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An endless list of priorities often relegates “innovation” to the list of buzzwords small business owners read about but can never tackle – something for the well-funded R&D labs at big corporations, not for the entrepreneurs on Main Street.
But innovation is about being competitive and inventive in your approach — and small firms already have everything they need to be a big player in the innovation game.
There’s a lot of confusion surrounding creativity and innovation. “Creative types,” in particular, claim that creativity and innovation can’t be measured. Performance, however, demands measurement so you can identify what success looks like. In a world that changes every two seconds, it’s imperative that companies figure out the difference between creativity and innovation.
You better believe they’re different.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/difference-between-creativity-and-innovation-2013-4#ixzz2QY0GfMAD
Recently Primed Associates was featured over at Middle Market Executive. Here’s what we had to say about opportunities for innovation in this space:
When it seems that everyone is talking about innovation these days, you would think most firms are already riding the wave. However, most organizations have only begun to dip their toes into the water and are missing a full understanding of the broad range of ways in which they might innovate their enterprise. For most middle-market companies and even large enterprise firms, innovation is too often viewed only as a particular product suite, and that makes sense — when you consider the term “innovation” is closely tied to invention. Innovation has now come to be understood as offering so much more.
Today, companies must break out of a product-only innovation mind-set. Furthermore, the focus for innovation need not be only physical. In fact, there are five key areas ripe for innovation in most organizations today.
For the full article go here.
Primed Associates has been featured at Corp! Magazine with our latest post, “How to Inspire an Innovation Culture.”
Companies are faced with an era of constant evolution and creative disruption. They realize that they need to implement a culture of innovation to succeed. Can companies truly change their business objectives to include innovation without first instilling certain values in management?
Innovation: From the top down
Managers are really the only ones who can bring their teams together and implement meaningful and successful changes. If managers are not using a common language of innovation to link the actions of their team members to overall organizational goals, then employees will put their attention and dedication to other projects that they are more interested in, seem easier to implement, or for which they are given encouraging consequences.
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See the full post here
The sponsors of the Collaborative Innovation site, Dassault Systèmes, held their Customer 3D Experience Forum in Orlando Florida recently and this year’s event offered a fantastic array of tools and solutions for the way in which 3D modeling can be used to prototype product and service experiences as well as the design and manufacture of those offerings. I was originally going to be spending some time at the event but another storm coming up the Eastern seaboard of the USA put a decided crimp in those plans and I decided to observe the activities from afar—ah, the wonders of modern technology. Needless-to-say, while it would have been better to be onsite, I managed to see some patterns and key ideas across the various presentations. Here are a couple of my posts in response:
The View from Afar – 3DS in FL viewed from NJ
Due to another unfortunate weather systemmaking a guest appearance on the East Coast of the USA this week I was unable to successfully get into and out of Orlando forDassault Systèmes, 3D Experience Forum. Which is a shame because it looks like the range of innovations shared that are using 3D visualization to drive their successful implementation would have been great to witness first-hand.
Already this morning Tesla has been sharing the “Oooo”-worthy falcon-wing doors of its newModel X cross over vehicle and how they neatly fit into the family garage, tested before production through the wonders of 3D visulaization. This continues Tesla’s run on transforming the auto industry by identifying and meeting a broad range of needs as well as producing beautiful vehicles, too. [See full post here.]
And here is another post from the same event…
Height. Light. And Movement – Improving the Retail Experience Virtually
Many years ago, in a galaxy far, far away…My apologies; the recent purchase of Lucas Film by Disney has given me Star Wars nostalgia. I remember a time when stop motion photography and the destruction of meticulously crafted models were considered the pinnacle of movie special effects. It was also a time when I was working my may through university in retail. As I said, “many years ago”.
One of my fondest memories of working in retail was the folklore that was passed on from the store manager to the upcoming employees. The measures of performance were shared, such: Days of Supply, Turns, Stock to Sales Ratio, Sell Through Percentage and Gross Margin Return on Investment. Alongside these metrics we were also the recipients of instruction regarding sales and marketing addressing: Point of Sale Displays, End-caps, and Placement. But the phrase that stuck with me most in reference to merchandise presentation effectiveness was that it had to have, “height, light and movement”. [See full post here.]
For an organization to survive and thrive it is not enough to want more innovation, you must have the will to do the work to make the practice of innovation commonplace. Jeffrey Phillips tackles this subject head on in, Relentless Innovation. He offers a path for organizations to make innovation an everyday occurrence in which the whole system of the enterprise is aligned around the discipline of creation.
One of the frustrations for me, as someone passionately interested in fostering innovation in organizations, is the recognition that unless it is addressed holistically over time innovation is driven from most areas of the enterprise. Innovation means change; and change, like all new elements requires accommodations on the part of organizations which are all too often entirely focused on their efficiency and the immediacy of their effectiveness. This leaves little room for innovation to take hold, let alone flourish.
This requires a fundamental rethinking of the way innovation is introduced and addressed over time. In Relentless Innovation, Phillips notes that, “If larger firms…don’t relearn innovation and reintroduce it to their business models, they’ll have little competitive advantage left.” He sees that few firms (if any) can afford to rest on their laurels as the pace of innovation continues unabated. To combat that innovation must become a consistent capability, developed, refined, and supported over time.
In this book Phillips lays out the clearly defined roles and responsibility that executives, middle managers and front line employees have for specific outcomes, ensuring that innovation is everyone’s job. The end result: focused and systemic innovation that becomes business as usual. The reason for that is that sustained innovation is not driven by any one part of the organization or any one role. The myth of the brilliant CEO is exactly that ― sustained innovation is a cultural issue, not an issue of leadership. This is something I emphasize with my clients frequently and consistently.
Perhaps the more revealing insight at the heart of this book is the concept of the impediment of BAU (Business As Usual) to innovation success. When the organization seeks to protect BAU there is no room to innovate and BAU becomes the order of the day. It makes an organization timelessly unchanging and profoundly uncreative in which the people “have a stake in sustaining a common, consistent operating model to achieve results repeatedly.” Phillips rightly points out that the ever-increasing focus on efficiency is in direct competition with innovation; the risk associated with and necessary for innovation is driven from the hyper-efficient organization.
To combat BAU and strike a balance between efficiency and innovation Phillips highlights the value of some tried and true business elements, such as clear vision and a focused strategy. He combines those with what he refers to as a “project” versus a “capability” mindset where the outcomes are targeted and defined by resource development over time. His approach makes innovation a process that is repeatable, sustainable and improvable over time rather than a discrete series of one-off events. Relentless Innovation sees that innovation is to be planned for, accounted for and executed with a clear goal of capturing, reusing and developing knowledge over time.
In that quest for reuse of knowledge Phillips highlights the need for accountability for innovation. Everyone in an organization must be specific about their innovation goals. Executives must link innovation to key strategies, and they must develop measures and metrics to hold innovators—and themselves—accountable. Middle managers must be measured on the performance of their teams in meeting those goals and measures and their team members must be held to account for their contributions to the state of innovation in the enterprise. Without an holistic approach that engages the all aspects of the organization innovation won’t be a fundamental part of the operations it will continue to be an afterthought.
Above all Relentless Innovation asks the reader to strive to seek a balance between the everyday demands of efficiency and the future focused demands of innovation. There is no magic formula for innovation but in his book Phillips offers a very good mirror so we can see where we are deficient in our own practices and how we might choose to become smarter in our innovation efforts. As with all change, adopting this approach is highly likely to be hard, but what valued discipline isn’t?
I highly recommend you read Relentless Innovation. Your organization will be better for it.
A couple of weeks ago I was interviewed by the good people who run the podcast for Inmagic (Janelle Kozyra, the host, & Hannah Messenger, the producer). We had an interesting discussion about the differences of innovation between B2C and B2B enterprises. Which eventually led to Steve Jobs, as all things had that week…
When Steve Jobs resigned as Apple’s CEO last week, it seemed he was taking with him everything that makes Apple the innovative powerhouse that it is today. Or did he? Apple is arguably the #1 poster child for innovation. But was it all a result of Steve Jobs’ genius, or rather the culture of innovation he’s developed over time?
Head over to listen to the full podcast (about 30 mins) and see a full transcript.
While motivation is essentially a self-generated state, the organizational culture of a group or individual dedicated to the pursuit of innovation greatly influences their performance. That culture both dominates and mediates, and if it is not positively addressed, competing motivations and needs can come into play. As has been mentioned previously more than once in the Think Primed Blog, innovation requires the introduction of change into inherently stable systems. Because of this, an organizational culture plays a large role in fostering and sustaining motivation.
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul.
- John Muir
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg
To meet those competing needs, an organization must address powerful personal motivators. One of the best models highlighting what’s at stake during this kind of effort is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
So much of organization life takes place at the bottom of this pyramid; the equivalent of “keeping the lights on and the water running.” Which is a great model for an Industrial Age company intent on making an endless succession of the same widgets in a production line. Not many of those companies thriving today, are there?
A step up from physiological needs are the types of organizations that pitch benefits packages addressing the safety and security concerns of their members and, to a certain extent, some esteem needs. Organizations with strong and stable cultures often reinforce the needs associated with love and belonging, yet they have all the fun and dysfunction of families. They’re mostly built for comfort rather than speed, required to respond to changing and dynamic market forces.
The most dynamic and innovative companies seek to work at the highest levels of this model, to get the best from people every day.
Price of admission
It’s not enough for an organization culture to provide the equivalent of shelter in a storm, especially not if that same organization wants its members to invest themselves in the success of the enterprise. Prior to the Great Unpleasantness (aka the Great Recession), companies were scrambling to create environments that attracted the best and the brightest. Though many companies today remain focused on that, the majority merely pays it lip service or don’t pursue that practice at all.
These latter companies are minding their reserves and hoarding their resources. This is practice won’t yield significant results at all.
The price of admission to those seeking to create innovation-capable cultures is the same as it has always been: collaborative cultures where people feel safe to share their ideas, where they feel like they can find a “home,” where they are recognized for their contribution, and were they feel they can be their best selves. Charlie Gilkey, author of the Productive Flourishing blog, recently noted that it took him several quarters to come up with his list for a post titled “What I Believe.” The end result is something that reflects what most of us are looking for in our lives. Work is where people spend most of their waking hours, so organization better figure out how to create the conditions for a culture that supports those beliefs he mentions.
One such example of the fulfilling organization, a company dedicated to the principals of loose/tight leadership (small set rules, tightly managed), is the online video powerhouse Hulu. Recently Fast Company magazine ran a great profile online of Hulu’s organization culture, which showed how power is distributed to the lowest organization level possible for effective decision-making and execution. Engagement is driven by the establishment of a small set of performance-based rules that are tightly enforced, while most aspects of organization life are left to the individual or group to design, organize, implement, and process. The net result is an organization that makes people want to deliver their best effort.
We all want to belong
This kind of democratically-biased culture creates a cohesion that is rare in many larger organizations. Usually when start-ups cross the growth chasm (as distinct from the adoption chasm defined in Geoffrey Moore’s book Crossing the Chasm), the transition in revenues or size (over $10 million and over 150 people, respectively) means their flexibility collapses under command-and-control patterns and poorly defined and managed performance expectations. That hasn’t happened at Hulu. They are large, growing larger, and thriving by deferring to their community members.
Organizations that fail to cross the growth chasm come up hard against the reality of being inhospitable. They cease to grow and flourish, because they don’t make room for the strength that others may provide by applying their own unique and divergent talents. The start-up company that fails to grow is usually completely tied to one person’s hierarchy of needs: the founder. The founder is usually on a never-ending treadmill of addressing their most elemental needs for safety.
In Hulu’s case, ownership of issues, problem-solving, and performance management is baked into the culture of this company. Everyone has an opportunity to accept responsibility and accountability for outcomes. Rather than struggling with lines of authority, each person is supported in discovering how they may best contribute collaboratively to the overarching corporate success. This cohesive sense of belonging serves as a path for higher levels of self-actualization, each of which offers material benefit in attaining organization strategy.
To be held in high esteem
The path through successive levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy is not necessarily straight, but the value to the company of performing at each successive level is nearly always positive. Provided that each level offers some opportunity for consolidation of the needs met, and that the striving continues upward, value generation will be significant. Given a place to call “home” and the recognition that they do have a place to contribute, many employees capitalize by fostering esteem among their peers.
That focus informs value by playing to the individual’s strengths so that they may be successful and have increasing impact over time. The respect of peers for contributions, whether directly from innovation or as a result of building on an existing practice or procedure, by turn fosters self-respect. This leads to a positive environmental feedback loop—each success creates the opportunity for greater successes over time.
A better you/me/us through self-actualization
At the pinnacle of Maslow’s Hierarchy is the concept of self-actualization. The term originated in a work by Kurt Goldstein called The Organism: A Holistic Approach to Biology Derived from Pathological Data in Man (commence head-spinning now). While Goldstein used the term to describe a state all humans strove to achieve, Maslow used the term self-actualization to describe a desire, not a driving force, that could lead to the realization of one’s capabilities. For Maslow, self-actualization did not determine one’s life; rather, it gave the individual a motivation to achieve personal ambitions and fulfillment.
Taken as a level of development to meet specific personal needs, self-actualization is completely in alignment with effective innovation. Those people who are operating to become more self-actualized are more likely to embrace reality and facts rather than deny truth. This leads to more rational understanding of the root causes of circumstances and a drive towards focusing on problems outside themselves.
When it comes to an understanding of the human-centricity required for effective innovation — the notion that an innovation must have a specific utility in mind — those who firmly address their need to self-actualize accept their own human nature with all its shortcomings, and similarly accept the nature of others with a general lack prejudice. This breeds resilience and a spontaneity that are great innovation traits.
Those organizations that can play to this desire for self-actualization, that recognize the need to become our better selves, will reap the benefits. Command- and control-driven organizations will, by their nature, drive performance from the level of meeting physiological needs of safety and property. Those organizations that treat their members with respect, recognizing their talents and contributions, will enable their members with the freedom to be their best, and in so doing, will make better organizations because of it.
What kind of organization are you building? A safe place? Or a place to become your best self? If you’re interested in more innovation, it had best be the latter.
It’s not that we are confused about the necessity for innovation. Most organizations, their leaders and members alike, recognize the need to innovate in order to stay relevant to their customers and to continue growing. Confusion arises when organizations don’t recognize that the systems and processes that serve their current needs are not particularly suitable for creating, introducing, and supporting the new innovations coming to life. Like an ill-fitting suit, an unchanged organization attempting to dress itself in innovation will just look…wrong, and will probably feel uncomfortable, too.
Try and fail, but don’t fail to try.
- Stephen Kaggwa
It’s necessary to keep the doors open and the lights on. To foster an innovation-capable culture does not mean that you have to abandon all the stable processes and actions that enable you to produce products and services as profitably as possible. What is required is the adoption of a mindset that is additive, risk-aware, resilient, and which enables the exploration of the new while tending to the old.
Keeping an eye on the things that fund innovation
The basic drivers that support an enterprise are its ability to produce a set of products or services for which a customer, or group of customers, is willing to pay enough to cover their production while providing some margin for profitability. Those seeking to increase their rate of innovation within their organization must pay attention to the things that are at the heart of why the organization exists.
In the early 1970s, the newly elected president and CEO of Kimberly-Clark, Darwin E. Smith, saw that the company couldn’t survive in the long-term as a paper manufacturer. Procter & Gamble, the large consumer products company, was beginning to challenge Kimberly-Clark in the marketplace, and if there was no direct response, they would likely be overwhelmed. Smith decided that to compete properly in consumer product markets, Kimberly-Clark had to prune its coated-paper business. Within one year of taking control of the company, Smith initiated changes that included the sale or closure of six paper mills and the sale of more than 300,000 acres of prime land. This was unheard of in the company’s history.
Smith recognized that he had a make-or-break situation on his hands. If he and his leadership team didn’t find a way to compete (and win) against Proctor & Gamble, then Kimberly-Clark would be lost. With more than $250 million in reserve, primarily from the land sale, Smith began the process of transforming the paper manufacturer into a consumer products powerhouse specializing in paper products. An aggressive research campaign was launched by hiring specialists away from competitors. Smith also increased the company’s advertising budget substantially, and plans were made for the construction of additional production facilities.
Marketing was central to Smith’s strategy for growth, as Kimberly-Clark emphasized its commitment to consumer products. He realized that the transformation of the company required not only research and development efforts but also new manufacturing facilities, human resource capabilities, and sales and marketing prowess. Only by selling the old business was Kimberly-Clark able to create the foundation for something new.
Similar stories of transformation could be told about Nokia, the mobile technology giant which still sells more handsets than any other manufacturer in the world. It began its life as a paper mill, rubber mill, and a cable works. There’s also that other innovation powerhouse, 3M, which began life as a mining and metals company. Each company had to fund a transition to something new, without which they would not exist today.
How did they make the transition?
Each company had leaders who had a vision of where they needed to go next. They effectively shared and spread that vision so that others would believe in it and commit to it. Each company also took steps to tend to their baseline business so that they could effectively fund the transition to the new business models and product lines that would ensure their future prosperity. And they invested those funds and energies as wisely as possible.
Focusing on the future
The key traits of the organization that can transform itself, creating innovation from its core businesses, are deceptively simple. They understand the need to keep customers pleased, engaged, and actively purchasing existing services. Without that effort, the resources required to fund a transition to a new set of products or services, or a whole new business model, would rapidly dwindle or even become absent. The effective stewardship of available resources also means that organization leaders understand how to foster and promote the risk-accepting practices and resilience across the people in the enterprise, so they can deliver the needed present business results and strive for the business results demanded by change.
The people unable to commit to transformational change are like barbed wire (protectionist or defensive specialists) or drag chutes (slowing down the rate of progress until it collapses in on itself) in an organization. Those companies that do manage wholesale shifts, essentially placing innovation at their core, are composed of people who are steadfast and true, the mainstays and anchors that provide stability and endurance in the face of challenging conditions. Their focus on the possibility of a brighter future is a beacon to all.
Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.”
- Mary Anne Radmacher
An endless list of priorities often relegates “innovation” to the list of buzzwords small business owners read about but can never tackle – something for the well-funded R&D labs at big corporations, not for the entrepreneurs on Main Street. But innovation is about being competitive and inventive in your approach — and small firms already have everything they need to be a big player in the innovation … Learn More
There’s a lot of confusion surrounding creativity and innovation. “Creative types,” in particular, claim that creativity and innovation can’t be measured. Performance, however, demands measurement so you can identify what success looks like. In a world that changes every two seconds, it’s imperative that companies figure out the difference between creativity and innovation. You better believe they’re … Learn More
Recently Primed Associates was featured over at Middle Market Executive. Here's what we had to say about opportunities for innovation in this space: When it seems that everyone is talking about innovation these days, you would think most firms are already riding the wave. However, most organizations have only begun to dip their toes into the water and are missing a full understanding of the broad range of ways in which they … Learn More
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