Navigating the Balance of Ambition and Returns in Global R&D

Cordell Hardy did not immediately see the appeal of a connected watch. A friend of his sister had worked on one, and the idea of charging a watch every day seemed unnecessary. His existing watch already told the time. Years later, the connected version had become part of his daily routine, helping him follow the habits he cared about.

The admission is a useful opening to his view of R&D leadership. Future value can be difficult to recognize, even for an experienced technical leader. In this episode of Innovation Rockstars, 3M's Senior Vice President of Corporate R&D Operations discusses how to support longer-term opportunities while maintaining operational discipline. The challenge is to give promising ideas room to develop and still make deliberate choices about the resources committed to them.

Keep the operating base strong enough to explore

Asked whether a company starting a more structured innovation approach should prioritize disruptive products or improve existing offerings, Hardy chooses the latter. The condition matters: the question concerns a business establishing that foundation.

“If you don't have a strong base, you can't sustain funds to go and be disruptive.”

He connects this to credibility. A team that cannot reliably deliver its current commitments has a problem before it asks others to trust its future roadmap. Forecasting a portfolio requires a serious view of what can be delivered and when.

That does not mean accepting a business that changes little from one quarter to the next. Hardy argues for deliberately investing in opportunities whose results may take years to appear. His connected-watch story illustrates why the eventual value of an idea may be hard to appreciate through today's habits. Short-term discipline should make that exploration sustainable, while longer-term thinking prevents the operating routine from becoming the entire ambition.

Connect the growth story to the resources it consumes

Hardy resists treating revenue growth or cost reduction alone as an adequate picture of a portfolio. He wants leaders to consider both the opportunity and the resources needed to create it, including when returns might arrive.

In the interview, he advocates using the expected net present value of programs as one way to make those trade-offs visible. It is his proposed management lens, based on the best information available, rather than a claim that uncertain research can be valued precisely.

Timing then provides another test. A portfolio might be concentrated in near-term cost reductions, or depend heavily on distant opportunities while the business still has immediate obligations. Familiar horizon allocations can help interrogate that mix, but Hardy cautions against treating one ratio as the answer for every organization.

His practical request is a documented connection between today's decisions and their longer-term consequences. The format can be simple enough for teams to use. The point is to explain why a program merits people, capital and time, rather than leaving its future value implicit.

Make strategic direction visible to individual innovators

Hardy describes a place for both leadership priorities and ideas developed from the ground up. Some of 3M's successes, in his account, began with individuals championing possibilities before they became established programs. Technical forums, collaboration and recognition can support that initiative.

Eventually, an idea needs resources. At that point, a strategy and a decision framework become necessary. Leaders can help earlier by explaining the markets and platforms where the organization intends to invest.

He uses automotive electrification as an example of a broad platform that could create opportunities in areas such as thermal management or displays. A researcher can see room for an idea without needing every possible project to appear on a centrally written roadmap first.

Clear boundaries are useful too. Hardy's examples of manufacturing paper towels or semiconductors illustrate how an interesting process idea might sit outside the company's business. Strategic transparency helps people direct their creativity toward opportunities the organization is equipped and willing to pursue.

Give teams access to capabilities they should not have to rebuild

R&D operations provides another part of that foundation. Hardy describes shared technical capabilities, including analytical laboratories, pilot-scale work and regulatory support, serving business groups around the world.

The logic is straightforward: individual businesses should not need to duplicate every specialist capability in every location. Shared infrastructure can support their work while allowing them to focus on their own markets and products. His remit also includes external connections, university relationships and technical talent development.

This makes innovation leadership partly a matter of enabling other people's work. Funding a project is one decision; making sure it can access the expertise and facilities needed to progress is another.

Remember what commercialization teaches

Asked for an Innovation Rockstar moment, Hardy is hesitant to select a team's achievement as his own. He describes his leadership contribution more modestly.

“I'm hopefully facilitating, connecting, influencing, but they're doing some great work.”

He then chooses his first commercialization program as an individual contributor. It involved proposing an idea, working with a marketer on claims, traveling to Mexico to scale a process and working with intellectual-property colleagues on a patent. The experience exposed him to the range of work between a technical possibility and a product reaching the market.

That story brings his portfolio argument back to the people doing the work. Long-term value takes practical development, commercial choices and coordination across disciplines. A leader's task is to keep that route credible while allowing room for ideas whose importance may not yet be obvious, including the watch he initially saw little reason to wear.