INNOVATION GUIDELINES - SECTION SIX

1.         A company (or a person) must change as fast or faster than the environment or else degenerate.

2.         Change is painful. It takes work to building new value and it requires loss of old ways and value. It is resisted by a great majority and [pursued only by a enthusiastic, disciplines minority who make things happen.

Guidelines

1.         You must create an environment that supports innovation or else all creative efforts will be subdued by inertial forces.

a.               The fly into the web analogy.

b.               Work against: rigidity; standardization; and unity-think; fixed circular-thinking assumptions drive behavior.

c.               Shape-up or ship-out those who:

01.   Feel entitled to progress without risk, extra or overtime effort, or change.

02.   Are lazy; argumentative before listening; and generally negative.

d.               Expose everyone to on-going educational assignments. Education takes work to gain new insights and requires giving up old assumptions - a change conditioner.

e.               Give all employees big picture relevance so they know how they fit in; why they are vital and what the company’s objectives are. Then, they can contribute and get excited.

2.         Educate all to the principles of personal or company progress.

a.               No pain, no gain. Beginnings are hard don’t under-invest and under-persist.

b.               There will be plenty of problems with unknown solutions; take small risks by experimenting safely and cheaply.

c.               When trying new things lots of mistakes an loses will occur: find the less, share and discuss it; and try again.

d.               Invest in winners and harvest the losers.

e.               Budget for surprise factors. They will always appear to slow progress and raise costs.

f.                Look for serendipity and lucky portholes. They too always appear. The prepared mind sees them; the opportunist jumps on them.

g.               Nothing happens without a key project manager (champion) who has:

01.   A burst of enterprise to overcome inertial and tough beginnings.

02.   A sense of urgency; a use of creative deadlines.

03.   Lots of discipline, enthusiasm, emotional ownership and persistence.

04.   A sense of blind, open-minded faith that something will be learned.

h.               Most good ideas are disguised and fragile at first. Be supportive and playful with them for awhile before criticizing and casting them away.

i.                Entertain up to five options before choosing one project to work on.

01.   Get five times the use of your selective perception.

02.   Don’t get biased and coerced into pursuing one option that has fading potential.

03.   Do some background study and interviewing, especially outside your industry.

3.         Nothing comes from nothing.

a.               Innovation = an idea (easy) (+) implementation (tough).

b.               Creative process has six steps:

01.   A need stimulates purposeful work.

02.   Background learning aided by selective perception. . .

03.   Turns into total absorption, concentration on an opportunity.

04.   Incubate (literally sleep on it).

05.   Illumination (light bulb).

06.   Grind it out verification, modification and final production. Turn it over for maintaining and fine-tuning.

c.               The creative process occurs continuously nested within a larger process. Innovation begets new innovation.

4.         Recruit and condition the right types of people:

a.               For bigger projects and pioneering efforts have a few tiger, penetrators who can take an idea and run with it.

b.               For small innovations make sure you have more peak performers who love to achieve and fine-tune their area. They respond naturally to an innovative climate.

c.               Steadies and coasters will not innovate, but they can follow or resist depending upon the environment.

5.         Help to find, articulate and spread around possible innovation projects to stimulate other creative thinking and hope for some adoptions.

a.               Talk to best, progressive, most-open customers to find new needs to fill.

b.               Have each department brainstorm on ways to achieve objectives, productivity, and enhanced skills.

c.               Talk to employees about fantasies and frustrations to find new needs.

d.               Type up the “someday if someone wants to adopt” lists.

e.               Make employees responsible for growing GP$ faster than total people costs to allow for wage increases. No progress, no raises.

6.         Foster individual thinking by MBWA and making them think:

a.               Help to identify the problems instead of symptoms and ask for a solution.

b.               Socratic questioning 80%; talk to each, clarify, support 20%.

7.         Support any initiative; the first step of an upward spiral.

a.               It’s the emotion that counts as much as the viability of the idea.

b.               Help to shape and build the 8idea, scale the expectations.

c.               Look for quick little wins and adjustments.

d.               Give them all credit; even when you secretly do most of it.

8.         For the “champion” who adopts a key project, maximize the odds for success by:

a.               Building on company strengths and values.

b.               A lot best people and tools.

c.               Budget the project but be prepared to go 40 - 100% over and persist.

d.               Insure lots of environment support with enthusiastic communication.

e.               Help with holistic, multi-level efficient decisions.

f.                Make sure two or more enthusiastic customers and suppliers are willing to collaborate; avoid being too ahead of the times.

g.               Break the project into bite-size stages.

h.               Don’t hand-off to a maintainer until it is up and running smoothly.

i.                Pay such people well and be creative with project completion rewards.

9.         Innovative people and firms tend to stay so. Static ones remain at rest and require great efforts to start-up.

10.      To be creative takes mainly desire or necessity. To implement takes mainly discipline and enthusiasm. Special intellectual abilities are over-rated and laziness in many disguises (excuses) is the main deterrent to progress. Answers to common laziness stalls:

a.               Change won’t lead to perfection.  Answer: Any progress is better and enlightening.

b.               We are too big (or anything).  Answer: Others have turned around, so can we.

c.               We have union.  Answer: Turn them into a stakeholder and involve them in the process.

d.               There is no top management support.  Answer: Engage in guerrilla warfare.

e.               Where would we start:  Answer: With our strengths; with you; and let’s take five minutes now.

f.                We can’t change now, there are other disruptions.  Answer: There will always be disruptions.

g.               We haven’t studied it enough.  Answer: Let’s avoid analysis paralysis.

 

INNOVATION GUIDELINES - SECTION SIX