Relevance, reimagined.

Step inside the heavy glass doors of the Pfeil Innovation Center, and instantly you are greeted with a softly backlit wet bar in elegant shades of plum and black, accented by tasteful paintings and wall sculptures. A tempting array of display cases stocked with colorful food items invites you to step around the room for a close reading of the explanatory captions.

An intriguing assortment of books, props and familiar household objects on bookshelves awaits further exploration. Smooth jazz music plays quietly in the background.

No, you’re not in some upscale café, although you’d swear you were.

And that is precisely the point.

Imaginative design, solid theory

Matt Krathwohl, executive director of the Pfeil Innovation Center

The Pfeil Innovation Center, located on Memorial Hospital & Health System’s Epworth campus on Niles Street near downtown South Bend, is a premium blend    of sound, color, images and energy — all designed to jump-start the creative juices, much as caffeine can jump-start a sluggish brain.

But make no mistake. Beneath the imaginative trappings of the arty bistro atmosphere — designed by partner organization Office Interiors as well as Memorial’s market communication team — lies the solid theory of innovation competency.

Using a foundation of Tom Peters’ business success practices — with a mix of social theorists, economists, design thinkers and scientists blended in — business leaders who come for a two-day immersion are encouraged to turn their thought processes upside down, inside out, edgewise and sideways in search of new, innovative ways of remaining relevant in the new economy.

The ambitious mission of the center, which welcomed its first group of participants in March 2011, is “to facilitate the transformation of organizations into being more innovative, creative and successful.”

The ultimate goal is to rejuvenate the regional economy, ideally leading to new jobs, better economic conditions and an improved quality of life.

Innovation as a core competency

“How many of us, in the course of our formal education, have studied economics and business theory?” muses Matthew Krathwohl, the center’s upbeat executive director and lead faculty. “We need to bring that same focus to studying innovation as a core competency.”

To achieve those goals, the center offers a two-day immersion that guides teams of two to five members, as well as individuals, through a series of fun, thought-provoking exercises that shake up their normal way of thinking.

At the outset, participants are asked to submit an actual project within their organization that could benefit from innovation. During the course of the program, participants work with a variety of props that employ common items and materials in unusual ways.

They scribble notes in the accompanying workbook, a colorful piece that resembles a brainteaser booklet you might take with you on a long car ride.

At various points, they step over to the South Bend Chocolate Company Café next door, for a quick fix of invigorating cocoa bioflavonoids and to do some doodling on their placemats.

“Many of the best innovations were born that way — with someone scrawling an idea on a restaurant napkin,” Krathwohl says.

Encountering the unusual suspects

Since opening its doors, the center has welcomed more than 220 participants in 11 immersion sessions. Typically they come from the top tiers of organizational leadership, although they may include others from within the organization as well. They come from a cross-section of industries including nonprofit, government, education, faith-based and for-profit enterprises.

And that, Krathwohl says, is one of the key benefits of the immersion: It brings together a diversity of thinking styles to interact in ways they normally wouldn’t.

“We refer to these sessions as planned encounters with unusual suspects,” Krathwohl says. “Bringing together people from very disparate backgrounds gets them thinking in new ways.”

The center is in itself an innovation, he says.

“We did some research and discovered that there is no other community-based innovation in the United States or Canada,” Krathwohl says. “Our vision is to replicate the center in other communities throughout the U.S., and to be a catalyst for growth.”

Ritz-Carlton experience, Walmart price

Phil Newbold, president and CEO of Memorial Hospital & Health System

The center is named after Richard J. Pfeil, a local business owner who provided the founding financial gift. It is administered through the auspices of Memorial Hospital & Health System, under the leadership of Philip A. Newbold, president and CEO.

The cost to attend the two-day “Immersion” is $150 per attendee, which includes four meals and an evening reception. It’s what Newbold calls “a Ritz-Carlton experience at a Walmart price.”

Along with the basic principles and best practices of innovation, nearly half of the time is spent coaching participants in ways to implement innovation.

Teams leave the immersion with a road map in hand to get them started within their respective organizations.   

“When I go to conferences, I’m inspired, but I don’t always know what to do with what I’ve learned,” Krathwohl says. “We give them a blueprint that tells them exactly what to do at 8 o’clock the next morning.”

The long view

And just to make sure they don’t lose momentum, there’s a post-immersion component to the training, consisting of online coaching and peer group opportunities, facilitated using the PeerSpectives^® Roundtable System by the Edward Lowe Foundation. In addition, the center hosts Bump-Ins, which are evening social receptions for alumni of the center to “bump into” one another. Ultimately, those will be open to the public.

The long-term vision, Krathwohl says, is to have 5,000 community and organization leaders complete two days of innovation education and training, and then to launch “innovation revolutions” within their organizations.

“We want our region to become known for having everyone immersed in innovation education and leadership,” Krathwohl says.