Ideation vs. Prioritization
Ideation or prioritization? Imagine you had a choice of being really good at one, but not the other. You could be a master at creating ideas, or you could excel at selecting winning ideas, but not both. Which would you choose?
Two things intrigue me about this trade-off. First, companies spend too much time and energy prioritizing ideas and not enough on creating ideas. Second, the innovation space seems to demand a completely different set of tools and techniques for selecting ideas than the tools and techniques used for making other business decisions. In reality, there is no difference. The tools used to make everyday business decisions should be the same ones used to prioritize ideas.
I face this issue a lot when speaking about innovation. "How do you select the best idea to pursue? How do you know which idea is going to be the next blockbuster? What is the secret to spotting great ideas?" I just spoke to an outstanding group of MBA candidates at the Columbia Business School. One of the students wanted to know my views on this. It is as though I have a special eye or an innovation Magic Eightball for picking winners. If you can unlock my formula, you will find the path to riches. Not even close.
In my view, prioritization of ideas is not an innovation issue, and it does not belong in the discussion at all. The problem of which idea to pursue from among a list of choices is a subject well covered by the behavioral decision sciences. An amazing body of research exists in this field. Researchers have described highly effective methods of choice that circumvent the inherent weaknesses of humans in making decisions.
Executives obsess over finding the right method to select ideas when they should be more focused on how to generate ideas. The zeal over prioritization puts a drag on the core issues surrounding innovation such as how to innovate and how to make it routine and part of the culture.
It is time to strip out this issue entirely from the innovation discussion. Don't mix the two. Put the emphasis on a method to generate many great ideas and not on the method to choose the right one. For that, use the well-established science. Just as Fortune 100 companies use the well established methods to innovate, we should use well established methods to prioritize innovations.
July 13, 2008
Innovation Stigma
There is an inherent bias against innovation despite the enormous value it holds for organizations. Corporate executives know that innovation is the only true long term growth engine for their firm. Yet innovation carries with it a certain stigma, a perception in the minds of executives, that it is "soft" and frivolous compared to other hard core business activities like productivity, quality, and demand generation. This stigma deters executives from taking risk and investing in serious innovation initiatives.
The innovation industry itself is partly to blame. Participants in the innovation space tend to perpetuate a mystique about innovation and creativity as though it is a deeply hidden secret that needs to be unleashed. Walk into many innovation sessions and what you see are cans of Silly StringTM, Slinky(R) toys, Frisbees, and funny nose glasses. The notion here is that people need to be more playful to have that "eureka" moment and invent the next blockbuster idea. People are conditioned to believe innovation requires "skunk-works" in a specially-designed room to pursue "white space opportunities." Innovation is voodoo.
In an effort to differentiate themselves, participants in the innovation space create novel names for their programs and services. Here is a very small sample: Innovations-Radar(R), Innovation Cube(R), Challenge AcceleratorTM, 360-IA(R), SpinnovatorTM, Idea BucketTM, AlphaStormingTM, Excursion DeckTM, Mindscan(R), IdeaSpring(R), Super Digilab(R), etc, etc. The list is overwhelming and it tends to confuse the market. More importantly, what is the efficacy of these tools? Do they work? The granddaddy of them all, Brainstorming, is certainly suspect given the many studies that suggest otherwise.
Is there an innovation bias? I am polling Fortune 100 executives to describe the characteristics of people who champion certain business causes. I ask them to describe the typical age, experience, credentials, aspirations, and personality of:
The early feedback suggests innovation champions, compared to the others, are seen as more eager, altruistic "dreamers" who are out of touch with the business. One executive described innovation champions as necessary but had low expectations of actual results. Of more concern is the perception executives have about themselves in this role. My sense is business people shy away from championing innovation because they believe the stigma of failing at innovation is more career-damaging than failing at other ventures.
The innovation industry needs to play a role in improving the image of innovation. Fortunately, there are resources like Innovation Tools and CREAX that consolidate the innovation space and help companies make sense of the different offerings. More prominence needs to be given to the classic researchers in innovation and creativity like Ronald Finke, Thomas Ward, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Jacob Goldenberg. We need to get back to the basics of what makes innovation work so we can skip the hype.
The innovation bias has to be overcome if companies want to make progress and grow. Leaders need to address this head on. How? Just as they learned to champion leadership by first becoming an authentic leader, they need to champion innovation by first becoming an authentic innovator.
June 07, 2008
Social Innovation
Web 2.0 social tools are swelling all around us, and the Fortune 100 are embracing them for two purposes - managing and engaging the internal employee base and managing and engaging the external customer base. Wikis, blogs, mashups, and social networks will improve productivity, connectivity, knowledge transfer, and ultimately profitability if deployed correctly.
What about innovation? Can the Web 2.0 environment increase, enable, accelerate, and deepen innovation within companies? I am impressed with the emergence of tools such as Wridea and others that have taken on the challenge. But I have yet to see one that works effectively. I am trying to figure out why. Are these applications using the wrong innovation tool or process? Do they have an effective innovation process, but deploy it incorrectly? Or, are people not using the application in an optimal way?
I experimented with online innovation about five years ago, about the time MySpace was introduced. I used an online learning platform (eCollege 4.0) with a group of colleagues, and we tried to create new products within the health care space. We used Systematic Inventive Thinking as the innovation process, and we structured the "event" over a four week period of time. The goal was to invent new products without ever meeting face-to-face using asynchronous communications online. I called it O.P.I.E for short - Online Product Innovation Exchange.
Here is how it worked. Using simple threaded postings, a member of the group suggested an existing product as a starting point. Another member took that product and listed the components of it. Then, each member would select one of the components to work on. Their job was to use one of the five templates of the S.I.T. method and create a virtual product. They had to post these virtual products in a separate area of the online site. Then, other members would review their suggested virtual products and use "Function Follows Form" to envision a viable use or benefit of the virtual product. It was classic S.I.T. in an online, asynchronous environment. The result?
O.P.I.E. was a miserable failure. It generated few ideas, nothing really original, and it was frustrating for the participants. I struggled with why for a long time. Was it the wrong process, people, or platform? As I have learned more about social media and Web 2.0 and how people really use and experience this environment, I am beginning to understand why. All three aspects of O.P.I.E. - the process, people, and platform - needed some modification for this to work effectively. Here is what I would do differently.
For social innovation to work, the platform has to be optimized for this purpose. I had used a platform that was intended for traditional online learning, and it lacked the tools to properly facilitate the exchange and touchpoints needed for innovation. The optimal platform needs to do a few things better. For example, the site needs to notify other members when a virtual product has been posted. With O.P.I.E., too much time elapsed in the asynchronous mode, and members were not sure when to login to check what was going on. Other members would get frustrated because nothing seemed to be happening. If members were notified, Twitter-like, that a new virtual product was available, they could engage the process more efficiently and all at once to create a flurry of ideas for discussion. Secondly, the site needs to allow richer descriptions of virtual products. This could be done either visually where participants somehow draw the virtual product, or audibly where participants leave a short, recorded description on the site for others to hear, either online or via their cell phone. This would promote a richer response in the form of innovative uses and benefits of the virtual product.
What about the process and people? I am still working on this, but I believe changes are needed in both. The inherent flow of innovation is correct within the S.I.T. method, but I wonder if there are perhaps certain templates that are better suited for the online environment. Also, there needs to be more work done in how the process is facilitated online and how expectations are set for the participants. What components do they work on? What virtual products do they respond to? How many ideas do they generate? How many other ideas do they attempt to modify or improve?
Social innovation is promising. It will reduce the cost of innovation and the time commitment allowing companies to innovate more often. But the big win is the same as what many other Web 2.0 applications bring - it will greatly expand the numbers and diversity of participants. This will yield more original ideas and innovations than ever before.
May 18, 2008
Innovation Muscle
The best Fortune 100 companies see innovation as an ongoing capability, not a one time event. These companies work hard to build muscle around this capability so they can deploy it when they need it, where they need it, tackling their hardest problems. Companies do this to keep up with the ever changing landscape both inside and outside the firm.
What does it mean to build innovation muscle? I think of it as the number of people trained, the frequency of using an innovation method, and the percentage of internal departments that have an innovation capability. Call it an Innovation Muscle Index: N (number of trained employees) x F (number of formal ideation events per year using a method) x P (percent of company departments with at least one employee trained in an effective innovation method). IMI = N x F x P .
Building innovation muscle is not much different than building body muscle. Let's turn to an authority, http://www.muscleprogram.com/, and see how to build body muscle. Here is an exact quote taken from that website. Then I have overlaid my interpretation of it from an innovation point-of-view in parenthesis and in bold font.
"You need to decide what kind of (innovation) muscle form you're looking to achieve. Drawing on examples nearly everyone is familiar with, you need to decide if you want to look like Arnold (GE) Schwarzenegger (bigger bulk) or Bruce (Apple) Lee (lean and toned). This decision will help you determine which kinds of exercises you do and how you do them.
Now, with all of that out of the way, let's look at some things you can do to build your (innovation) muscles!
If you don't already, start getting your body (company) used to working out. Start running (innovating) every day, not jogging (brainstorming) or walking (copying others), to help get your blood (growth) moving and your (innovation) muscles primed for building. You're not running a race so you don't need to be a speed demon. Instead, maintain a comfortable and steady pace, taking long and powerful strides (initiatives).
If you want to have the lean, Bruce (Apple) Lee appearance, you need to work with lighter weights and have a higher number of repetitions (innovation workshops) in each set. By doing this, you are toning and shaping your (innovation) muscles into longer and thinner forms. If you want the Arnold (GE) look, you need to work heavier weights (more departments using innovation) and do fewer repetitions. By doing this, you are toning and shaping your (innovation) muscles into short and thicker forms.
Ensure that you have a regular plan, focusing on specific (innovation) muscle groups, and stick to it. Don't try to work every (innovation) muscle in your body every day of the week. At best, this will lead to burnout (budget crunch) and at worst it will lead to injury (downsizing). Your (innovation) muscles will be getting worked hard, so they need to have time to recuperate.
However, you should rotate your plan every month. For example, let's say that you are working on your chest, shoulders and biceps (new products) on Monday; your abdomen, forearms and upper back (new services) on Wednesday; and your lower back and legs (new strategies) on Friday. Every four weeks, rotate one day so that you'll be working on your lower back and legs on Monday; your chest, shoulders and biceps on Wednesday; and your abdomen, forearms and upper back on Friday. The following month, rotate one more day.
This will allow each of your (innovation) muscle groups to take advantage of the fact that you probably workout differently on each of those days. If you simply stick with the exact same schedule forever, then you'll find yourself quickly running into what are known as "plateaus," where you just can't seem to build that (innovation) muscle group past a certain point. With a rotation schedule, you will avoid this problem by giving each (innovation) muscle group the benefit of your natural changing body (company) rhythm.
If you keep these general guidelines in mind and consistently work at your plan with passion and intensity, your body (company) will be more toned (competitive) and shaped (growing) than you ever imagined it could be. While it won't happen overnight, it probably won't take as long as you're afraid it will."
April 20, 2008
Innovation Behavior
Innovation is a skill, not a gift. Top organizations drive growth by nurturing and investing in innovation as a competency. One way organizations make it real is by including innovation within formal competency models.
Professor Rodney Rogers of Portland State University defines a competency as a persistent pattern of behavior resulting from a cluster of knowledge, skills, abilities, and motivations. It is the persistence of those behaviors that matter most and help your organization succeed.
Competency models are a useful way to formalize that behavior and make it persistent. They help describe the ideal patterns needed for exceptional performance. They are a blueprint for the type of person needed for a specific job. And they help diagnose and evaluate employee performance. It takes a lot of work to develop one, but it's worth it.
My approach is to see innovation competencies at two distinct levels: The Innovator, and The Innovation Leader. Here is how to think about it.
The Innovator Competencies:
- Generating Innovative Solutions - Systematically innovates using a model with proven efficacy; routinely innovates products, services, processes, and strategies; values and harnesses team diversity; reframes problems in a different light to find fresh approaches; entertains wide-ranging possibilities others may miss; takes advantage of difficult or unusual situations to develop unique approaches and useful solutions.
- Seeing the Big Picture - Has broad knowledge and perspective; pieces together seemingly unrelated data to identify patterns and trends and to see a bigger picture; understands the pieces of a system as a whole and appreciates the consequences of actions on other parts of the system; possesses a big-picture view of the situation.
The Innovation Leader competencies are different. It is not necessarily the innovation leader who must generate new ideas; rather, they must understand how to instill innovation according to Penn State researcher, Dr. David G. Gliddon. "Commitment to innovation as a culture is prevalent in organizations as it is commonly woven directly into mission statements. However, leaders still lack the ability to plan, measure and implement innovative programs, products and services. These challenges are enhanced by the pressure to juggle several different and often conflicting roles." said Gliddon. In a three-year study, Gliddon identified the competencies that underpinned these roles and developed a competency model of innovation leaders. The competency model can be tailored to any organization as part of a competency-based human resource development initiative.
An innovation leader collaboratively interacts with their employees and supports high levels of teamwork, providing opportunities to share innovations. Once an innovation has been shared, employees should be empowered to then adopt the innovation if it is useful. Employees can then support the innovation leader by initially adopting the innovation, and encourage the diffusion of the innovation throughout organization's social system, Gliddon says. Innovation leaders must also take personal responsibility for and be dedicated to projects that require innovations. Therefore, innovation leaders must establish a trust culture and maintain relationships based on trust. They must display initiative, set challenging project goals, and link those goals to the needs of the customer, department, and enterprise, according to his study.
Persistent innovation behavior by the leader and innovator is a recipe for growth.
April 06, 2008
Innovation through Co-opetition
How do you innovate a business model? You can create new products and services within the current business model to drive growth. Or you can create a new business model and open up a whole new world of possibilities for the firm. Either innovate within the current game, or change the game. But how?
Several books address this, from Clayton Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma," to a more recent offering, "Innovation to the Core: A Blueprint for Transforming How Your Company Innovates" by Peter Skarczynski and Rowan Gibson. When Professor Christensen presented his disruptive innovation model to our company several years ago, I remarked that what is needed is NOT so much a disruptive product, but rather a disruptive business model. His book is a good historical account of a few industries that suggest disrupting (innovating) the business model is what really counts. While these books and others do a good job of exposing the issue, neither give a prescriptive "how to." The most recent book suggests a holistic approach. "To build a breakthrough business model that rivals cannot easily emulate, you'll need to integrate a whole series of complementary, value creating components so the effect is cumulative," the authors note. Fine, but there are no step-by-step processes how to do it once you have unpacked the original business model.
My answer comes from combining two existing concepts (a Medici Effect as described by Frans Johansson). Those two existing concepts are Systematic Inventive Thinking (S.I.T.) and Co-opetiton. S.I.T. is a proven process for generating innovation on demand. Co-opetition is an idea described by Barry Nalebuff and Adam Brandenburger in their book called, "Co-opetition." It means cooperative competition, and it is a way to see your industry not as a zero sum game, but rather as a group of participants that can behave in a certain way that benefits all. They coopetate rather than compete (legally, of course). I met with Professor Nalebuff and had him "school" me on the concept.
The trick is to apply S.I.T. templates to the Value Net model of co-opetition. Here's how. List the activities of each Value Net participant (Company, Supplier, Customer, Complementors, Competitor). Rotate each specific company in the Value Net model so that each takes a new role (competitors become suppliers, suppliers become complementors, etc). Use each S.I.T. template on the new list of activities, starting with Task Unification. Using Function Follows Form, envision how the new role and role player can benefit YOUR company. Here is an example, using Nintendo as the company of focus:
Now imagine each player rotates clockwise one position. Applying S.I.T. Task Unification, we ask what roles could Atari perform as a customer to Nintendo that would be beneficial to both. (For example, could Atari and Nintendo cross license software code to each other, perhaps making some features of their games work on the other's game box?) Apply all five templates systematically to each role and each player within the context of their new role. This will generate many new, innovative business model components and themes.
Disruption doesn't have to be uncooperative.
March 04, 2008
Innovation Competency
Jeffrey Phillips outlines a sound approach to the age-old question, who owns innovation? Where does it sit on the organizational chart:
There's not a wrong way to organize, but there are benefits to developing a central team to ensure consistent methodology, language and culture and the use of consistent tools and frameworks. Eventually, most ideas if adopted will be implemented in a specific business unit or product team, so the central team acts as a facilitator, coach and sponsor, usually without implementing the ideas.
There is support for this view. IBM asked 765 CEO's this question in their 2006 Global CEO Survey, and reported the following on the question of who has responsibility for innovation leadership: the CEO - 27%, No Owner - 27%, Functional Managers - 24%, and Division Managers - 14%.
The wide range of responses tells me there is no consensus. But the question still makes me a little nervous. Why does someone have to "own" innovation? Do we think about leadership the same way? Does someone own leadership in a company? No one asks that question.
I get hopeful when I see that 27% of CEO's ascribe no owner to innovation. My sense is that creating an innovation champion or assigning it to one department could shut down others from innovating. With strong, central ownership of innovation, others might be reluctant to initiate anything that looks like a competing approach. When I see a company with an innovation champion (think "owner"), I expect to find innovation subversives, too.
The question is not who owns innovation, but rather who owns innovation competency development. I see more companies moving in this direction. Some place this within a process excellence group while others move it right into a functional department such as marketing or R&D. Still others have dedicated resources such as GE and Diageo, two members of the MSI Innovation Roundtable.
Build innovation competency and the question of who owns innovation becomes moot.
January 27, 2008
In Search of Bad Ideas
Mitch Ditkoff notes a common misperception regarding bad ideas:
"One of the inevitable things you will hear at a brainstorming session is something like "there are no bad ideas." Well, guess what? There are plenty of bad ideas....The key for aspiring innovators? To find the value in what seems to be a "bad idea" and then use that extracted value as a catalyst for further exploration."
I agree. Good ideas usually start as bad ideas, an insight I learned originally from the folks at S.I.T.. But the question is: how do you extract the value from a bad idea to transform it? I offer three approaches.
First, look carefully at the bad idea and try to characterize the single benefit that the idea delivers to the customer regardless of how whacky that benefit is delivered. It is the benefit that you want to hold onto, not the whacky deliver system. Ideate new ways to deliver that benefit.
Second, what criteria are being used to judge the idea as bad? Try using the Reverse Assumption technique on those criteria. Turn them around, challenge them, re-frame them. Make the seemingly bad idea look good in a different context.
Third, look for what is old about the new idea. Thomas B. Ward, is his chapter, "What's Old about New Ideas," says:
"Structured imagination refers to the fact that when people use their imagination to develop new ideas, those ideas are heavily structured in predictable ways by the properties of existing categories and concepts."
In other words, we do not ideate in a vaccuum, but rather in the context of what we already know. My advice is to take the bad idea and look for the original concept that it was built upon. Can that be taken in new directions using a structured process?
For corporate innovators, I see this as a best practice. I often ask people what they do with their bad ideas. If I see a curious look on their face, it usually means they are not taking advantage of this phenomena.
Bad ideas are better than no ideas.
January 22, 2008
Young it Down
Technology improves our lives in many ways, but overreliance on it can cause us to "dumb down." Technology has a tendency to fill in or take over certain tasks for the consumer, relieving us of cognitive activities that we once did ourselves. These cognitive activities get weak or atrophied. We get lazy and dependent on the new technology to do our work for us. We become dumb.
Example: I used my Garmin GPS this weekend at my son's hockey tournament to find our way back and forth between the hotel and the ice rink. I have always been "directionally aware," perhaps a result of Air Force survival training and other experiences. I know my way around, even in new locations, because of my sense of direction. I'm never lost.
But on this trip, I used the Garmin (Nuvi) to do the work for me. Then it struck me as I was riding in a car with one of the other families on the way to the rink. Without the GPS, I had no clue where we were headed. The technology caused me to switch off my natural sense of direction. I had shut it down and paid no attention to where I was or where I was going. I felt that very strange notion of being lost. So much for "directionally aware."
Given the power of innovation tools, we need to be mindful of this as we create medical products, for example, that do the decision making for surgeons, or commercial airplanes that do all the flying for pilots, or educational products that do all the teaching. We are becoming a knowledge society, they say. But I worry that knowledge is getting imbedded in new innovations, and it may be having the opposite effect on our society...it is dumbing us down.
Technology has a bright side, though. Web 2.0 and the myriad of new social networking applications are helping generations reconnect. This technology is not "dumbing us down;" rather it is "younging us down." I am more connected with my 16 year old son and his friends with applications like texting, Twitter, and Flickr. My Dunbar Number is expanding thanks to LinkedIn, del.icio.us, and Facebook. It is helping me identify with 20 year olds, 30 year olds, and beyond, even though I get one year further away from these groups every July 14th. That's cool, especially as I find myself speaking to audiences at these age groups all the time. If I don't connect to them, they don't connect with me. Innovation helps me connect. It helps me "young it down."
January 19, 2008
Innovation vs. Leadership
Which is easier to learn: innovation or leadership? That is one of my favorite questions to ask during keynotes and workshops, especially to groups of accomplished leaders. What amazes me is the answer I get back: overwhelmingly, groups of executives say that leadership is easier to learn than innovation.
I could not disagree more. I've experienced some of the best leadership training in the world starting with the U.S. Air Force Academy and all the way through to Johnson & Johnson's many leadership training programs. These programs were complex, psychologically-based, and multi-dimensional. Leadership training is big business. The demand is high, and the task is tall. Executives flood to these programs to learn new insights and nuances of this highly people-based activity. It is tough to learn leadership.
I learned innovation in a matter of minutes. The process is clear, rules-based, and rigorous. Anyone can do it. When facilitated appropriately, you cannot NOT innovate. The process forces original, novel, and highly creative ideas to come out of your head.
So why do executives feel that leadership is easier to learn than innovation? My sense is that many have not been exposed to a bona fide innovation method. These executives want organic innovation more than anything to drive growth. Yet many are missing a simple insight what it takes...to invest themselves in learning innovation. Once executives feel what it's like to innovate on demand, they get it. They start thinking about execution, scalability, culture aspects, resources needs, measurement, accountability, strategy, alignment....all the traditional things leaders think about...to move an initiative forward.
GE is perhaps the best example of a company that invests in innovation as much as it does leadership with its Imagination at Work program. For GE, the question of which is easier to train...innovation or leadership...is moot. They avoid the "leadership bias," and they invest appropriately in core innovation skills to drive growth.
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