no additional guidance offered.
All of these maps were intended to feed both short- and
long-term R&D pipelines, but they typically were filed away
shortly after they were created, and then forgotten. It be
came rare for new R&D development initiatives to meet the
short-term financial criteria business units had established to
move a project forward, and the existing stage-and-gate pro
cess became known among R&D personnel as "Kill-Gate."
R&D, and especially long-term conceptual projects, stalled.
Because R&D decision making was informal and often un
documented, it seemed to business-unit leaders that projects
never advanced or were continually being rescoped to escape
business alignment constraints.
In 2010, a new R&D management team was charged with
improving innovation output and establishing a more col
laborative culture with the business units. The team realized
that first, R&D needed a clearer governance procedure to
drive decision making and either move projects forward or
kill them, and second, both R&D and the business units
needed a clear grasp of how they were aligned and how R&D
could serve the needs of the business. An initial step in that
direction was the deployment of a governed stage-and-gate
process called Concept to Commercialization. The process
had two parts linked by a business adoption step. Business
adoption was where a completed concept project, such as de
veloping a new material, would feed into a commercializa
tion project, such as developing a new product line. This
process represented the first visible tie between the work
output of R&D and the needs of business units.
Initial deployment efforts focused on existing near-term
commercialization projects in order to expedite new prod
uct launches. As a result,
in 2011, a dedicated team
of program managers com
pleted a record number of
existing commercialization
projects predating the Con
cept to Commercialization
process. That success with
short-term commercializa
tion projects spurred ques
tions about how similar
success could be achieved
in the longer-term concept
projects. These questions led
R&D management to ask,
"How can the process of
transitioning newly devel
oped technologies into new
product development be im
i>y
proved?" Thus, the goal of
strengthening the formal
bridge between new tech
nology development and
2013
2014
new product development
was proposed.
M
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The Concept to Commercialization process would be the
framework to deliver relevant technologies to the business,
but the concept portion of this process needed to be seen as
relevant beyond R&D. Since discussions about long-horizon
projects typically took a back seat to daily operations, R&D
leadership needed to build a case for why the concept portfo
lio was important to a growing business. Such a task would
require a vision that others would support and that would
generate a sense of urgency.
F ram ew ork fo r Change
The journey toward cultural change at Timken can be under
stood through the lens of Kotter’s (1996) eight steps of orga
nizational change:
1. Establish a sense of urgency. This requires making clear that the
current state is so unacceptable that change is worth the risk.
2. Create a guiding coalition. Recruit a core team of advocates
to support and guide the change journey.
3. Develop a vision and strategy. The guiding coalition devel
ops a vision and strategy around a goal common to all in
the organization.
4. Communicate the change vision. The vision and goal must be
shared throughout the organization in order to build
support for change and for the change strategy.
5. Empower broad-based action. Leaders empower a broader
base of people to execute the strategy, removing obsta
cles, such as existing policies, that impede change.
6. Generate short-term wins. Tangible short-term results build
support for the vision and bring more parts of the orga
nization on board.
7. Consolidate gains and produce more change. With a few
short-term wins, support strengthens, enabling addi
tional change.
8. Anchor new approaches in the culture. In this final, critical
step, the changes become part of the organization’s new
normal. Activities that had been new to the organization
become integrated into its regular processes and no lon
ger require the oversight of the guiding coalition.
Over a period of 15 years, Rotter studied dozens of organi
zations’ attempts at major change. He found that culture
and culture change had a major impact on the success of a
change effort. Contrary to the accepted wisdom that organi
zational change should begin with culture change, Kotter
found that successful efforts ended with a new culture
shaped by the change.
While the Timken leadership did not intentionally refer
ence Kotter at the start of the transformation, one team
member had undergone formal training in the approach,
which influenced the execution.
Establish a Sense of Urgency
"Establishing a sense of urgency is crucial to gaining
needed cooperation." (Kotter 1996, p. 36)
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The R&D leadership at Timken established the need for
change through a comprehensive analysis of the concept
portfolio, performed by associates who had no prior attach
ment to the projects or process. Unfamiliarity with R&D and
its jargon posed some initial challenges, but the exercise con
firmed what some suspected—the concept portfolio lacked
sufficient rigor and clear decision-making processes. More
substantial were the findings related to the portfolio’s perfor
mance: more than 50 percent of the open projects were in
their later stages. A simple plot of the value of the concept
portfolio’s projects against their anticipated year of comple
tion revealed that R&D’s value to the business was projected
to decline significantly in the near future (Figure 2).
The realization that the fuzzy front end of the Conceptto-Commercialization process was short on fundamental re
search ideas to support corporate objectives for organic
growth awoke R&D leadership to the danger that the
company would suffer from what Tushman and O’Reilly
(2002) call the "tyranny of success"—the inability to balance
innovation with organizational effectiveness. This fear en
gendered a sense of urgency to drive significant changes.
Substantial new technology initiatives that led to longerterm yields were needed, and more important, the businesses
needed to have a clear understanding of the value of these
higher-risk, higher-reward efforts. In an effort to gain sup
port for change, R&D leadership shared their realization and
concerns with executive leadership, who gave the R&D lead
ership team a directive to reverse the situation.
Create a Guiding Coalition
"A strong guiding coalition is always needed—one with
the right composition, level of trust, and shared objective."
(Kotter 1996, p. 52)
With the need for change firmly established, a dedicated
R&D process team was created to enhance the innovation
process, manage the concept portfolio, and work with subject
matter experts to update the technology roadmaps and
the roadmap creation process. The R&D process team
quickly recognized that new portfolio performance track
ing metrics were also needed to indicate and communicate
success.
At the time the R&D process team was formed, R&D’s
scope included product development; as a result, the team
2012
2013
2014
20 1 5
FIGURE 2. Projected valuation o f R&D concept pro je ct p o rtfo lio ,
2012-2015
Creating Cultural Change in a 115-Year-Old R&D Organization
was composed entirely of associates assigned to the R&D or
ganization. In spite of this apparent homogeneity, however,
the team was diverse in terms of experience. Two members
were relatively new at Timken and had no engineering expe
rience. Two others had long tenures and engineering back
grounds but had also held positions outside of the R&D
organization. In addition, motivated by the need for fresh
perspectives, R&D leadership departed from past norms by
assigning associates with no engineering experience to key
roles on the team. For example, the team member assigned
to spend 80 percent of her time on technology roadmapping
had a technical marketing background. Within the tradi
tional Timken culture it was thought that "everyone in the
company has an engineering degree," which was mostly
true—from sales to marketing to executive leadership. So
while assigning a person with marketing experience to lead a
roadmapping activity would seem commonplace in many
contexts, for Timken, and especially for R&D, it represented
a changed mindset.
At this stage in the change process, the concept portfolio’s
front-end innovation projects were conceived and executed
entirely within the walls of the R&D organization. Therefore,
there was no significant reaction to the formation of the team
from outside R&D. Throughout the remaining steps, the
R&D process team led the design of new processes, commu
nicated the vision across the enterprise, acted as a sounding
board for concerns, and negotiated to overcome obstacles
that were internal and external to R&D.
Develop a Vision and Strategy
"Vision refers to a picture of the future with some im
plicit or explicit commentary on why people should
strive to create that change." (Kotter 1996, p. 68)
Developing the vision and strategy to drive change required
stepping back to analyze where and how R&D could best
support the needs of the enterprise. An outside consultant
was enlisted to guide R&D leadership in developing and ar
ticulating its change strategy. Because the enterprise had
grown through acquisitions, the vision encompassed both
the legacy core products and the broader scope of new
products.
The strategy defined a number of innovation domains,
such as "support core business" and "develop new technolo
gies." By echoing the goals of the business units, these inno
vation domains demonstrated an authentic common interest
with the business units and established a tone of partnership.
Cross-referencing active concept projects to the innovation
domains demonstrated that the business units’ perception of
an R&D focus on "misaligned science projects" was unsup
ported, further reinforcing the cooperative tone.
The growth strategy was developed in two forms: a de
tailed seven-page brief for executives and a condensed Pow
erPoint presentation for R&D associates. The brief noted,
"The aim of any strategy is to build a commitment to a pat
tern of behavior that will allow an organization to compete
effectively and win in the marketplace." The core value of
Creating Cultural Change in a 115-Year-Old R&D Organization
D e v e lo p in g t h e v is io n a n d s t r a t e g y t o
d r iv e c h a n g e r e q u ir e d s t e p p in g b a c k t o
a n a ly z e w h e r e a n d h o w R & D c o u ld b e s t
s u p p o r t t h e n e e d s o f t h e e n te r p r is e .
innovation remained, but the breadth of innovation efforts
was expanded to encompass power transmission products,
replacing the earlier, narrower focus on bearings. Two efforts
were highlighted—the Concept to Commercialization pro
cess for idea execution and the technology roadmapping pro
cess for idea generation. Furthermore, the strategy endorsed
open innovation, which was a departure from past attitudes
about fundamental research. The goal to have R&D better
aligned with business unit strategies was considered critical
to the objective of delivering relevant technologies to busi
ness units.
Communicate the Change Vision
"That shared sense of a desirable future can help moti
vate and coordinate the kinds of actions that create
transformations." (Kotter 1996, p. 68)
Communicating the R&D strategy and vision required effort
from many individuals, using various delivery methods and
cadences. The CTO made a public commitment to embrace
this new Concept to Commercialization culture and set ex
pectations at a quarterly meeting at which the new strategy
was introduced to all of the company’s R&D associates. The
introduction concluded with the CTO responding to ques
tions from associates.
Throughout the next two years, the new R&D strategy
was presented to wider audiences, including the company’s
executive leadership, which had given the R&D team the
scope to make the needed changes but not been involved in
the conceptualization and execution of the change process.
In some instances, R&D leaders drew on their past nonR&D experience and used informal networking to com
municate the strategy. Metrics related to business unit
alignment and the concept portfolio’s performance were
introduced and shared to emphasize R&D’s commitment to
the vision.
At the tactical level, socializing the R&D vision required
more personal approaches. R&D project leaders and lowerlevel managers were required to attend training in the new
expectations regarding project charters and gate deliverables.
During the sessions, which were led by an R&D process team
member in conjunction with a business unit manager, par
ticipants revised their project charters to minimize technical
jargon and focus on business deliverables. For example, one
project’s initial charter read, "Identify the impact element abc
has on material xyz’s micro structure." The revised charter
read, "Reduce late deliveries of raw material xyz for product
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A by determining if eliminating element abc will reduce the
need for reprocessing while maintaining current product
performance." These initial meetings were early examples of
R&D project leaders partnering with business unit managers
to support a shared vision.
The vision was also shared and consolidated through a
significant rethinking of the technology roadmapping pro
cess and expectations for the roadmaps themselves. The
R&D process team member charged with the roadmapping
process collected and summarized the decentralized prod
uct and market plans provided by over a dozen business
unit managers. Afterward, face-to-face meetings were held
with these managers to document their visions, including
those that had not yet been fully analyzed. R&D personnel
shared nascent technology ideas with the managers to en
courage discussion of their perceived, but as yet undevel
oped, business needs. Cialdini’s (2001) concept of social
proof was used to persuade business managers to focus on
long-range plans by sharing intermediate or partially devel
oped plans from one business unit manager with other
managers to spur ideas. The results were maps of potential
future products that extended beyond the short-term hori
zon. The first two iterations of this process were led by the
R&D process team; the final iteration was managed by the
business unit managers. In this last step, R&D and business
units joined to discuss long-term product and technology
needs rather than near-horizon solutions, marking a signifi
cant departure from past practices.
Empower Broad-Based Action
"The purpose of stage 5 is to empower a broad base of
people to take action by removing as many barriers to
the implementation of the change vision as possible at
this point in the process." (Kotter 1996, p. 102)
After the vision was communicated, some R&D associates
voiced concerns about the feasibility of its execution. Issues
were raised regarding current project management practices,
the complexity of existing roadmaps, budget priorities, and
the challenge of explaining fundamental research to those
with no subject matter expertise. Culturally, many in R&D
believed that projects in the long-term concept portfolio were
so different from short-term commercialization projects that
best practices from the commercialization portfolio could not
transfer to the concept portfolio.
T h e v is io n w a s a ls o s h a r e d a n d
c o n s o lid a te d th r o u g h a s ig n ific a n t
r e th in k in g o f t h e t e c h n o lo g y
r o a d m a p p in g p ro c e s s a n d e x p e c t a t io n s
f o r t h e r o a d m a p s th e m s e lv e s .
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The R&D process team responded by flexing processes
imported from the commercialization process to accom
modate the different needs of concept projects. For in
stance, during the project lead training, it became apparent
that the existing work breakdown structure (WBS) tem
plate did not fit most R&D concept projects. In response, a
limited number of WBS template variants were developed
to allow project leaders to relate better to the stage-andgate process. The tailored WBS approach was designed to
be more relevant to actual concept project progressions. In
addition, the one-page WBS facilitated a common under
standing of a project’s scope, status, and progress toward
deliverables. Finally, allowing concept project leads to
have some influence over the communication of progress
helped instill a sense of ownership in and commitment to
the new process.
Perhaps the most significant change to the existing R&D
stage-and-gate process was the decision to introduce nonR&D gatekeepers to the concept portfolio’s governance pro
cedures. Many R&D project leads were concerned that
non-R&D managers would kill projects they did not under
stand. This concern was magnified by the belief that having
an R&D project killed would have a negative impact on indi
vidual performance appraisals. To overcome these obstacles,
two actions were taken. First, a decision was made to restrict
gatekeepers at the filter stage—the initial go/no-go decision
gate—to R&D management (Figure 3). Second, in prepara
tion for the transition, a series of reviews was established so
that each project in the portfolio could be discussed with the
new non-R&D gatekeepers. Over time, gate meetings began
to focus on each project’s strategic fit and anticipated value
rather than technical details.
Around the same time that non-R&D gatekeepers were
introduced, the executive team removed a significant hurdle
for breakthrough ideas by creating a corporately funded bud
get to finance high-risk ideas. The separate budget afforded
R&D leadership the discretion to investigate potential…
