do_matic

Non sequitur: Bye 2009

Shot this morning.

Learning to think and do small / PB in the FT

I really enjoyed my friend and colleague Paul Bennett's recent piece for the FT:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a63acc20-f5ac-11de-90ab-00144feab49a.html

Paul's essay triggered a few connections for me.

First, there's how to get big companies to learn to move fast, or perhaps move at all. I've written about it here a bit (Small to learn, Get generative by thinking small) and Colin's "Business in Beta" pattern on IDEO.com does a really great job of capturing this trend.

Here's Paul:

What hit me was the scale of the enterprise and how a small seed of an idea could be world-changing in its impact.

..and...

Personally, I have long believed that not every idea has to be mega, mammoth, gargantuan or a billion dollar disruption. Often, the small, well-designed, intelligent and, most importantly, do-able ideas are infinitely better.

... and the pièce de résistance...

Rather, it sees it as the best way to learn how to get closer to its consumers - in the field through experimentation and prototyping, rather than intellectualising and theorising - and to bring that learning back into its core business and apply it there. It is learning-by doing rather than death-by-discussion.

Second, there's a motivation link to doing and being able to connect to something bigger than yourself, but not so big that you can't see yourself in it. It's super important for innovation. Leaders need to ensure an organization's people stay inspired. Tim Brown talked about it here and I shared some thoughts here (What's your purpose?)

I'm about a third of the way through Dan Pink's new book on motivation. Pink certainly foreshadows early in the book the link between purpose and new corporate forms such as the L3C, Fourth Sector/For Benefit and Yunus' idea of "social businesses."

There's something inspiring and motivating about working for something other the machine trying to make a big, big impact. Chip Heath (along with his brother Dan) describe the importance of connecting to something bigger than ourselves to help make an idea, innovation or story sticky (e.g., the accountant who put a man on the moon). I see folks struggle with this all the time at companies big and small. I suspect that's one reason organizations aren't always flat - motivation and purpose can be found by organizing smaller cohorts amidst the big (e.g., "hot teams").

Paul again:

Employees want to work on things they believe in, in places that support those belief systems. Creating impact outside has huge impact inside.

...and Paul quoting an exec...

"Even the people in Paris who book our travel to Bangladesh feel like they are part of this project..."

I guess the only thing I'd say in response is the importance of commitment. You need to mean it, act like you mean and get people to feel like you mean it. People can smell the bullshit. And if they smell it, they'll wait you out. Seems like Danone is doing it.

Get generative by thinking small

I thought this Seth Godin post was excellent:http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/you-dont-have-the-power.html

In particular, this passage was inspiring:

Here's a way to think about it, inspired by Merlin Mann: Imagine that next year your company is going to make 10 million dollars instead of a hundred million dollars in profit. What would you do knowing that your profits were going to be far less than they are today? Because that's exactly what the upstart with nothing to lose is going to do. Ten million in profit is a lot to someone starting with zero and trying to gain share. They don't care that you made a hundred million last year from the old model.

That's why I love Discovery Driven Planning with a number like $10MM as a starting point. Why not? Even for the big guys.

Seth is writing about publishing here. I've written a lot about my fascination with the current situation in publishing. Pricing dictated by history and fixed cost hangovers just doesn't make sense to me.

Leading Innovation: Power and Trust

 

(Looking strong. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sheeshoo/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

As organizations continue to demand more creative output from their people, leaders will start to hear two requests a lot more:

"I want to feel empowered."

"I want to feel trusted."

You can spend a lot of time and effort trying to answer these two requests directly, but I think the right answer is a bit more subtle.

Rather than trying to help people feel empowered, I believe a more worthwhile goal is to help people to feel powerful.

Rather than helping people to feel trusted, you'll do well to help them learn to trust themselves.

If you're hiring for a role that's going to demand a lot of creativity, finding people that feel powerful and trust themselves will go a long way.

As a leader, you can also help to cultivate an environment of safety, inspiration and clarity, though not all creative environments exhibit these qualities in equal measure.

These qualities will become ever more important as companies begin to evolve away from traditional hierarchical structures towards different models over the ensuing ten to fifteen years (you still have time).

Hierarchies are wonderful because they tell people what they can rely on. In the absence of these hierarchies, we'll have to find new things to rely on. Starting with ourselves.

Leading Innovation: What great bosses do

(Image and hunger courtesy of Esther17's photostream and Creative Commons.)

Bob asked what great bosses do to encourage innovation. It was an excuse for me to look back and see if I could synthesize some perspectives on that as well. I think many of these ideas and thoughts are very similar to what he communicated, but I think there are some new ones in there too. It's all a bit circular as I'm sure I'm influenced not only by my own experience, but also Bob's and others thinking.

Share Direction, Give Permission, Provide Support. Commit.
http://www.ryanjacoby.com/2009/05/leading-innovation.html

Understand the range of outcomes. Seek the one you want.
http://www.ryanjacoby.com/2009/08/growth-and-innovation-what-are-you-commiting-to.html
http://www.ryanjacoby.com/2009/04/small-to-learn-and-big-to-win.html
http://www.ryanjacoby.com/2009/06/fundamentally-different.html

Give teams an excuse to be wrong.
http://www.ryanjacoby.com/2009/05/seven-chances.html

Focus on feelings as much as actions.
http://www.ryanjacoby.com/2009/05/how-does-it-feel-to-innovate.html

Get out from behind your desk.
http://www.ryanjacoby.com/2009/10/innovation-measure-time-since-last-contact-tlc.html
http://www.ryanjacoby.com/2009/07/innovation-measure-time-to-first-feedback-tff.html

Stretch while paying close attention to where, why and how things snap.
http://www.ryanjacoby.com/2009/10/innovation-elasticity-or-why-things-get-killed.html

Be interested in being wrong.
http://www.ryanjacoby.com/2009/11/innovation-loves-mistakes.html

Have a purpose.
http://www.ryanjacoby.com/2009/06/whats-your-purpose.html

If everyone agrees, go back to the drawing board.
http://www.ryanjacoby.com/2009/05/whats-the-role-of-consensus-in-growth-innovation-and-design.html

Understand how to encourage and channel and develop intuition.
http://www.ryanjacoby.com/2009/09/intuition-innovation-collaboration-and-credibility.html

Don't mitigate risk. Mitigate the cost of failure.

To get it right, be interested in being wrong

Mrs. F was my first grade teacher. She was wonderful. At the start of first grade, she handed out those big, thick pencils - the ones without erasers. I asked Mrs. F why our pencils didn't have erasers. She said, "so you'll take your time and do things right the first time." Though I love her still, I think Mrs. F had the right pencils but the wrong message.

To do new things - things that are delightfully better and fundamentally different - you have to be really, really interested in putting things out there and being wrong; making mistakes and loving it.

I meet lots of folks in my work: designers, innovators and business people. It's a rare person that's confident enough to have their ideas critiqued. Even more seldom is the person that seeks feedback on an idea after it has been delivered. If you get it wrong, it sucks. If you got it wrong and it's your only shot, it really sucks. We confuse critique of an idea with a critique of us. I've certainly felt that way.

Great designers and innovators see evaluation moments as learning opportunities. They couple confidence with humility and curiosity. Some really amazing designers certainly possess a "never look back" approach. I think that works really well when what you're doing is closer to art.I don't think it works as well for innovation. I find with practice that it gets easier and easier to be wrong - you hate the sting, but you seek it.

So next time you hear something akin to "that's the worst idea I've heard in a long time." Say "Perfect, when did you know it was awful?"

Bob Sutton on Intuition

Bob Sutton has written a nice blog post on intuition versus data-driven decision making.

My view is that intuition and analysis are not opposing perspectives, but tag team partners that, under the best conditions, where hunches are followed and then evaluated with evidence (both quantitative and qualitative, that is another issue, qualitative data are different than intuition, and often better) versus when hunches and ingrained behaviors are mindlessly followed and impervious to clear signs that they are failing.

I'm influenced all the time by Bob's ideas and writing. I love how his thinking on any topic is always so unbelievably deep. Even with all Bob has read and studied, he frames his answer to the student's question in the blog post as only "rough thoughts." To have Bob's rough thoughts!

Adopting and practicing an attitude of wisdom, as Bob calls it and practices, is something I really try and do. Here are some prior, and very naive, thoughts from me on intuition for comparison: http://www.ryanjacoby.com/2009/09/intuition-innovation-collaboration-and-credibility.html

Non sequitur: You're either starting or quitting

(Deliberation courtesy of kamshots. Check out his amazing London and Tehran street scenes.)

It's occurred to me recently that you're either starting or quitting.

There's really nothing true about the idea of "standing still." If it feels like you're standing still, it's just that you're starting slowly or quitting slowly.

If you feel trapped, figure out where you're pointing and step on the gas. Either way you should accelerate.

It's a bit like Red said in Shawshank: "Get busy living, or get busy dying."

Rita McGrath: Organize for growth and innovation

Rita McGrath has a great post on the HBR blogs on organizing for growth. This quote stood out:

One of the most important jobs a growth group can do is create an opportunity inventory — both of ideas that are floating around in the organization but don't have critical mass, and of ideas that are currently being resourced but perhaps not managed explicitly. Without an organizational home, these critical jobs tend not to get done, hampering the organization's ability to grow.

Check the full article out here:

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/hbr/mcgrath/2009/10/create-a-special-unit-to-drive.html

Crunk Juice Mills: Small-run, integrated design and manufacturing to support product innovation

This one popped up when I was thinking about what we do and reflecting on the fact that a client had told me his company was planning to launch 50 new SKUs (probably off of a base of a thousand or so) in the coming year, with one or two completely new brand platforms among that number...

I wonder if there's the opportunity to have an integrated conceptualization, design and small-batch manufacturing business to accelerate the piloting, evaluation and scaling of innovative consumer packaged goods?

The pitch would be: We'll help you design, research and conceptualize new products for this, our local, market (e.g., North America, developing Africa, Western Europe, etc). We'll handle the manufacturing, piloting and testing. They'd say:

"Handling new formats and small runs is our specialty. If things get big, we'll help you transition the business in-house or to another third-party. We're full-service, so no handoffs. We get you to the end and beyond."

The offering would be local to allow for local development and minimize transaction costs / friction involved in integration of capabilities (such as overseas manufacturing). The users would be corporate design, innovation and venturing businesses. Over time, two or three big players would emerge a la contract manufacturers or the big trading companies.

The company would actually be a consortia of smaller players and capabilities, a network of sorts, with a primary integrative client relationship structure. Think big advertising, or better yet, video game publishing. The strength and effectiveness of this network would be critical to the performance of the company.

"Brand in a box offerings" are out there, but there isn't an integrated offering with refinement and production. Fast-moving consumer good companies are looking to maintain relevance and grow through new users and offerings. Meanwhile, these industries are really prone to fast-moving, smaller entrants. Why not in house?

Over time, large companies follow or combine one of two growth strategies. One cohort builds a shared innovation capability to support its various business units. The group comes along with the corresponding overhead while striving for, and falling short of, world-class performance.  The other cohort relies on M&A, often paying a premium in the market for the acquisition. Such clients tell us "we don't build businesses anymore, we buy them." When one strategy doesn't seem to be working, they start emphasizing the other. Meanwhile, smaller players don't do either. They're too focused on execution, scale and building out the channel.

This idea sort of flies in the face of the notion that a company's innovation process is a competitive advantage. Huh. Here's an article about that:

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/hbr/restoring-american-competitiveness/2009/10/the-us-is-outsourcing-away-its.html

Yet, this idea also recognizes that there are multiple ways to skin a cat. The point is to skin the cat.