P28 A Contradiction? Start-ups inside major companies?

• “Welcome to the Proven, Practical, Profitable Innovation podcast! I am Richard and I thank you very much for taking time out of your busy day to listen to this podcast.
• As you know by now I want you to immediately be able to use the information in this podcast to help you sell more and make more.
• Please be sure to listen to the end of this podcast where I give you an exciting preview of future podcasts.
• If after listening to this podcast you feel a need for more help, please contact me directly—my email is richard@i2ge.com. You can also go to my website—i2ge.com– where you can explore many innovation topics, especially check out the DIY Innovation Training on the menu bar. We customize all the training programs to our clients’ unique needs and circumstances.
• It is well-known that major corporations in the last few decades have struggled with innovation in general and more specifically major, disruptive innovations. Major corporations have tried to remedy this in many ways but one of the most enduring experiments is creating startup like business units inside major corporations. Today’s podcast zeroes in on some of the more promising efforts.
• Startups inside major corporations
  • • America loves the startup spirit where a small business operation is more successful than the major gorillas in the business. I had a front row seat for exactly this experience with Procter & Gamble. P&G and Kraft owned the coffee business. Despite this, they were twice out innovated by small startups. First, was that little coffee house in Seattle that is now the giant Starbucks that innovated both coffee products and the coffee environmental experience. Second, Keurig and Green Mountain coffee pioneered single use, machine made at home coffee. Both of these initiatives were expensive innovation lessons learned by P&G’s Folgers (now owned by Smuckers) and Kraft’s Maxwell House coffee.
    • In the past two years alone companies like Coca-Cola, MetLife, General Electric, IBM, Cisco, Tyco International, and Mondelez International have formed startup like units within the larger company. These experiments do everything from holding innovation contests to having executives evaluate the contests to make their decisions on how to fund specific internal startup ideas. Of note, Procter & Gamble has similar initiatives that are now almost 10 years old. While all of this is interesting and even encouraging when it comes to innovation, it is still too early to point to major successes.
    • Nobody seems to have figured out the magic formula to make these initiatives work. Major companies are trying things like General Electric hiring 500 coaches to train executives in innovation skills like a greater tolerance for risk and the ability to quickly learn from failures. Others send their brand managers to work inside startups to see how that can benefit their company. Others do the reverse, they invite entrepreneurs and startups to come into their company and provide advice and guidance.
  • Here are some examples of major companies experimenting with startup style operations within the company.   The majority of the information in this podcast comes from an excellent story in Fortune magazine.
    • MasterCard: MasterCard is a 50-year-old company that has created dozens of small companies inside their New York City MasterCard labs. While still in its early stages there are some interesting ideas like something they call ShopThis that enables people to buy products from a digital magazine without ever having to leave the magazine.
    • General Electric: they call their experiment FastWorks. Again, it is training in risk taking, continual learning, and developing curiosity that drives asking the right questions. They are creating open spaces to facilitate collaboration and the CEO has actually created a space for people to hang out to facilitate new ways of seeing things. A General Electric veteran commented, “I can say this is the most unbelievable experience, and I’ve been with GE for 20 years.” In the first 15 months GE funded 500 employee proposed projects. When an employee’s pitch is agreed to, they have about 90 days to develop and test their ideas to see if the ideas worth taking to the next step.
    • Here are some examples of how much effort and resources some companies are putting against this idea.
      • General electrics FastWorks – 3500 employees growing to about 35,000 out of about 300,000 total company employees.
      • Tyco growth and innovation system – 200 employees out of 57,000. And internal venture capital group evaluates proposals and invests in the most promising new ideas. Currently 20 internal startups and growing.
      • Coca-Cola lean startup – 1000 employees out of 129,000. A focus on rapid prototyping and learning. So far they’ve invested in about 11 outside startups.
      • Mondelez mobile futures – 25 employees out of 100,000. Australia, Brazil and the United States have developed nine outside startups.
    • Here are some observations based on my experience. These efforts are very well-intentioned. Executives think if we can just be organized and look more like a startup but do it internally then we can fix our innovation problems. As I noted, some companies have been trying efforts like this for more than a decade with only modest success to report. My belief is that when embryonic ideas come out of one of these internal startup like operations, they need to eventually enter the broader company culture. It is at this stage that many promising but not yet fully formed ideas can die. In some cases their deaths are eminently warranted. But in other cases, the company culture that says “that’s not the way we do things” and “we would never do something like that” rise up in drive a spike into the heart of an idea. Again, company culture is ultimately the final arbiter of what a company will do and will not do – it defines what a good idea is and what a bad idea is. Having said all this, I have my fingers crossed that some of the smaller innovative business units will succeed and learnings from this experience can be translated to other companies and situations.
  • Ongoing close.
    • What you can do today with this information.
      • First, if you have a successful small and even medium-size company, you may want to consider establishing a more nimble, innovative internal business unit. I would primarily suggest consideration of this if current innovation efforts are not creating the competitive advantages you need to grow short and long term.
      • Second, if you have a need for a much more robust innovation program and portfolio, these small internal startup approaches should be considered. Moving from consideration to actual implementation should only happen when you’ve learned about your company culture strengths and weaknesses and gone to school on experiments like the ones we’ve covered here – is there anything that they are doing that might fit what we are doing.
      • Third, the spirit of innovation is always open to experimentation as long as the experiments have elements that facilitate rapid learning and making rapid adjustments based on those learnings. Even when there are learning and improvements are these enough……are their successful new products coming out of the process? If not, should you be doing this?
    • If you would like to see the key written points from this podcast, you can find them in my blog – i2ge.com/blog.
    • If you would like to contact me, please email me at richard@i2ge.com.
    • If you would like to create far more robust innovation capabilities within your business, I have a complete portfolio of training programs that we tailor to your unique needs. If you would like to learn more, go to the Innovate2Grow Experts website – i2Ge.com and click on DIY Innovation Training.
    • One of my six books is Proven Practical Innovation That Delivers Results. This very low-cost book is available at Amazon in paperback and has a Kindle book. Is truly packed with lots of practical help.
    • Importantly, if you found this podcast helpful, please consider helping us with a five-star rating for these podcast. Thank you in advance for your support.
  • A preview of some future podcasts.
    • Upcoming podcast focus on specific case studies and powerful innovation insights that are relevant to almost any business and business need.
    • The next podcast looks at a very interesting last ten-year innovation trends. Mostly major companies have been recognizing that they need to get ideas from sources other than just inside the company. This is led to the development of what is variously called open innovation or crowdsourcing innovation. While there are some significant differences between the two, what they share in common is that there is an organization and structure to collect ideas needed for a project from a group of interested and qualified innovators around the world. You will want to be sure to listen to the pros and cons of this particular approach and how this might impact your renovation efforts.
  • Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to reconnecting with you soon. Please have a great day.

 

P 27 Google Workplace Innovation.

• “Welcome to the Proven, Practical, Profitable Innovation podcast! I am Richard and I thank you very much for taking time out of your busy day to listen to this podcast.
• My goal is to make sure you get a high return on your time investment listening to this podcast. I want you to immediately be able to use the information in this podcast to help you sell more and make more.
• Google along with Apple are two of the most long-term innovative companies. It’s not surprising with Google’s spirit of innovation that they would also take on innovation in the workplace. It’s well-known that Google hires very talented people. It’s clear from their workplace innovation that they are creating a culture and environment that enables these very talented people to be all they can be.
• Please be sure to listen to the end of this podcast where I give you an exciting preview of future podcasts.
• If after listening to this podcast you feel a need for more help, please contact me directly—my email is richard@i2ge.com. You can also go to my website—i2ge.com– where you can explore many innovation topics, especially check out the DIY Innovation Training on the menu bar. We customize all the training programs to our clients’ unique needs and circumstances.
• Google workplace innovation
  • • In my six years of teaching at Arizona State University in the school of management, one of the courses I taught was on advanced leadership and the workplace. Being a person who lives and breathes innovation, I was always struck at how little innovation had touched the workplace. Yes, we had moved from offices to cubicles, but it’s not clear that is much of a positive. And yes there is experimentation with things like telecommuting and job sharing. While interesting, it’s doubtful that these experiments, even if successful, are applicable to all/most workplaces.
  • Here are some of the major innovations Google has brought to the workplace. Most of these come from a well-written article in Fortune magazine.
    • Trust your people: while we can all agree that this is a good practice, what makes it an innovative practice is that the vast majority of companies either don’t fully trust or even partially trust their employees. They have a vast array of policies and procedures designed to verify even some of the smallest details. Distrust also goes beyond just formal policies and procedures. In my first book, The New Wisdom of Business, I provide a detailed case study on MorningStar, a financial services company, and its founder. I was struck by its vacation and sick days policy. It’s vacation policy was, “if you need to take vacation take it.” And the sick day’s policy was “if you’re sick please take care of yourself and return to work when you’re healthy.” Now this is trust! I also learned that in practice the vacation policy resulted in people taking far fewer days of vacation than they had previously – interesting.
    • Hire only people who are better than you: in my experience, the vast majority of managers would have problems with this since they believe they are the best and certainly anyone they would hire could not even be as good as them. One of the biggest workplace challenges in my experience is the associated traits of egotism and narcissism. You will recall in the quantum idea generation podcast series, I talked about the great importance of diversity. Inherent in the concept of diversity is that in the group there are always people who have more experience and skills in some areas than the other people. For diversity to work in idea generation, there needs to be a deep respect and understanding for the great qualities other people can bring to solving a particular innovation needed. Back to the workplace – this same philosophy applied to the workplace will create a rich and highly productive diversity of people who are in some dimensions always better than others in a diverse group.
    • Pay unfairly: in some of my teachings and writings, I have noted that human relations policies that call for treating everyone the same are just pure foolishness. The truth is, not everyone is the same. Study after study has shown that on the team about 10% of people are top performers – they can be producing 50% or higher of the actual results. So, since everyone is on the same team should they be paid the same? Not only no, but heck no. Financial compensation policies need to be constructed to reward the really top performers at dramatically higher rates than the average performer.
    • Give your work meaning: studies by Nielsen and people in the personal strengths business consistently show that there is a small group of people who are the top performers – maybe about 20%. What separates these people from the large group who see a job only as a paycheck and another smaller group that are actively disengaged and even inclined to sabotage is a level of meaning and purpose they see and what they’re doing. We know that when people have a very high sense of purpose like a noble purpose, that they are highly productive, innovative, and creative. The challenge then becomes instilling and inspiring meaning to the largest group of people who only see a job as a paycheck. To be clear, achieving this is not easy – there are no magic wands. Nonetheless, there are some proven ways of helping existing employees find important meaning and what they’re doing and hiring new people who very much want to have positive and even inspiring meeting and what they do every day.
  • Ongoing close.
    • What you can do today with this information.
      • First, I’ve only touched on some highlights from the subject. If you are interested a good book to read is Work Rules.
      • Second, while the four elements I shared in this podcast are innovative, the greater importance is that a workplace and culture that embraces these and other elements creates a very innovative culture. When you trust each other, when you feel you work has very positive purpose, and when you have the opportunity to work with people who are even more talented than you in some respects, it is a workplace and culture where quantum idea generation can be an everyday event. I have noted in some earlier podcasts about the extreme importance that company culture has relative to innovation. I’ve shared the company culture truly defines what a company will do and will not do, which essentially defines the parameters of their box in such a way that out-of-the-box thinking becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible. Thus, a culture that embraces these four points and others is well on its way to being highly productive, highly innovative, an exceptionally successful in the marketplace.
    • If you would like to see the key written points from this podcast, you can find them in my blog – i2ge.com/blog.
    • If you would like to contact me, please email me at richard@i2ge.com.
    • If you would like to create far more robust innovation capabilities within your business, I have a complete portfolio of training programs that we tailor to your unique needs. If you would like to learn more, go to the Innovate2Grow Experts website – i2Ge.com and click on DIY Innovation Training.
    • One of my six books is Proven Practical Innovation That Delivers Results. This very low-cost book is available at Amazon in paperback and has a Kindle book. Is truly packed with lots of practical help.
    • Importantly, if you found this podcast helpful, please consider helping us with a five-star rating for these podcast. Thank you in advance for your support.
  • A preview of some future podcasts.
    • Upcoming podcast focus on specific case studies and powerful innovation insights that are relevant to almost any business and business need.
    • The next podcast attempts to answer the intriguing question – can start up like operations survive and thrive within much larger corporations like General Electric and MasterCard. Can the learnings from these larger corporations help your innovation programs to be more successful?
  • Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to reconnecting with you soon. Please have a great day.

 

P26 Innovation’s Greatest Company Turnarounds Part Two.

• “Welcome to the Proven, Practical, Profitable Innovation podcast! I am Richard and I thank you very much for taking time out of your busy day to listen to this podcast.
• My goal is to make sure you get a high return on your time investment listening to this podcast. I want you to immediately be able to use the information in this podcast to help you sell more and make more.
• Please be sure to listen to the end of this podcast where I give you an exciting preview of future podcasts.
• Information in this podcast focuses on some of the biggest company turnarounds in recent history and the role that innovation played in those turnarounds. In part one you’ll learn the dramatic stories of Marvel and Nintendo. As you will see, innovation can come in many forms – new products, new business model, new target customers, and new mediums to name a few.
• If after listening to this podcast you feel a need for more help, please contact me directly—my email is richard@i2ge.com. You can also go to my website—i2ge.com– where you can explore many innovation topics, especially check out the DIY Innovation Training on the menu bar. We customize all the training programs to our clients’ unique needs and circumstances.
• Here are some thoughts on the major company turnarounds and the role that innovation played in these turnarounds.
  • • Marvel’s story has some elements that are similar to the Pabst blue ribbon beer story in the previous podcast. Namely, it was a very big and popular business that declined dramatically before being rejuvenated through dramatic moves.
    • In case you’re not aware, Marvel is where Spiderman, Capt. America and other action hero characters originated and prospered. They originally prospered as comic book heroes. Comic books in the mid-1900s were very popular and a great business to be in. Unfortunately for Marvel, by the mid-1990s the comic book business crashed. Marvel went broke and no superheroes could stave off bankruptcy.
    • In July 1999 Marvel came out of bankruptcy but was a skeleton of its former self. In 2000, it found itself with only $3 million in the bank – barely enough to cover their needs, only 250 employees and a stock price of $.96 per share. The new CEO had a three-year turnaround plan that he said would be completed by 2002.
    • One of the first steps was to change the business model and to rely more on licensing of their superhero properties. This immediately improved their finances. They moved into video games, which quickly became their second-largest merchandise contributor after toys. They even grew their comic book market share from 25% in 1999 to about 50% today.
    • When the first part of the turnaround was completed in 2002, they made a number of other important and eventually very successful decisions. They expanded internationally. They produced animated television shows as a way of keeping their superheroes available to their audience every week. Lastly they launched their own in-house movie studio in 2005. Their first films were Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk.
    • By 2009, they had unquestionably hot properties and dramatic success. This caught the eye of Disney who purchased them for $4.3 billion late in 2009.
    • Marvel is the story of a company that was on life support and barely worth anything to becoming one of the hottest movie companies that commanded a valuation over $4 billion.
    • There is a theme that is developing in many of these business turnaround stories. It takes bold, dramatic changes to turn a company around. As this story illustrates, it often requires dramatic changes in multiple dimensions. In the case are Marvel, innovation was brought to the business model – licensing and entering entirely new businesses – television and movies. Again, recalling the importance of dramatic differences in the science of persuasion, when you create the kind of dramatic differences that Marvel did – movies, video games, international presence – you have the potential power to dramatically increase your chances for success. In Marvel’s case they fully realized the power of this potential.
  • Nintendo
    • Nintendo is another turnaround story about a company that was hot only to fall on hard times when major competitors introduced products that were dramatically better than theirs.
    • The company dominated the videogame business in the 1980s and 1990s. Will anyone ever forget ubiquitous Game Boy?
    • Then Sony and Microsoft launched the PS2 and Xbox. With both hardware and software these two companies leapt ahead of Nintendo.
    • Nintendo fell on hard times, but responded rather quickly with the innovative Wii. This innovative hardware and software enabled a new level of personal interactivity that its competitors initially did not have. It subsequently expanded with products like Wii U, Nintendo 3DS XL and 2DS. The 3DS XL had innovative super stable 3-D plus a face tracking feature that uses the system’s inner cameras to adjust images based on the viewing angle.
    • Again, these were all significant innovations that on certain key dimensions made them dramatically better than their competition. We again see the importance of being dramatically better if you want to turn a business around.
    • This is not been an absolutely smooth and flawless turnaround. Nintendo like all of its competitors knows that software drives hardware sales in this business. There have been times when Nintendo do not have fully competitive software programs soon enough.
    • Having said that, they now pretty much have their act together and the financial results show it. As I write this, first half results of 2014 show that total hardware sales are up 60%. Total software sales are up 135% versus previous year. By any measure, these are dramatic improvements.
    • When it comes to innovation, there are multiple lessons to be learned here. First, Nintendo got into trouble because they didn’t have a strong ongoing innovation program even though they knew they had potential major competitors like Sony and Microsoft. In rapidly changing businesses like this, an exceptionally strong internal innovation program is critical to long-term success. Second, when their innovative products were introduced, they were dramatically better on some important dimensions. If there’s a drum that I’m beating in this series it is that dramatic differences are needed to turn a business around and/or to get competitive customers to switch to your product. We know from the science of persuasion that when you do this you can dramatically increase your chances for success.
  • Ongoing close.
    • In these two case studies we’ve seen some strong examples of bold, dramatic innovation making a big difference. Marvel started their rebound by licensing their products to reduce capital costs and increase cash flow. They found powerful ways to extend their superhero properties from one medium –, which printed on paper – to another powerful medium – action hero movies. With Nintendo we see the importance of having an ongoing innovation program so that major moves by competitors don’t cause major business distress. When it does happen, the company needs to realize that a me to product response is doomed to failure. Unique products that are dramatically better on at least some very important dimensions greatly increase your chances for success – just as the science of persuasion tells us.
    • If you would like to see the key written points from this podcast, you can find them in my blog – i2ge.com/blog.
    • If you would like to contact me, please email me at richard@i2ge.com.
    • If you would like to create far more robust innovation capabilities within your business, I have a complete portfolio of training programs that we tailor to your unique needs. If you would like to learn more, go to the Innovate2Grow Experts website – i2Ge.com and click on DIY Innovation Training.
    • One of my six books is Proven Practical Innovation That Delivers Results. This very low-cost book is available at Amazon in paperback and has a Kindle book. Is truly packed with lots of practical help.
    • Importantly, if you found this podcast helpful, please consider helping us with a five-star rating for these podcast. Thank you in advance for your support.
    • A preview of some future podcast.
    • There is been a tremendous amount in the news recently about innovation. There are some great things going on that I believe can help almost everyone is listening to sell more and make more. So the next series a podcast will focus on some of this late breaking and very interesting news.
    • The immediate next podcast focuses on innovation that Google is bringing to the workplace. Yes what they’re doing is important for the workplace, but as you will see it is far, far more important for its contribution to creating a highly productive and highly innovative working environment and company culture. I hope you will join us for this provocative exploration of what one of our most innovative companies is doing today.
    • Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to reconnecting with you soon. Please have a great day.

 

P25 Innovation’s Greatest Company Turnarounds Part One.

• “Welcome to the Proven, Practical, Profitable Innovation podcast! I am Richard and I thank you very much for taking time out of your busy day to listen to this podcast.
• My goal is to make sure you get a high return on your time investment listening to this podcast. I want you to immediately be able to use the information in this podcast to help you sell more and make more.
• Please be sure to listen to the end of this podcast where I give you an exciting preview of future podcasts.
• Information in this podcast focuses on some of the biggest company turnarounds in recent history and the role that innovation played in those turnarounds. In part one you’ll learn the dramatic stories of Netflix, Disney animation and Pabst blue ribbon beer. As you will see, innovation can come in many forms – new products, new business model, new target customers, and new mediums to name a few.
• If after listening to this podcast you feel a need for more help, please contact me directly—my email is richard@i2ge.com. You can also go to my website—i2ge.com– where you can explore many innovation topics, especially check out the DIY Innovation Training on the menu bar. We customize all the training programs to our clients’ unique needs and circumstances.
• Here are some thoughts on the major company turnarounds and the role that innovation played in these turnarounds.
  • • Today Netflix seems to be an unqualified success. They are growing subscribers worldwide. Some recent research suggests that as much as 40% of the audience that the major networks have lost recently traces to people moving to Netflix.
    • That is not always been the case. When they started they were a distant second to blockbuster video. Blockbuster had thousands of retail stores all around the country, especially near the suburbs and families. Netflix was at a serious disadvantage since its primary form of distribution was the mail which had a serious time delay versus getting in your car and driving down to your local Blockbuster. Despite this, Netflix experience growth in its DVD by mail business model.
    • But as we know, the media world changes rapidly. Early on Netflix was far more nimble than blockbuster in realizing the world would eventually moved to streaming media content online. In fact, Blockbuster was so slow to react to an obvious trend that they are now essentially out of business.
    • But all has not been roses for Netflix. Netflix had serious challenges getting movie studios and television networks to allow them to show their programming. This was putting Netflix in a serious and precarious business situation – Accounts Payable climbed 218% in one year to $435 million.
    • Netflix also knew that competition like Hulu and Amazon were also showing much of the same content. Netflix needed a competitive advantage.
    • Netflix innovated its business model when they decided to get into the studio business of creating great content – often referred to as backward business integration.
    • Netflix now has award-winning original content like House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, and many others. Netflix has added millions of new subscribers, cut the number of subscribers who quit, and seen its stock price hit new highs.
    • You’ll recall in the science of persuasion podcasts, we talked about how much a dramatic difference versus your competition can dramatically increase your chances for success. This is a perfect example – you could only get the great programming of House of Cards and Orange is the New Black on Netflix.
    • The major innovation – create differentiation with proprietary, award-winning original content. In doing this, Netflix is known for giving studios and writers great artistic freedom which seems to be paying off in great programming.
    • In the critical business facts confirm Netflix’s turnaround. Subscribers have grown from 33,000,000 to 57.4 million. Revenue increased from $3.6 billion to $5.5 billion and not surprisingly the stock prices up almost 400%.
    • A quick cautionary note – Netflix’s history has been a bit of a roller coaster. They need to stay observant and nimble to remain relevant in what is still a rapidly changing media world. They’ve taken a potentially big step forward and staying relevant and vibrant by acquiring the right to air five new Marvel series.
  • Disney animation.
    • For decades Disney animation was synonymous with animation. If there was an animation hit like Cinderella all the way up to the Lion King, it had to come from Disney.
    • Unfortunately for Disney they had duds like Hercules and Fantasia 2000, which seriously questioned their animation abilities. These failures in the early 2000s resulted in a major downsizing. Despite numerous leaders and efforts, the inspiration of Walt Disney the founder did not revitalize this long-term stellar capability.
    • Most companies when faced with a situation like this let their pride and arrogance blind them to the best way to move forward. And if there was ever a high potential for a high level of pride and arrogance it was Disney animation – for so long they were the one and only.
    • Fortunately for Disney they demonstrated out-of-the-box thinking. In 2006 they acquired Pixar and the creative talents of John Lasseter. The industry had moved beyond artist doing drawings to high-end technology driving animation. Instead of trying to internally develop this capability, Disney leadership made the decision to acquire the proven high-end technology and creativity of Pixar.
    • In a major business, especially a creative business, there has probably never been a bigger turn around. Today the studio has roared back with major successes like Tangled and the all time dominating animation success – Frozen.
    • There are a couple of important innovation lessons here. First, pride and arrogance are often major enemies of innovation. Disney is one of the few companies that demonstrated the ability to swallow their pride and take bold action. Second, when they made the decision to acquire, they acquired the very best technology and creative talent with Pixar. Many companies would try to acquire all of this on the cheap, but not Disney. The transformation and rejuvenation of this important Disney business is one of the most impressive turnarounds in recent business history.
    • Again, this is an example of the power of a dramatic difference that we talked about in the science of persuasion podcasts. Disney made a bold and dramatic improvement that greatly enhanced their success.
  • Pabst Blue Ribbon.
    • Yes, this is a beer brand, and may be one you’re not familiar with because it’s peak sales were decades ago. In the United States with mega brands like Budweiser, Miller, and Coors, Pabst Blue Ribbon experienced long-term declines from its peak when 8-track cassettes were popular.
    • The lessons of innovation are that if you want to turn around a business like this you need to question everything that you’re doing and be willing to do the opposite of what has been right for the brand for decades. Most brands are not capable of this dramatic, out-of-the-box thinking.
    • Pabst started by doing research. In the very few places they still had a strong business, they discovered a startling fact – young people were driving their business success. These are people that never knew the brand when it was even a strong fourth-place brand. What they discovered were young people liked it because it was the anti-Budweiser – no-frills, lack of cheesy advertising and affordable.
    • When the business bottomed out in 2001, the company hired a 27-year-old CEO. The new leadership went all in on building a younger consumer base. They sponsored cool events and maintained the integrity of the image their younger customers loved.
    • The results are impressive – since 2001 national sales have grown by 165%.
    • There are a couple of important insights and lessons that drove innovation in this case. First, understand who your biggest and most enthusiastic group of consumers is. Then learn why they are so enthusiastic. Let your consumers teach you and lead the way to a better place. Second, when you’ve confirmed your insights and understandings, go all in. Major innovation requires major effort to be successful. You can’t tiptoe to success – you need to charge forward with everything you’ve got. Put another way, like Pabst, you need to go all in.
  • Ongoing close.
    • What you can do today with this information. First, like Netflix recognize the power of being the only one who provides benefits that customers want—they provided unique and highly desirable content like House of Card. Second, Disney did not let their pride get in the way of saying the old ways are no longer working and we need to take bold, out of the box action. Third, Pabst learned startling information from its most enthusiastic customers. With that information that went all in to produce dramatic sales increases.
    • If you would like to see the key written points from this podcast, you can find them in my blog – i2ge.com/blog.
    • If you would like to contact me, please email me at richard@i2ge.com.
    • If you would like to create far more robust innovation capabilities within your business, I have a complete portfolio of training programs that we tailor to your unique needs. If you would like to learn more, go to the Innovate2Grow Experts website – i2Ge.com and click on DIY Innovation Training.
    • One of my six books is Proven Practical Innovation That Delivers Results. This very low-cost book is available at Amazon in paperback and has a Kindle book. Is truly packed with lots of practical help.
    • Importantly, if you found this podcast helpful, please consider helping us with a five-star rating for these podcast. Thank you in advance for your support.
    • PAUSE
  • A preview of some future podcast.
    • Upcoming podcast focus on specific case studies with broadly relevant innovation insights.
    • The next podcast shares part two of some of the biggest business comebacks of the last five years and the major role that innovation played in those turnarounds. As usual, the lessons from these turnarounds can help you immediately to either turn your business around or take proactive action so that you will not be faced with the need of a turnaround.
    • PAUSE
    • Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to reconnecting with you soon. Please have a great day.

 

P24 Creativity and the Power of Questions and Curiosity.

• “Welcome to the Proven, Practical, Profitable Innovation podcast! I am Richard and I thank you very much for taking time out of your busy day to listen to this podcast.
• My goal is to make sure you get a high return on your time investment listening to this podcast. I want you to immediately be able to use the information in this podcast to help you sell more and make more.
• Please be sure to listen to the end of this podcast where I give you an exciting preview of future podcasts.
• Creativity always seems to have a bit of mystery about. In this podcast, we explore the power of questions and sense of curiosity to drive award-winning creativity. We’ll take a peek into what has made Brian Grazer so successful as a television and movie producer.
• If after listening to this podcast you feel a need for more help, please contact me directly—my email is richard@i2ge.com. You can also go to my website—i2ge.com– where you can explore many innovation topics, especially check out the DIY Innovation Training on the menu bar. We customize all the training programs to our clients’ unique needs and circumstances.
• Let’s get to know Brian Grazer better.
  • • Born in 1951, Brian knew it an early age that visual media was where he wanted to focus his many talents. He graduated from the University of Southern California School of Cinema – Television in 1974. In the early 1980s, he formed a highly successful business and creative partnership with Ron Howard – a star in the Andy Griffith Show for eight years and the sitcom Happy Days for six years as Richie Cunningham. In 2007, Time magazine named Brian one of their 100 most influential people in the world.
    • Their first hit was a movie called Splash that in 1984 earned them an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay. Other well-known hits include Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind (won the Academy award for best picture in 2001), and the da Vinci code in 2006 to name just a few.
  • What drives his creativity?
    • Brian makes it very clear what drives his creative success in the title of his book – A Curious Mind.
    • Here is an extended quote from the book’s early pages.

 

“By the time I was a young man, curiosity was part of the way I approached the world every day.”

My kind of curiosity is a little wide-eyed, and sometimes a little mischievous. Many of the best things that have happened in my life are the result of curiosity. And curiosity has occasionally gotten me into trouble.”

But even when curiosity has gotten me in trouble, it has been interesting trouble.

Curiosity has never let me down. I am never sorry I asked the next question. On the contrary, curiosity has swung wide many doors of opportunity for me. I’ve met amazing people, made great movies, made great friends, had some completely unexpected adventures, even fallen in love – because I’m not the least bit embarrassed to ask questions.”

 

• A sense of curiosity is absolutely essential to successful innovation. From the podcast on quantum idea generation, we learned strong forces like diversity and stimulus engage your curious mind.
• While most of the podcast so far has focused on the first step in the innovation process – generating high potential new ideas, every step of the innovation process requires a curious and questioning mind if ideas are to be translated into marketplace successes.
• Brian does this by asking questions at every stage of the innovation and development process. Here in his own words is how he illustrates the kinds of questions that make a big difference: “Making the case means answering the big questions. Why this project? Why now? Why with this group of talent? Why with this investment of money? Who is the audience? How will we capture the audience, that customer? And the biggest question of all: what’s the story? What’s this movie about? Or, if you’re not in the entertainment business, what’s the story of this product? What’s this product about?”
• He goes on to say, “Sometimes we need to ask questions that are even more open. What are you focused on? Why are you focused on that? What are you worried about? What’s your plan?
• For Brian curiosity and questions generate the information necessary to make critical decisions at each step of the creative process.
• His curiosity and questions also underscore the importance of diversity in the creative process – every step of the creative and creative development process. By asking questions of many people, you tap into a diverse stream of thinking and solutions to guide decision-making.
• I am a very big believer that the best thinking of any one person can absolutely be made better by the best thinking of many people.

• Ongoing close.
  • What you can do today with this information.
    • First, become a curious person if you’re not already one. Many people think of themselves as experts in something. Unfortunately, this causes what I call the “curse of the expert.” Since they think they already know it all, they are not curious – they are not inclined to ask questions. This curse makes out-of-the-box thinking almost impossible. Experts think they know the hard and fast dimensions of the box and anything outside of the box is not worthy of consideration. If you think you’re an expert, you are cursed. Recognize that you’re not an expert – you really are not – and learn to become curious and satisfy your curiosity with questions.
    • Second, at every stage of the innovation process be far more a receiver of information through answers to your questions than a transmitter of information. Remember in quantum idea generation, the great power that diversity brings to the creative process. You already know what you know. Now find out what other people know by being curious and asking questions.
  • If you would like to see the key written points from this podcast, you can find them in my blog – i2ge.com/blog.
  • If you found this podcast helpful – and I hope you have – please consider giving us a five-star rating. It helps the podcast to become more visible to others and let them know that there is proven and practical help in this podcast that enables them to sell more and make more.
  • If you would like to contact me, please email me at richard@i2ge.com.
  • If you would like to create far more robust innovation capabilities within your business, I have a complete portfolio of training programs that we tailor to your unique needs. If you would like to learn more, go to the Innovate2Grow Experts website – i2Ge.com and click on DIY Innovation Training.
  • One of my six books is Proven Practical Innovation That Delivers Results. This very low-cost book is available at Amazon in paperback and has a Kindle book. Is truly packed with lots of practical help.
  • Importantly, if you found this podcast helpful, please consider helping us with a five-star rating for these podcast. Thank you in advance for your support.
  • PAUSE
• A preview of some future podcasts.
  • Upcoming podcast focus on specific case studies with broadly relevant innovation insights.
  • The next podcast shares part one of some of the biggest business comebacks of the last five years and the major role that innovation played in those turnarounds. As usual, the lessons from these turnarounds can help you immediately to either turn your business around or take proactive action so that you will not be faced with the need of a turnaround.
  • PAUSE
• Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to reconnecting with you soon. Please have a great day.

P23 Innovation Lessons That Make You More Successful.

• “Welcome to the Proven, Practical, Profitable Innovation podcast! I am Richard and I thank you very much for taking time out of your busy day to listen to this podcast.
• My goal is to make sure you get a high return on your time investment listening to this podcast. I want you to immediately be able to use the information in this podcast to help you sell more and make more.
• Please be sure to listen to the end of this podcast where I give you an exciting preview of future podcasts.
• If after listening to this podcast you feel a need for more help, please contact me directly—my email is richard@i2ge.com. You can also go to my website—i2ge.com– where you can explore many innovation topics, especially check out the DIY Innovation Training on the menu bar. We customize all the training programs to our clients’ unique needs and circumstances.
• Information in this podcast focuses on the major innovation lessons for 2015 there were in a Fast Company magazine article on innovation. I add my own perspective to these lessons to make sure that they are practical and help you sell more and make more.
• Here are some thoughts on the major lessons and insights in the Fast Company article.
  • Inspiration needs execution.
    • Often when people think of innovation they think of the fun of generating new ideas. Make no mistake about it, generating new, big and potentially successful ideas is a tremendous amount of fun.
    • As best I know, no potentially big idea ever written just on a Post-it or a flipchart ever achieved even one dollar in Sales.
    • In the early podcasts on quantum idea generation, the focus is just on generating high potential for success ideas. It is true that if you don’t have big ideas in the beginning and you have nothing worth executing.
    • Having said that, your innovation process needs to have a comprehensive plan from idea generation to marketplace success. Do not think that you can generate high potential ideas and then figure out the rest. You need a comprehensive plan of the steps necessary to create ideas that deliver bottom-line results.
    • Importantly, the innovation process requires many skill sets. In quantum idea generation, you saw the very well-developed and intricate skills required to develop many high potential ideas. The skills to then develop and execute those ideas are very different skills that need the same level of excellence as you had in quantum idea generation if your ideas are to be nourished and flourish.
    • Net, no matter whether you’re using innovation to invent new products or new human relations policies or new manufacturing processes, you need a plan that starts with ideas and ends with successful implementation.
  • Tomorrow is too slow.
    • While it may sound like a cliché, it is one of those clichés that is very, very true – we live in a rapidly changing world.
    • When I work with large national and multinational corporations, I am often surprised at the lack of or very low level of urgency they bring to innovation. I know this condition well having worked in such companies as Procter & Gamble and Gallo. Fortunately I’ve also been an executive coach with entrepreneurs and I am an entrepreneur. What you learn from this experience is time is money and if you don’t have a high sense of urgency you can be run over by your competition in a flash.
    • You will notice that my advice is to focus on urgency, but I’m not advising shortcutting the fundamentals necessary to translate an idea into a marketplace success. I have seen too many people who want to leap from idea to shipping a new product or offering a new service without doing the critical fundamentals in between those two steps.
    • Without doing those fundamentals, you can skip over critical customer feedback at an early stage and produce shoddy quality and wake up to discover that your economic model does not produce profitability.
    • Net, have a sense of urgency to do the right thing the right way. Having a sense of urgency means that sometimes the right thing to do is to temporarily slow down before re-accelerating. Calm, carefully considered thinking coupled with urgency avoids frantic, ill-conceived thinking.
  • Innovative cultures are rewarding.
    • There are many, many studies over decades showing that company culture determines over 95% of a company’s successes and failures.
    • What is company culture? It is the values and beliefs that determine behaviors at all levels of the company. It is often very difficult to determine the specifics of company culture. Company culture is like the computer code that makes a computer operating system work. You cannot see the computer code in the program, but it is determining everything that program will do and not do.
    • If you’re looking at your own company culture, take a peek back at your historical results. If you succeeded with innovation, what is it about the company that created that success? Conversely, if you failed, why? Especially with failure, do not blame a competitor or some external factor. What is it about your company that made it very difficult to succeed?
    • This is a huge topic that can only be touched on in our time together today. Suffice it to say that the tremendous power of company culture to determine success and/or failure means that it deserves your utmost attention when it comes to innovation of any kind.
  • Disruption can be collaborative.
    • Disruptive innovation brings entirely new customer benefits to existing types of products and/or produces entirely new kinds of products. Think of the iPad and Keurig.
    • Doug Hall of Eureka Ranch tells interesting stories about companies that came to Eureka Ranch, developed truly disruptive ideas, and returned to their company headquarters. When they shared their disruptive innovation ideas with unbridled enthusiasm, many departments like manufacturing and supply chain often reacted with shock and disbelief. This was the early sign that moving from the idea stage to the other stages necessary to develop an idea was going to be a long, hard road.
    • In this example, it was often marketing going off-site to Eureka Ranch and creating the ideas. Other functions often felt excluded and unimportant.
    • Avoiding this all too common problem is fairly easily addressed. If you remember the earlier podcast on quantum idea generation, one of the four factors was diversity. In our innovation consulting, we insist in bringing internal diversity into the idea generating process. While this always helps to produce more and bigger ideas, it also is tremendously helpful when you then move to the next stage of starting to develop the ideas for possible marketplace introduction. Everyone has their fingerprints on the ideas, which produces a sense of understanding and ownership. To quote a current MasterCard advertisement, this is priceless.
  • Design is a strategic weapon.
    • Prior to the new products that Apple introduced starting in the early 2000’s, the exceptional value of design was not fully appreciated. Yes, you wanted a new product to look good, but the focus was on functionality and value.
    • Prior to the iPad there were tablet like products. I know you may think the iPad was the first one ever, but it wasn’t. You were unaware of them probably because they did not fully appreciate design is a strategic weapon.
    • Design is not just the physical look of something. To be clear, this is important since it’s often the first thing the eye sees.
    • Design is also functionality. In the iPad design is things like finger scrolling and tapping on application to open it. It’s fun and easy. You did not need a 232 page technical manual to learn how to operate an iPad.
    • The lesson is to always make sure design – especially ease-of-use – is an important part of your innovative thinking. It does not matter whether it’s a new product, a new policy, or a new procedure. Again, the kiss principle is alive and well – keep it simple stupid.
  • Ongoing close.
    • What you can do today with this information. First, make sure you have a complete innovation program starting with idea generation leading to execution and marketplace introduction. Second, make sure that you have a sense of urgency with your innovation program that does not shortcut critical fundamentals that can make the difference between success and failure. Third, never, never forget the power of company culture to determine success and failure. Fourth, if your innovation needs include disruptive innovations that make major changes the current products or produce entirely new kinds of products, create a diverse team so that collaboration begins on day one. Fifth, always look for opportunities for exquisite design – not to win design awards but to win the hearts and minds of your customers.

 

 

• If you found this podcast helpful – and I hope you have – please consider giving us a five-star rating. It helps the podcast to become more visible to others and let them know that there is proven and practical help in this podcast that enables them to sell more and make more.
• If you would like to see the key written points from this podcast, you can find them in my blog – i2ge.com/blog.
• If you would like to contact me, please email me at richard@i2ge.com.
• If you would like to create far more robust innovation capabilities within your business, I have a complete portfolio of training programs that we tailor to your unique needs. If you would like to learn more, go to the Innovate2Grow Experts website – i2Ge.com and click on DIY Innovation Training.
• One of my six books is Proven Practical Innovation That Delivers Results. This very low-cost book is available at Amazon in paperback and has a Kindle book. Is truly packed with lots of practical help.
• Importantly, if you found this podcast helpful, please consider helping us with a five-star rating for these podcast. Thank you in advance for your support.
• PAUSE

• A preview of some future podcastS.
  • Upcoming podcast focus on specific case studies with broadly relevant innovation insights.
  • The next podcast learns about innovation and creativity from one of Hollywood’s most creative and successful minds. We will learn that what makes him successful is something that you can start doing immediately after you listen to the podcast. In many ways this is a case study of successful innovation and creativity utilizing an exceptional best practice. You will not want to miss this
  • PAUSE
• Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to reconnecting with you soon. Please have a great day.

 

P22 Powerful Innovation Strategy Part Two

• “Welcome to the Proven, Practical, Profitable Innovation podcast! I am Richard and I thank you very much for taking time out of your busy day to listen to this podcast.
• In the previous podcast I shared with you part one of some of the most helpful thinking I’ve ever experienced regarding innovation strategy. This can really make a difference in your business. Today we continue with part two where you learn about the various types of innovation and what types work best with various innovation needs.
• Please be sure to listen to the end of this podcast where I give you an exciting preview of future podcasts.
• If after listening to this podcast you feel a need for more help, please contact me directly—my email is richard@i2ge.com. You can also go to my website—i2ge.com– where you can explore many innovation topics, especially check out the DIY Innovation Training on the menu bar. We customize all the training programs to our clients’ unique needs and circumstances.
• The thinking on innovation strategy shared in this podcast is taken from a June 2015 article in the Harvard Business Review. In part one covered in the previous podcast, I covered such topics as why innovation strategy is so important and should be linked with an overall business strategy, different ways innovation can create value advantages, and the need to think of innovation strategy as a total system.
• So let’s dive into part two.
• Let’s start with the recognition that there are different types of innovation. A key question a business needs to answer is what types will best help us create value competitive advantages and what kinds of resources do those types require. As discussed in the previous podcast, technology has long been the darling of innovation. As the last podcast pointed out, technology alone can have a difficult time building and sustaining meaningful competitive advantages.
• Business model innovation is often an underappreciated form of innovation. Very simply, business model innovation typically involves innovative ways of pricing and making money for a combination of products and services. In a future podcast, I will do a deeper dive into this important topic. I believe this form of innovation has significant potential for many companies and can often be achieved with fewer resources than many technology and scientific innovations require.
• The author of the article puts forth what he calls “the innovation landscape map.” In this map there are four quadrants and four types of innovation within the quadrants being defined by elements of the business model and technical competencies. Let’s take a closer look at each of the four types of innovation on the map.
• What the author calls “routine innovation” utilizes existing technical competencies working within the current business model. This is typically evolutionary product improvement to an existing product. It is often a very profitable form of innovation. Think of all the improvements Intel has made to its computer chips, the unending new Microsoft Windows versions, and the evolution of the iPhone and other Apple products. In the consumer products world, I’m accustomed to referring to these as line extensions and product improvements. Examples also include the next generation of the F-150 Ford pickup and new forms of credit card offers.
• The next form of innovation he calls “disruptive innovation” which is a term first used by Clayton Christiansen another Harvard professor. In this form of innovation, there is an innovative business model but there is not necessarily an associated technological breakthrough. The best example of this is Google’s android operating system. While companies like Apple and Microsoft charge for their operating systems, Google made the android operating system available for free – definitely an innovative business model! Of note, at this writing the android operating system is the most prevalent in the mobile device world, suggesting this is a successful innovation for Google, even if it is for free. Other examples include open source software, which often can be free and are almost always customizable – two dimensions that the traditional software suppliers find frightening.
• The third type of innovation is called “radical innovation” and in many ways is the opposite of disruptive innovation. The focus here is on technological innovation. Think of new sciences that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s like genetic engineering and biotechnology. These gradually became the backbone of new drug development technologies. These new drugs typically worked well within the existing business models of the drug companies. Another example is fiber-optic cable that dramatically changes the delivery of media and software capabilities.
• The fourth type of innovation is “architectural innovation” which requires both a new business model and technological capabilities. Think of how this type of innovation essentially put companies like Kodak and Polaroid out of business. The new technological capabilities were delivered by new cameras and mobile devices that easily interacted with computers which could print high quality pictures. The Kodak and Polaroid business models depended upon film and printing paper sales to make money. They found the former to become obsolete and paper sales to be far less important – images could be easily stored and presented on a computer or mobile device. Another example is how an innovation like craigslist fundamentally changed the delivery of information traditionally only available in newspaper classified ads. It was free to place most ads—an innovative business model. The ads were easily accessible on line and searchable. This innovation has put great pressure on newspapers with many major names drastically cutting back or going into bankruptcy.
• Okay, there are four types of innovation. How do you determine which type or types of innovation are right for you? If types, what is the appropriate mix between these various types of innovation?
• As the author appropriately points out, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Many factors need to be taken into consideration. Here are a few of those factors.
  • What is the rate of technological change in your business? If the rate of change is relatively slow then types of innovation that do not rely upon major technological improvements may be right for you – like disruptive and routine innovation.
  • What is the competitive intensity in your business? If your business is very competitive with a constant flow of innovative new products, you have some tough choices. You can be a fast follower with routine innovations but this can be very risky. You are likely to find a competitor investing in radical and/or architectural innovation that’s intended to leapfrog your products. If these types of innovations are successful, your competitor’s success could mean major losses for you.
  • What is the rate of growth in the business that you are in? If you are in a rapidly growing business, you may be able to afford radical and architectural innovation, which can be more costly. Even if you only maintain share in a rapidly growing category, there can be significant sales and profit growth.
  • How well are your customers needs currently being met? Answering this question typically requires high-quality research of both your products and those of your competitors. You can also look worldwide for products similar to yours to see if innovations in other parts of the world are fueling greater category growth because products are better meeting customer needs. In mature categories, needs are often well met, but you need to be careful. Today’s mature category can become a vibrant and explosive growth category with an innovation. Just think of what Starbucks did to the coffee category – prior to their introduction Folgers and Maxwell House coffees had very flat sales.
• I will briefly address another important consideration brought up by the author of this article. Many companies prefer using a structured process that is variously called stage gate or phase gate. In this process development go and no go decisions for an innovative product are made at various stages of development. For example, for a product to become a formal project it may first have to achieve a certain score in customer research. In the next step, to go forward it could have to achieve a certain estimated sales volume for year one, according to research and economic models. In the next step, it may have to achieve certain cost targets that will support profitable pricing. If it fails to meet specific standards at a particular step, the product innovation will likely die. Critics say that this process stifles creativity and there needs to be a more open and experimental process to ensure creativity is alive at each step. In a future podcast I will spend more time on this topic, but suffice it to say that there is no simple answer to which process would be right for your business.
• Lastly the author points out the four essential tasks required to develop and implement an innovation strategy.
  • First, “how are you expecting innovation to create value for customers and for your company?” This is not an easy question. Senior leaders need to be involved every step of the way.
  • Second, again from a senior leader perspective, decisions need to be made about how resources will be allocated for different kinds of innovation. Funds are always limited. Choices are always tough. But choices need to be made.
  • Third, senior leaders need to manage the trade-offs and battles that can happen between functional – like marketing and manufacturing – leaders.
  • Fourth, like with business strategy, innovation strategy needs to be dynamic. If your innovation strategy is working perfectly, then change at the moment may not be required. Unfortunately, this is seldom the case. We live in a rapidly changing world of technologies, regulations, competitors, business models, and many other elements. Standing still is often a recipe for getting run over.
• What you can do today with this information. The major point from these two podcasts is that if you count on innovation to grow your business, you must have – not nice to have – an innovation strategy.
• Here is a suggested to do list for your business coming out of today’s podcast.
  • First, evaluate the various types of innovation. Given the considerations that are important and relevant to your business, which type or types of innovation are most appropriate for your business?
  • Second, is a structured or a more unstructured process appropriate to your business and its culture? And if it is structured, which is a choice of many companies, what are the appropriate steps and decision-making points that are right for your business?
  • Third, considering the four essential tasks required to develop an innovation strategy, how do you answer the key questions? How can you find the answers – especially answers that you can trust? What is the senior leadership group that’s appropriate to develop the innovation strategy in conjunction with the overall business strategy?
  • None of these are easy steps. Having said that, when you go through this process your innovation program will be built on a far stronger foundation. Done right, you should expect a higher success rate then the average of 25% today. Remembering the principles from Merwyn Technology in an earlier podcast, you also know what’s required to double your chances for long-term success.
• If you would like to see the key written points from this podcast, you can find them in my blog – i2ge.com/blog.
• If you would like to contact me, please email me at richard@i2ge.com.
• If you would like to create far more robust innovation capabilities within your business, I have a complete portfolio of training programs that we tailor to your unique needs. If you would like to learn more, go to the Innovate2Grow Experts website – i2Ge.com and click on DIY Innovation Training.
• One of my six books is Proven Practical Innovation That Delivers Results. This very low-cost book is available at Amazon in paperback and has a Kindle book. Is truly packed with lots of practical help.
• A preview of the next podcast. WHAT?
  • The next podcast presents some powerful innovation lesion developed by Fast Company magazine. I will focus on the lesson with the greatest immediate help for your business.
• Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to reconnecting with you soon. Please have a great day.

 

P21 Powerful Innovation Strategy Part One

• “Welcome to the Proven, Practical, Profitable Innovation podcast! I am Richard and I thank you very much for taking time out of your busy day to listen to this podcast.
• Today I’m going to be sharing with you some of the most helpful thinking I’ve ever experienced regarding innovation strategy that can really make a difference in your business.
• Please be sure to listen to the end of this podcast where I give you an exciting preview of future podcasts.
• If after listening to this podcast you feel a need for more help, please contact me directly—my email is richard@i2ge.com. You can also go to my website—i2ge.com– where you can explore many innovation topics, especially check out the DIY Innovation Training on the menu bar. We customize all the training programs to our clients’ unique needs and circumstances.
• OK, let’s get into today’s very important topic—innovation strategy.
• While I have subscribed to the Harvard Business Review for many years, I have not frequently found information that is both proven and practical. Having spent six years in academia as a professor at Arizona State University—after spending 26 years at Procter & gamble and Gallo–, I developed a view that people in academia do not have a clear understanding of the real world. Most of their perspective, in my opinion, comes from being an observer of business rather than as an operator of a business. When you are a business operator, you have a very high appreciation for information that is both practical and proven. Having said that, in the June 2015 issue of the Harvard Business Review I found the best ever thinking and advice on how to develop a powerful innovation strategy. Since there is so much help in this extensive article by Gary Pisano, a Harvard professor, it will take more than one podcast to share all of the high quality insights that can help your business.
• So let’s dive in.
• In the opening headline of the article, the author makes the point that over the last several decades businesses have invested heavily in innovation – time and money – only to be frustrated with the results in many if not most cases. You recall from an earlier podcast where I shared that 75% of all new products and services fail within five years, with most failing within two years. For companies who think they’re pretty good at business, this can be pretty frustrating.
• For good or bad, companies often have an overall business strategy. I say for good or bad because business strategy efforts often produce a written document that frequently just gathers dust or is not kept current in a rapidly changing world or was not well developed and thought out in the first place.
• Putting aside for a moment how well developed an overall business strategy is, companies frequently fail to develop a companion innovation strategy even though innovation is probably critical to the success of the overall business strategy. To be clear, companies do think about how innovation can help, but it is often thinking about tactics and processes. For example, companies can get caught up in how to best reorganize R&D, utilizing open innovation/crowdsourcing innovation, and setting up alliances with other companies. This is not strategy.
• Successful innovation requires a system. How is a company going to go from identifying the most promising innovation paths to developing big ideas consistent with those paths to developing business concepts and designs to selecting the best projects to fund and bring to market. How are you going to do this? This question needs a well-thought-out answer or your risk of innovation failure becomes very and unacceptably high. Maybe most importantly, the right answer for your company is probably unique, which makes it very difficult to just copy what some other well respected innovation company is doing.
• A business strategy and innovation strategy need to go hand-in-hand. These strategies cannot be developed at lower, functional levels of the organization since functional interests may be at odds with total company interests and this can torpedo innovation success. As a result, business and innovation strategies require the deep involvement of a company’s most senior leaders.
• The development of an innovation strategy requires the perspectives of 1) competitors’ strengths and weaknesses along with a view about how to develop competitive advantages in your type of business and 2) the company’s strengths and capabilities that can be deployed to create those competitive advantages.
• In thinking about these two points, the crucial question becomes how can innovation create better value for customers? Value is the critical part of the equation. Value includes functional efficacy and efficiency. Value includes the price someone pays for the benefits delivered by the product.
• Value can be created in many ways. You can deliver the same performance at a better price – net, there is a value advantage. You can deliver much better performance at a relatively better price – net, this is another way to create a value advantage. You can make it more convenient that can save time, which has an economic value creating a value advantage. You can make it more reliable, which is another way of saving money relative to competition so that you create a value advantage. While all of these may sound attractive, smart business people know you need to choose which avenue to go down. Capabilities required to develop each of these potential value advantages can be very different. You need to know your strengths and the marketplace environment to guide which choices are best and right for your business.
• Another critical question is “how is your company going to ensure the company’s value goes up as a result of your innovation efforts?” So many companies grasp at the fool’s gold of having a technology patent or a patent of any kind. They think this creates a barrier to competition. The truth is, companies have so many ways of delivering a specific set of benefits and value and your patented technological solution is only one of those ways.
• So if a company cannot rely on a patented technological solution alone to create its value delivering advantages, what can it do to ensure that it financially benefits from innovation? Often a patented technological solution is a starting point, not an end point. This solution needs to be bundled together with additional capabilities delivering relevant and compatible customer benefits.
• A great example of this is Apple. They were not the first ones with a smart phone or a tablet that we know as the iPhone and iPad. Yes, the hardware is very good. Bundled with the hardware are a highly functional and intuitive operating system and more apps than we ever thought possible. Both Apple and external apps formed an operating environment with the hardware to create significant competitive advantages against major, highly capable competitors like Microsoft, Google with their android operating system, and Samsung.
• The other associated learning from innovation successes is that the first innovation is important but a program of continuous innovation is necessary to maintain and build whatever initial success a company achieves. Just think about the annual updates to the iPad and iPhone operating systems and a continuous flow of new and often amazing apps.
• Ongoing close.
  • What you can do today with this information. The major point from today’s podcast and part two that follows is that if you count on innovation to grow your business, you must have – not nice to have – an innovation strategy.
    • First, this article suggests an innovation strategy should be developed for every company that relies on innovation for growth. Least you think that this suggestion applies to a minority of companies, in my experience the vast majority of companies do not have and innovation strategy.
    • Second, the Innovate2Grow Experts or i2Ge experts have led well over 100 innovation projects with medium to very large companies. Almost universally, we have seen the lack of a comprehensive innovation strategy. Our experts get hired because of their proven track record in inventing many high potential ideas. As I mentioned in a previous podcast, Doug Hall – the founder of Eureka Ranch – and I have both remarked how clients go off-site, invent products with very high potential for success, and then as little as a month later those ideas have been virtually neutered. I’m not saying that 100% of this could be avoided with an innovation strategy, but I truly believe many, many more big ideas would survive and thrive.
    • Third, with 75% of new products failing, the lack open innovation strategy or a very weak one is a significant contributor to this unnecessarily high failure rate.
    • Fourth, given these two points, I believe it is very important for everyone listening to this podcast depends on innovation for success to create a well thought out innovation strategy utilizing the excellent guidance in the article on reporting on here.
  • If you would like to see the key written points from this podcast, you can find them in my blog – i2ge.com/blog.
  • If you would like to contact me, please email me at richard@i2ge.com.
  • If you would like to create far more robust innovation capabilities within your business, I have a complete portfolio of training programs that we tailor to your unique needs. If you would like to learn more, go to the Innovate2Grow Experts website – i2Ge.com and click on DIY Innovation Training.
  • One of my six books is Proven Practical Innovation That Delivers Results. This very low-cost book is available at Amazon in paperback and has a Kindle book. Is truly packed with lots of practical help.
  • Importantly, if you found this podcast helpful, please consider helping us with a five-star rating for these podcast. Thank you in advance for your support.
• A preview of the next podcast I.
  • The next podcast present part two of how to develop a powerful, practical, and proven innovation strategy. You will learn about the various kinds of innovation and in what business situations each is most appropriate. Following this podcast you will, in combination with part one, have the ability to start defining the unique innovation strategy that is right for your business.
• Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to reconnecting with you soon. Please have a great day.

P17 Musical Chairs Unlocks Innovation.

• This is Richard and I want to welcome you to the Proven, Practical, Profitable Innovation Podcast. As always, I greatly appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to listen to this podcast. My promise is that in every podcast I do my best to share information that will help you in your business – any business and at any time.
• As you know by now, this podcast shares the very best practices available today for you to be successfully innovative and creative. I draw from my decades working in and with both very large and small businesses. As an innovation entrepreneur I’ve been hired by major corporations and small businesses to help them become much more innovative.
• This podcast concludes our idea generating exercise series with one of the most innovative people in America today – Kari McNamara. In this series of interviews with her, we explore some five very intriguing idea generating exercises. This interview explores a creativity exercise she calls musical chairs. In the second series we dive into some actual case studies with well-known companies where she has been the key external leader.
• If you have a need to make your business or your life more innovative, at Innovate2Grow Experts we offer a complete portfolio of training so that you can do it yourself. For example, we can help you develop and fine tune creative idea generation for any need at any time so that you get at least 12 times more ideas than brainstorming.
• You can always contact me by emailing richard@i2ge.com.
• Please be sure to listen to the end of this podcast where I give you an exciting preview of future podcasts.
• Kari McNamara has led well over 100 inventing sessions, many of which led to the introduction of products that sold more than $100 million in their first year. She absolutely knows how to generate a high level of quality creative and innovative ideas from virtually any group. This is another in a short series on creative idea exercises that can really help you today.
• So let’s get into our interview with Kari about an idea generating exercise she calls “musical chairs.”

Musical Chairs

• Make a list of the leaders or people you admire most.
• Pick a strong personality – someone who has achieved something you want to achieve.
• Write down all the things you admire about them.
• List at least 10 people.
• Randomly pick one, and ask yourself how your business or product line would change if that person were in charge. What would they do differently? What would they change?

 

• If you would like to see the key written points from this podcast, you can find them in my blog – i2ge.com/blog.
• If you would like to contact me, please email me at richard@i2ge.com.
• If you would like to create far more robust innovation capabilities within your business, I have a complete portfolio of training programs that we tailor to your unique needs. If you would like to learn more, go to the Innovate2Grow Experts website – i2Ge.com and click on DIY Innovation Training.
• One of my six books is Proven Practical Innovation That Delivers Results. This very low-cost book is available at Amazon in paperback and has a Kindle book. Is truly packed with lots of practical help.
• A preview of the next podcast. CASE STUDIES?
• Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to reconnecting with you soon. Please have a great day.

 

P16 The Scoop on Making Creative Exercises Work for You.

1. In This Podcast.
   1. Review the three exercises shared by Kari.
   2. Discuss the critical elements that determine our success.
   3. Suggest some additional alternatives and variations that are also proven to be effective.
   4. Show how the other three elements of quantum idea generation can put a turbo booster on these exercises.
2. Kari’s three exercises – what they have in common.
   1. Examples of how stimulus can prompt new ways of thinking about needs, opportunities, and creative solutions.
      1. Grab bag – involved random stimulus where the main criteria was something that captured our attention, we thought it was interesting and even provocative. It is an exercise where each object gets special, focused attention as opposed to dealing with a group of stimuli at one time.
      2. Kitchen chemistry –this is especially good for food and beverage exploratories, we get to consider a wide range of stimuli in different combinations a challenge many of our preconceptions. In this exercise groups of stimuli, often unexpected combinations, challenge us to think in new and different directions.

• Uncle moneybags – removing conscious or subconscious barriers to our creativity, in this case money. This is a barrier that often stands in the way of people broadly considering potential creative solutions.

1. Break the laws – this is another creative exercise that has the same basic purpose as uncle moneybags. In this exercise you are asked to write down all of the innovation related do’s and don’ts in your business. What you identified them, you then are given the freedom to completely ignore all of them. This is a powerful exercise because it again removes barriers that usually are in people’s thinking in a way that limits their creativity. Breaking free creates freedom to explore new dimensions, which can often lead to the big, breakthrough ideas.
   1. Reduce fear: fear of looking bad in front of your peers and even your boss.
2. To varying degrees they all get us out of our comfort zone.
   1. When we are in our comfort zone, is the equivalent of being inside the box, which as I’ve mentioned before makes it very difficult to get out of the box thinking.
   2. Need to be faced with the unusual, the challenging, and even the inspiring.
3. The other factors in quantum idea generation.
   1. Diversity: most of the examples that Kari shared were in a creative group with only people inside the company. For example, the engineers at the utility pole device company.
      1. All exercises work much better when we have increasing levels of diversity.
      2. Levels of diversity – a mixture of functions and disciplines from within the company, people within the company and external expertise, and add to this people with high levels of creativity and big picture business perspectives.
   2. Left/right brain.
      1. The three exercises she shared with us are modestly right brain in orientation. When they are only modestly right brain, left brain people can still feel reasonably comfortable and be creative.
      2. The break the laws exercise: left brained people love this because it gives them greater freedom and right brain people love it because they love freedom in almost any form.

• Always be aware of the makeup of the people in your creative session. Many company disciplines, like manufacturing and supply chain, tend to have a strong left brain orientation. That’s not to say that there aren’t some truly right brained folks. Utilize creative idea generating exercises that will optimize creativity based on the left and right brain group composition.

1. Reducing fear.
   1. As mentioned earlier, break the laws and uncle moneybags are too creative exercises that can significantly reduce fear – fear of being confined by the way things have been done in the past and fear of needing to have ideas fit into a specific budget constraint.
   2. Exercises that allow a certain amount of fantasy and freedom to let the creativity go wherever it wants to go, can help significantly reduce the air.

• Please recall earlier advice. Provide strong and consistent positive feedback, especially when people share ideas that clearly step outside the box. Make sure that bosses within the group understand they are important role – no judging of ideas or people.

4. So what can you do with this series.
   1. First, you have some specific step-by-step idea generating exercises that can be used in many/most creative sessions.
   2. Second, make sure that you incorporate all four elements of the quantum idea generation model. Remember it’s not always black and white. There are degrees of diversity, degrees of stimulus, degrees of left/right brain exercises, and degrees to which you can reduce fear. Do your best in the circumstances you are faced with.
5. At Innovate2Grow Experts or i2ge.com we have more than 100 pages of creative idea generating exercises. This gives us great flexibility as we go through a creative session. While I’ve always entered a multiple days project with a minute by minute game plan of exercises, I always call audibles which results in different exercises being used. Certain exercises are best for certain purposes. As we learn about the group’s dynamics, we go with the flow and utilized exercises that optimize creativity.