STRATEGY CENTRAL

Is your organization successful?  According to Peter Drucker, unless you are creating a different tomorrow you aren't actually succeeding today.  In fact, you may be a kind of fraud.

Where's he going?  Easy.  Everything changes.  Everything.  A fully developed understanding of the business you are in combined with an appreciation for the evolving needs of your customer will help your organization see the need to create a different tomorrow.

Question of the day?  How much of what you are currently doing, is still operating with the systems and structures of the 1990s?  1980s?  1960s?  Extra credit: How much of what you're producing is targeted to meet the needs of the customer of the 1990s?  1980s?  1960s?

When you think about being an innovative organization…what does that mean?  Does that mean you use multimedia?  Does it mean you are multsite?  Does it mean you are externally focused?  What does it mean to be innovative?

I love Gary Hamel.  I've referred to his writing many, many times.  Most recently his book The Future of Management has kept me thinking about a lot of what is happening in our organizations.

This summer he'll be speaking at Willow Creek's Leadership Summit.  Take a look at a couple quotes from a clip announcing his participation in the Summit:

A critical question in your own organizations: As you look at the projects and initiatives or programs you have under way, how many of them really meet the test of being radically innovative?  My definition of radical innovation is fairly simple.  It's an idea or a program or an initiative that (a) has the power to change customer expectations in a profound way, that (b) has the power to change industry economics, or (c) change the basis of competitive advantage.

The biggest threat to organizations today is not inefficiency.  We've worked very hard on that for the last many decades.  The biggest challenge for organizations today is irrelevancy.  And game changing innovation is the only insurance against irrelevancy.

What do you think?  What's the bigger threat for you?  Inefficiency?  Or irrelevance?

When you’re asked how you are doing, do you have an automatic response?  When you ask how someone’s doing, do you accept an automatic response?

What about when you evaluate how your business is going?  How your newest product is selling?  Do you accept an automatic, unreasoned response?  Do you accept the word, “fine?”

I like the take at  IDEO where “fine is a four-letter word.”

Here’s the assignment: Listen to the way your team evaluates business today.  Listen to the way you talk about your business today.  Listen for the word, “fine.”

Ever found yourself in the middle of a brainstorming session or maybe even a product launch, where it became plain as day that not everyone got what the goal was?  Frightening to see when it happens that late, but it happens that late all the time.  Doesn't it?

I just came from a concept discussion where the subject was an insert that could be used to invite neighbors and friends to an Easter service.  Key idea?  It would be used to invite unconnected neighbors and friends.
Alarming moment?  When a staffer at a nearby desk said, "Hopefully it won't have an Easter Bunny!"

Okay.  Work with me here. The purpose of the insert (post card) is to give me something to hand my unconnected neighbor to invite them to join me for an Easter service.  Question: Who does it need to appeal to?  Right.  The neighbor.

What's amiss with the staffer's comment?  Straight to the point, an apparent lack of empathy.

Love what Tom Kelley has to say about empathy:

Innovation may begin with the ability to see things as they truly are.  Know what I mean?  I'm talking about the ability (maybe even the willingness) to see what customers really think about the way you're doing what you're doing.

Wonder how many of us are open to the truth…that way?

Reading through The Art of Innovation I came across this well-known statement by a big three auto executive in the 1930s:

"It's not that we build such bad cars; it's that they are such lousy customers (p. 40, The Art of Innovation)."

Come to think of it…sounds a lot like the boneheads that flew private jets to Washington D.C. to meet with congress and ask for a bailout.  What hasn't changed?  Their ability to see things as they truly are.

I love Tom Kelley's analysis:

"The annals of business are chock full of executives who didn't understand why people couldn't use their products correctly.  Unless you wield monopoly power, such arrogance is generally not a good customer strategy (The Art of Innovation), p. 40."

So how about your organization?  Are you seeing things the way they really are?  Or are you in an organization still showing up in private jets?

One of the feeds I love is Hugh MacLeod over at
Gaping Void.  Puzzling guy.  Hugely creative.  Often irreverent.  Always creative.  Keeps me shaking my head and glad I tripped across his work.

WL Gore has been called the most innovative company in America by Fast Company magazine.  You can hear CEO Terri Kelley right here.

Some great insights in the presentation.  Loved the piece on leadership at WL Gore.  In order to be a leader you've got to have people following you.  Leadership is about 5 things:

1. Self-leadership
2. Leading others
3. Shaping the vision
4. Getting it done
5. Living the culture

What does it take to lead?  You have to be comfortable operating without assumed authority and control.  It's all about influence.  You have to trust your people.

How hard are you working to develop cool and memorable experiences for your customers?  Are you intentionally building experience, or is it an accident when it happens?

I like the way Ideo’s Tom Kelley talks about the idea of crafting experiences: “At IDEO, we encourage
even product-oriented companies to focus on the “verbs” not the “nouns”
in thinking about the actions, the behaviors, the experiences that
customers associate with their brands.”

What if you spent an hour tomorrow white-boarding the verbs you want to associate with your brand?  Can you see how this leads to a whole different way of thinking?

By the way, Kelley’s The Ten Faces of Innovation is a fantastic resource and should be part of your innovation library.

IDEO is one of the most innovative companies in the world.  In a Fast Company classic Tom Kelley talks about the Ideo rules of brainstorming.

1. Sharpen the Focus: Start the brainstorming process by clearly articulating a customer need.
2. Write playful rules: Ideo’s primary brainstorming rules are simple: “Defer judgment” and “One conversation at a time.”
3. Number your ideas: Totally okay to say things like, “Let’s go for 100 ideas.”
4. Build and jump: Brainstorming has a rhythm.  It gathers momentum and then plateaus.  Good facilitators know how to launch it, get out of the way, and then step back in when it slows.
5. Make the space remember: Use post-it notes, flip charts, white-boards and butcher paper.  Advantage goes to movable and rearrangeable.
6. Stretch your mental muscles: Start with warm-up exercises.  Road-trips, videos, experiences all prime the pump to fire the imagination.
7. Get physical: Show-and-tell, build prototypes, cross-pollinate from other industries.

You can read the whole article right here. By the way, Tom Kelley’s The Ten Faces of Innovation is a fantastic read.

How many times have you recognized a less-than-desirable customer experience, brainstormed what the experience should be like, and challenged your team to deliver that experience…only to have nothing change?

Frustrating…isn’t it?  Maybe it shouldn’t be.  Maybe that is the outcome that should be expected.  According to Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto’s School of Management, “To redesign a customer experience, you also have to redesign
organizational structures, culture, etc., or you won’t produce the
experience you want.”

So here’s the question: Have you ever overhauled your structure in order to produce a different customer experience?