Is Innovation Too Messy To Be Managed And Taught? Hardly. As an innovation consultant, I found the recent Co.Design post “Do Innovation Consultants Kill Innovation?” Troubling. Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen are right to castigate much of the innovation consulting industry, which is unfortunately full of firms that have rebranded themselves as innovation experts. Just peruse the website of any large consulting firm. Yesterday’s management, brand, or operations consultant is today’s innovation guru. The problem these consultants run into is that most of them have no ability to actually create an innovation, and so they fall back on what they really know how to do: They analyze.
The authors attack innovation processes, arguing that “the difference between success and disaster is largely defined by the selection of a good team--not by its processes.” The authors believe innovation “should be an attitude that organically runs through the culture of an organization.” Pixar is a rare exception. Don't Think Different, Think About Different Things - Art Markman. By Art Markman | 11:56 AM January 11, 2012 This post is about innovation . But before we get started, imagine the produce area in your local supermarket. Were you able to do it? That seems like a strange question to ask. Of course you could. But the strangeness of the question says something fundamental about the way your memory works.
Memory provides you with the information it thinks you need when it thinks you need it. Now back to innovation. When you need to solve a problem in a new way, you have two options. As I just showed you, pulling information from memory happens effortlessly. To get a sense of what I mean, consider James Dyson . Instead, Dyson realized a vacuum takes in a combination of dust and air and needs to separate the dust from the air. To solve the problem, Dyson focused on its essence. You might immediately think, "The squeaky wheel gets the grease. " Now, think about the core meaning of the first proverb. 5 Principles of Innovation. Are innovators born or made? Surely, those who spawn ideas that change the world are special – different then the rest of us. Take one look at an Einstein, a Henry Ford or a Steve Jobs and it seems that they were bequeathed with something unique. They have a flair and a surety about themselves that borders on the sublime.
Yet many others also have flair and surety and never accomplish anything of note. Moreover, as I’ve written before, stories of great innovators often contain struggle and privation. 1. Peter Drucker once wrote, “Effective innovations start small. Take a look at any really, really big thing and, inevitably, it modest origins. Yet, the great thing about thinking small is that you can risk failure, because failure is sustainable. The absolutely worst thing you can do is pile on a bunch of up-front costs that push the break-even point far into the future. 2. That’s why disruptive innovations like digital cameras and mini-mills were so easy for incumbents to overlook. 3. 4. Crappy Innovation. Can you be crappy? Do you dare? When we think about innovation, we usually think about what impresses us. Like Steve Jobs standing on a podium showing off his latest triumph: Incredible!
Revolutionary! Mind Blowing! However, the kind of innovation that changes paradigms is usually crappy. The Innovation Pyramid Some years ago, I was subcontracting for a highly regarded consulting firm and was paired with a project manager who had just earned a prestigious MBA at one of the world’s top programs. “This is a pyramid,” she explained. ”At the base is what you have to do just to stay in business. “Oh,” I thought. As I’ve written about before, there’s a big difference between technology that creates efficiencies and technology that creates value. Disruptive Crap A few decades ago, Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen took a break from instructing impressive young scholars about the finer points of pyramid building and asked himself a question: Why do good companies fail? Crappy Innovators - Greg.
How to Leverage Digital Technology for your Firm. Do you see digital technology as an opportunity or a threat? Digital technology can be both a blessing and a curse. While the new possibilities are fantastic and great efficiencies can be gained, organizations often need to be restructured in order to take advantage of them. Finding the right digital structure can be confusing.
The key is to understand what role new technology is to play in your business. Sometimes we use digital technology to make us more efficient and sometimes we use it to create value. To see how that affects how we should use technology, we first need to understand what organizations actually do. What Does a Firm Do? Why do businesses allow other companies to profit from them? Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase asked these questions in his 1937 paper The Nature of the Firm, which is still influential to this day. What he found was that the answer had to do with transaction costs and externalities. On the other hand, the costs of organizing work are substantial. Standard vs. What is beyond Customer Experience. A Few Ideas for Beleaguered Innovators - Scott Anthony. Keep the faith. That’s what I said to a client who is going through a crisis of confidence. Over the summer he had put together the underpinnings of what on paper looked like a promising growth business.
But — as is usually the case — the more he analyzes, the more he doubts; the more he shows the results of his analysis to senior leaders, the more questions they ask, and the more they doubt. If you are doing something that hasn’t been done before, careful analysis will by definition highlight reasons to not proceed. Market demand can’t be validated. Experts dismiss technological assumptions. Partnership discussions stall. Innovators need a heavy dose of faith. Most importantly, I’m driven by a strong conviction: you can’t be certain if you have a good idea or a bad one until you get out of the office. The best innovators have a bit of innovation bipolarity. You cannot find truth through analysis. Keep the faith. How to Think Creatively - Tony Schwartz. By Tony Schwartz | 8:00 AM November 14, 2011 I grew up hungry to do something creative, to set myself apart.
I also believed creativity was magical and genetically encoded. As early as the age of 8, I began sampling the arts, one after another, to see if I’d inherited some gift. Eventually, I became a journalist. For many years, I told other people’s stories. The first hint I might have sold myself short came in the mid-1990s. When Edwards peered down at the self-portrait I had drawn on the first day, she smiled. From an early age, we’re taught in school to develop the logical, language-based, rational capacities of the left hemisphere of our brain, which is goal-oriented and impatient to reach conclusions. The left hemisphere gives names to objects in order to reduce and simplify them. The right hemisphere, by contrast, is visual rather than verbal.
But what did that have to do with creativity? 1. 2. 3. 4. The Forum for Growth and Innovation. The Forum for Growth and Innovation is a research project guided by Professor Clayton Christensen, the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration and one of the world’s top experts on growth and innovation. The goal of the Forum is to discover, develop, and disseminate robust, accessible theory in the areas of innovation and general management. We judge our success by our ability to shape debate among students of management theory and to make a difference in the lives of general managers worldwide by bringing useful new approaches to bear on their most critical growth and innovation challenges.
Each year, the Forum invites a few highly qualified MBA graduates to engage in a yearlong residency program. Associates collaborate with Professor Christensen on theory development intended for publication in Harvard Business Review and other leading business journals. MembershipThe Forum’s membership is made up of both academics and practitioners.