100 Days of Innovation - #3 : Check your speed
One of the key issues I point out when speaking about innovation strategies, is that organizations need to continually challenge themselves as to whether they can "act fast enough."
In other words, innovative organizations "check their speed." If they aren't responding quickly enough to rapid market, product, competitive and business model change, then they aren't following one of the key traits of successful innovators. If they aren't ensuring they are keeping up with rapid consumer and customer preference, service levels or marketing and branding innovation, they become an innovation laggard rather than a leader. If they can't collaborate and share knowledge as a team, in order to capitalize on new emerging opportunities or respond to threats, then they aren't operating at the right pace.
I was reminded of this point today, when I saw that Workplace Today, an HR focused publication, reprinted my article, Are We Thinking Fast Enough, which was originally published in Broadband magazine in 2006. The article was written for folks working in the telecom and hi-tech industries, and challenged them to "check their speed."
Looking back at the article, you can see the speed of change that has occurred. Take a look at the hi-tech gear that surrounds you, and think about quickly things become obsolete. In one of my cabinets in the home office, I've got about six generations of Blackberry devices. The first one looks absolutely ancient -- and yet, is from about 2001. I've also got an MP3 player from 1998 that could hold about five songs. It seems positively old-fashioned.
Such things are reminders that we live in a fast paced world -- and that innovators MUST check their speed in order to stay ahead in their markets. Here's the clincher -- it doesn't matter what industry I'm speaking too -- I can point people to similar degrees of high velocity change, and challenge them to think faster.
More information on the concept of "checking your speed":
- Read the original article Are we moving fast enough?
- Explore the concept of "thinking fast" in the blog section, "Faster"
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100 Days of Innovation - #2 - Go Upside Down
When thinking about new product or service development, don't do it in isolation. Seek advice and guidance from your business partners -- or, even let them drive the innovation agenda.
This is the lesson I learned from a large company in the consumer goods/entertainment space. They had traditionally been responsible for an innovation plan that went like this:
- Get the assortment right, i.e. in terms of new product
- Figure out the merchandising plan
- Then do the marketing
They then realized that trends and consumer choice was evolving so fast, that they no longer had a truly good grasp on the innovation agenda that they should be pursuing. They also came to realize they were taking product to retailers -- but the depth of insight from retailers meant that they saw entirely different product and market opportunities.
So what did they do? They went out side -- and learned how to work with the retailers, by having the retailers do much of the product innovation. Soon, the innovation pipeline worked like this:
- Figure out the marketing plan, what unique ideas could be pursued in terms of consumer choice, attitude, brands
- From that, determine what merchandise, packaging and products to produce
- And then get the assortment right
Going upside-down is a powerful innovation concept -- it challenges you to do things differently. More important, it pushes you into a mindset where you are pursuing partnership oriented innovation, with the result that have better, fresh, unique, external insight.
All too often an organization loses its ability to innovate because it becomes very internally focused -- it can't see beyond its' own walls. People become narrow in their focus, and fail to see big opportunities.
Going upside-down changes this, in so many ways, and it's one of the most important innovation ideas that you can pursue.
More information:
- Can we talk - upside-down innovation?
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100 Days of Innovation - Get Out in Front
The last few weeks have seen a variety of keynotes for leadership meetings -- for a telecom company, food services organization, commercial real estate & property management firm, among others. These have involved audiences from 250+ to 800+ executives.
Obviously, the economy weighs heavily into my observations on stage, and in the questions in the Q&A.
The keynotes have been built around my theme of 7 Things You Need to Do Right Now: Aligning The Fast Future to Your Current Strategy.
One of the 7 Things that has stood out - in common with all these organizations -- focuses on the reality that with an economic correction underway, it is critical to keep existing customer/client relationships intact. Indeed, the CEO at the event yesterday noted that "customer retention" was one of the top 6 priorities for 2009.
What's the innovation issue here? There is a big opportunity in solidifying existing relationships by solving customer/client problems before they know they have them. This is BIG.
Think about these issues, and innovate from them in terms of what you do with your customers / clients:
- when times get tough, quality, service and relationships rule: operational excellence is more important than ever.
- focus on a new partnership with the customer, for example: "we've got the latest strategies to help achieve cost savings"
- stay ahead of fast paced change that you can utilize for the customer -- with the attitude being, "we're on top of fast paced developments that impact you, so you don't need to be!"
- make sure your customer understands that you are ahead of the pack in solving their problems.
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Freeze, innovate or panic? Innovation strategies for RIGHT NOW
Given the rapid pace of global economic developments, organizations are faced with a pretty stark choice.
The CEO of a company that is having me speak to an upcoming leadership meeting stated it this way: their choice going forward is to :
- Freeze: do nothing
- Innovate: respond to rapid market change through innovation, particularly with respect to strategies, struture, capabilities, markets, products, activities
- Panic: make rash decisions on structure, markets, investments.
But for others, panic will truly get you nowhere. And inaction - option 1 -- is not a good choice, because markets, customers behavior, cost inputs and just about everything else will change even faster now, and so you need to change faster.
Option 2 -- continuous innovation -- remains the only thing to focus on. Maybe that's why my phone has been quite busy in the last two weeks. There have already been several confirmed new events in October and November, where I will be coming into a corporate leadership meeting as part of an overall objective of keeping a company ahead in the game.
CEO's and executive staff are working hard to align their current strategies with fast paced economic events. I'm providing grist for the grill, with specific insight on how they might innovate within their particularly industry.
It's interesting that a lot of senior executives are all of a sudden looking for someone to bring their team this type of unique motivational innovation message. Two weeks ago, I helped to clarify for a commercial real estate / building management company leadership group where they could continue to find market opportunity right now, and how they needed to ensure they focus on enhancing existing customer/client relationships as a key strategy for going forward. We defined some strategies that they had not thought of; their team was inspired on focusing on opportunity rather than market upheaval, by thinking differently about what they do.
So what should you be doing from an innovation perspective?
I'll starting putting up quite a few new blog posts starting next week, summarizing the many methods to innovate, particularly through any economic correction or downturn. I'm going to call the series "100 Days of Innovation," and while I won't post each and every day, I do aim to have one hundred concise, succinct posts full of unique innovation insight.
In the meantime, if you need a high level, energetic message to get your leadership in the right frame of mind to deal with high-velocity economic change, call me. The details are on my contact page.
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