A second reason is that not enough commitment is given by senior management to make the initiative work: “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” Without real leadership, very little of anything goes anywhere.

Third, innovation happens too often on an ad hoc basis rather than as a business process. Periodically, serendipity and good luck produce surprisingly good results. However, these one-hit wonders – - because of their very success and monetary reward – - only set the company up to fail later. Random success cannot be duplicated. When the one-hit wonder dies of old age, the infrastructure to support it becomes a very heavy burden that too often sinks the company.

Sustainable innovation that can drive the business forward needs to be set up as a system (in which skill, expertise and knowledge are deeply embedded into the enterprise). Without such a system the output will be sporadic at best. Learning will turn out to be negligible, execution will be mediocre and results anemic.

Further, without an in-place system (including well-structured, highly-committed innovation teams) employees will constantly face capacity, time and motivation issues around their participation. Such ad hoc innovation will usually lead to continuous power struggles for needed resources.

Chief among the gamble reduction has been the “Customer Driven Movement”, the attempt to understand what customers want before a company invests in the creation of a new product or service. But the sad results are – - after 30 years of this customer driven thinking – - that 50 to 90% of the products and services initiated end as failures. Yes, gaining inputs from the customer is important. But under this widely used methodology neither the innovator or the customer knows how to obtain the type of inputs they really need. The literal voice of the customer does not translate into meaningful inputs. Companies identify opportunities by segmenting markets, conducting competitive analysis, and brainstorming for customer wants, needs, benefits, solutions, ideas, desires, demands, specifications and so forth. None of these can be used predictably to ensure success.

The High Failure Rate

Despite a decade of heavy investment in innovation, and in chief innovation officers and their staff, failure rates for new products have hovered at 60 percent since the 1970’s. Two- out of three new product concepts don’t even launch. The 1950s and ’60s was a period of unprecedented economic growth characterized by a burgeoning middle class. Back then demand was often found by addressing an underserved segment.

Since the wake of the Great Recession (2008 to today) instead of demand we have picky customers and consumers dealing with limited financial resources. For them product choices tend to come down to trade-offs. Our markets are in slow growth mode in spite of the economic pick-up in the last few quarters.

Traditional new product innovation follows these four steps:

First, generate a high-level business growth strategy.

Second, develop a new idea/s based on consumer input.

Third, use quantitative business research to test and validate the new concept.

Fourth, use stage gating (progressively whittle down a number of new ideas to a very few that appear business model viable). The results are then rolled out, by a sequence of commercialization, retail execution and finally launch.

The problem is this tried-and-true process doesn’t work very well. Witness multiple headline-grabbing catastrophes with the big multinationals and the bankruptcies resulting from bet the farm approaches in small and medium-size enterprises. Are we stuck with these high failure rates if we want to innovate?

Better – Price-Product Architecture

Some are solving this innovation dilemma by using “Price-Product Architecture” (PPA). This means using sophisticated business mathematics to gain a clear grasp of which combinations of features, packaging, price, and even labeling will persuade consumers to make a purchase. They adopt dynamic modeling to gauge various combinations of features against benefits to yield a consumer “trade-off” grid analysis. This has shown significant fruit in more mature markets. The value proposition to the customer tends to become better than the competitions’ and market share is gained.

In effect they are developing a simulation model that can evaluate a wide range of scenarios by altering various elements and seeing how each factor affects the value proposition while the product is still in the development stage. This process can cut down time to market and gain first mover advantage as the industry “notices something” such as a new trend; for example the desire for more natural foodstuffs in the grocery store must be met with an appealing product that passes the trade-off test for the consumer. Getting it wrong can foul the waters for everybody. Getting it right means market expansion for the whole industry.

Core Competency Value-Added

Other companies are having greater innovation success because they are doing product development based on their capabilities and core competencies. They gain critical advantage because of their unique expertise. They outsource to (1)other experts where they have a lack and of course, (2) where the manufacturing process has been commoditized i.e. where there can be no unique “value-added”. Innovating outside of our skill set is the number one cause of expensive wild goose chases.

What Is Truly Critical For Success

What has been lost in these approaches to innovation is an in-depth understanding of “underserved markets” where consumers yearn for a solution to their deep frustrations, frustrations they may not even be aware of. Tapping into such underserved markets with our unique capabilities and expertise is the difference between modest, incremental growth (when successful) and dynamic industry-leading growth. Understanding consumer yearning is why Apple has just chalked up the biggest quarterly profits in corporate history.

Like Apple, we would do well to move beyond the customer – driven paradigm.

We can boost our innovation success rate to four out of five … or even higher over time! There are disciplines with identifiable core elements; these breakthrough innovation disciplines can be applied with an above 80% innovation success rate. This is a much better path to innovation. Success improves and the risk of failure is reduced as we become more certain about the critical unmet needs in our marketplace.

To learn more go to our website and read

Market Targeting And Decision Making

http://pe-trick.com/specialty_practices/view/market-targeting-and-decision-making

For other useful information on Innovation see

http://pe-trick.com/

We do our very best to communicate in a clear, easy to understand manner – - the simpler the better. We don’t keep people in the dark; neither do we hide behind silence (“I am important and hard to reach”) or email or some other automated avoidance behaviour. We try to give context and reasons why we say what we say. We have a limited amount of time but we do make great effort to be on the phone with everyone who wants to talk to us – - even if we do have to be brief. In that way we focus on what’s important and what is a waste of time so we can all channel our energy to the right places.

Simplicity is sometimes found in complexity. Put things as simply as possible but no simpler we are told. Looking for simple cause and effect in human beings and their organizations just doesn’t work and we often don’t know why. To effect change there are often a number of factors at play and they all have to be dealt with at once. The dynamics of a situation like vector forces are interactive and mutually self-reinforcing (positively or destructively). Sorting out what influences what is often an exercise in futility but knowing what factors are in play is important. To effect human change all of the key factors have to be dealt at once, not sequentially or one at a time. Taking partial or incremental steps is often insufficient and therefore only leads to discouragement.

The simplicity in complexity comes from the actions we take. We need to be very explicit in the action steps that are necessary to solve a problem or challenge. Everybody needs to be extremely clear on the overall plan, what their role is in the plan and why. The vision and the solution steps need to be over communicated until clarity is reached. Clarity starts with “why” and finishes with what “obviously” needs to be done. It needs to be said over and over and over again until everyone understands. Leadership is about straightforward purpose and finding everyone “a place in the choir”.

Simplicity takes a great deal of effort but there is little that is more worthwhile.

In the first step we evaluate the worthiness of our opportunities. How great will our gain be as we choose one project or another? Collaborating for the sake of collaboration is a rabbit chase defocusing and frustrating everybody. We need to pick areas that will solve our customers’ (external and internal) deepest frustrations. Value needs to be created both qualitatively (improve functionality or usability) and quantitatively (increase cash flow).

Secondly we need to spot barriers to our collaboration. People don’t collaborate well for a number of reasons; there may be a lack of motivation or willingness and a large number of people simply lack the innate ability to collaborate easily. Four of the most common barriers are (1) an unwillingness to reach out to other people, often from a cultural not-invented-here syndrome; (2) staff are unwilling to provide help – they hoard their resources; (3) workers are not able to find what they are looking for, they don’t know how to search; (4) people are not able to work with others they don’t know well either because of social skills or attitudes. Rather than jumping too quickly into an assumption about what is interfering with collaboration, the barriers simply need to be identified and listed.

Then in the third step we tailor our solutions to turn down those barriers. Different barriers require different solutions. Often the solution is found in lifting workers into a state of unity by articulating the dream or vision, setting out common goals and preaching the strong value of cross organizational teamwork. That means moving our staff from their narrow interests towards our common mission. In most cases the high achievers have to be moved towards shared achievement, while the social butterflies have to be moved towards achieving measurable results. If employees cannot or will not learn to both make cross organizational contributions as well as focus on their own individual performance, then they probably need to be replaced. There are some who are naturally both collaborators and individual achievers but most require at least some skill acquisition. They might need to learn how to build nimble interpersonal networks across the company while others need to learn what the thrill of achievement is all about.

Good collaboration emphasizes both performance from decentralized work and performance from collaborative work. Everyone can grow to be more collaborative leaders from the example they set and the attitudes they transmit. Just a little guidance is needed in most cases. We need to cultivate collaboration around us by transforming ourselves, our organization and the people working with us. Collaboration or mutuality leads to everybody’s better performance. Our job is to unite together towards our common mission. We need to think about what Peter Drucker said:

“Management is about human beings. Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant. …. Every enterprise requires commitment to common goals and shared values. Without such commitment there is no enterprise; there is only a mob. The enterprise must have simple, clear, and unifying objectives. The mission of the organization has to be clear enough and big enough to provide common vision. The goals that embody it have to be clear, public, and constantly reaffirmed. Management’s first job is to think through, set, and exemplify those objectives, values, and goals.”

One subset of collaboration is Great Collaboration, or as Warren Bennis calls it, Great Groups. Recruiting the right genius for the job is the first step in building great collaboration. Great groups are put together by leaders who are unafraid of hiring people better than themselves. In such recruiting they look for two things in particular: (1) industry excellence and (2) the ability to work with others.

A connoisseur of talent looks both for intellectual gifts and the ability to work collaboratively that it is people who “play well in the sandbox with others”. Such recruits may not be of high stature but they consider themselves to be some kind of “an enviable elite” however overworked and underpaid these greatly gifted people might happen to be. There are definitely the best person for the job at hand. Further they are usually young in their 20s or early 30s. Their enthusiasm, optimism and ignorance (or lack of experience) means they do what everyone thought couldn’t be done. Such unseasoned recruits “do not usually know what’s supposed to be impossible”.

Virtually every great group also has a strong visionary head along with a champion or two who can clear the obstacles of stifling bureaucracy and corporate politics. The “dream” is the engine that drives the group. The visionary details the task and its meaning; the champions keeps the recruits free to do their best most imaginative work. The focus is not on money or other tangible rewards but rather “the project is all” that matters. They fall in love with it. The thrilling process of discovery to bring new insights is everything. For the participants that process is its own ultimate reward. They live for the excitement of pushing back the boundaries, of doing something superbly well that no one has ever done before. Such genius is rare and the chance to exercise it in a dance with others is rarer still. These collaborating knowledge workers cannot be managed but can only be facilitated, guided and inspired. The leader finds greatness in the group and in turn helps members find it in themselves. Together they are able to achieve something that no one could achieve alone. “None of us is as smart as all of us.” These great groups reshape our world in very different and enduring ways.

If only we could cooperate together better at work, it just might be a better place to have fun and be more productive. But as we all know collaboration doesn’t come easy anywhere, anytime. Do you understand why?

To understand we have to look at corporate culture. Some workplaces encourage cooperation but perhaps many more promote a spirit of competition. A classic example of this was the two cultures at Sony and Apple, when the iPod was being developed. At Apple there was a clear goal in mind with each division devotedly focused on that single goal. Information sharing was high and there was clarity of purpose as each group went about their business. At Apple collaboration pre-existed their products and in fact flourished as they went about their work. By contrast each of Sony’s divisions had its own ideas about what to do on its product Connect It was as if they were contraindicated (to borrow a medical term) to each other; they were so conflicted in how to develop the product they seemed to work against each other. Sony’s mess turned into a market disaster whereas the iPod became one of the success stories of the decade. The iPod’s progression transformed Apple from an average company to an amazing story. The fruit of their collaboration became a world changing product that has become an ordinary part of everyday life for so many around the globe. Sony’s people worked against each other; Apple’s people energized each other and have been producing amazing products ever since then.

The first lesson about collaboration is that it occurs in a corporate culture that is by design operated in a spirit of cooperation – - an environment where people want to work together, take pride in what they do together and celebrate in big and small ways at each progressive inch of their successes. Creating a safe and secure workplace also supports this culture, which is why many companies turn to https://fastfirewatchguards.com for reliable fire safety and protection services.

The whole reason to hire a search firm when we have an opening to fill or a position to plan is simple. We want them to unearth the one very best candidate in the marketplace that will make a true difference in our company. Procuring such people requires a very high skill level not ordinarily found inside our company or for that matter outside. Not only do the individuals need to be located but they also need to be reassured how beneficial a move would be by someone who offers emotional support and objective advice; a candidate needs to be advised by someone who cares. The hiring company likewise also needs objective advice about their choices and the meaning of those choices. They also need the carefully chosen words of an intelligent, articulate advocate who can advance the corporate client’s case. There is a balance between seizing the initiative and exercising appropriate risk management as the right person is sought out.

Fortune Magazine has said that there are “competent executives everywhere whose performances are underrated and unrewarded standing a better chance than ever before being noticed and courted by someone else”. There is a reason why the best people change firms and and it rarely has to do with money. Good executive move for opportunity and the satisfaction to be a top performer, to live with purpose and collaborate with a winning team

When a critical role goes unfilled, it can have a huge impact on company growth. You’ll need to have a plan in place to cover the job duties for the position while you are recruiting for it as efficiently as possible.
When the perfect match is not on the shelf, companies are left with no option other than hiring a headhunter who can find the best employee for the vacant position.

An innovation management standard is needed to serve as a foundational skeleton to develop an innovation management system (IMS) especially in terms of:

(A) providing elements
(B) types of requirements
(C) detailed clause and subclause descriptions in a common language to achieve sensible exchanges of necessary information

Standards provide a holistic A-Z comprehensive approach to innovation that will cover support, direct and indirect as well as administrative innovation activities. Standards also provide the basis for a common language for innovation and thus make these standards transferable from one entity to another from both within the company and without, whether different divisions and departments or stakeholders and/or supply chains. Standards also provide a means for training and certification of both individuals and organizations. This means that the standards would be available both privately and publicly on both local and international scales. Standards imply standardization for common use and development or in other words it enables sharing and the ability to build upon each other’s work as well as to give feedback and direction to move forward in a unified way to some future point of need and/or desire. A lack of standards and standardization makes it virtually unreasonable and incompatible to work collaboratively together.

For example, consider the sharing of electricity. An electrical receptacle needs a set voltage as well as a mechanism to join male to female transfer points. Over time the receptacle can become more sophisticated: a grounding plug or prong has been added to the input output and of a common carrying electrical wire. Later, a different grounding mechanism has been developed that provides grounding without a third prong. Having a set standard such as an exact voltage allows for common development. North American and European voltages are quite different from each other and require a converter or translator in order to utilize local power to be used with foreign equipment. These voltages are two set and different standards but consider if there was hundreds of different voltages – - then hundreds of different converters would be required. This can sometimes be seen in devices used to connect to a laptop computer. One brands converter may be quite different than another’s and make it impossible to obtain power without the exact and precise converter from a specific company . The requirements are just incompatible because of a lack of a standard. Working together is arduous and inefficient to say the least to the point of making it too frustrating to have disparate elements even attempt to work together. On the other hand if the computer laptop industry embraced a standardization of converters, compatibility and modularity would come to the forefront – - different equipment could work together effectively and efficiently.

The essential requirements of six of the most important elements: (1) culture, (2) leadership, (3) resources, (4) processes, (5) monitoring and measuring, and (6) improvement and corrective action, can only be achieved when common standards and language are utilized to build an IMS. Standards and standardization are the building blocks of working together in a synergistic cross-functional way. Without standards any notion of building a system is like embracing chaos instead of organization and focus. Standards bring harmony and compatibility. Thus standardization brings about “a highly structured set of norm-setting documents, describing all aspects of an innovation management system, by its six elements”. Standards and specific language (with common concepts) walk hand in hand.

Just being good at the moment is not enough to stay on top of an industry. New ideas must continue to be sought out and implemented. To not be implemented or not implemented fully is innovation idea folly!
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Let us look at the cellular phone industry. Motorola was initially an industry leader and dominated the market. Then Nokia took over industry leadership. Blackberry came by and blew away the narrow-minded efforts of Nokia. But then Apple virtually bankrupted Nokia. Now Samsung’s Galaxy is giving Apple a stiff run for its money as it gives end-user stakeholders (SH) many new delightful and frustration reducing features.

How is Samsung achieving impact? By putting out a new size of device that is bigger than a cell phone but smaller than a tablet. The tablet is just too big to carry around most of the time while the phone is too small to be able to work on like a computer (although smart phone users do it albeit in a somewhat frustrating way). Apple’s policy of not going to that type of an intermediate size is hurting them.

How did Apple grab Blackberry’s market? The SH had an initial need for security of intra-corporate communication but Apple is able to provide that kind of security and yet do so much more. Blackberry concentrated on incremental improvements to its product instead of seeing the grand picture of what was possible to do with the communication device such as turning it into a computer now known as a smart phone. The ability to carry around a computer in a very portable and easy fashion without aggravation removed a deep-seated frustration for the general public and far exceeded the simpler desires of a very narrow business market.

Similarly, Nokia took advantage of Motorola’s very narrow focus on its current economic/performance engine while it’s inability to make radical or disruptive change was ignored. Nokia moved out into a new S-curve, a new performance engine: a small and sleek highly comfortable device replacing a big and bulky monstrosity-to-use cell phone even though those same cell phones were becoming incrementally smaller.

When stakeholders’ deep-seated frustrations are ignored somebody will fill the gap with a frustration-reduction solution. When the SH requirement or need is critically important to what they commonly do, then the rate of acceptance of a frustration-reduction device will be exceedingly rapid and produce huge new markets. Detecting both critically important SH activity that is being met with a matching deep frustration is the basis for radical or disruptive innovation. When such detection techniques are repeatedly used then a world-class innovation company will come on the scene and become exceedingly difficult to displace or compete against – – they become a stakeholder’s dream company.

So who seeks to intimately know the critical frustrations of a company’s many stakeholders?

What we want to do in our initial conversations is threefold:

(1) paint a vivid picture of what our business is trying to do for our clientele and market;

(2) see to what extent the candidate understands and grasps the problems and challenges we have been describing; and

(3) have them describe how they would plan to meet the opportunities presented by such difficulties.

The goal would be to see to what extent the candidate would become a vital part of our problem-solving team, to illustrate how much they can contribute immediately to what we really need to do. Ideally we would also like them to be aware of and explicit about how they would personally impact our bottom line. Beyond those three areas, everything else is more or less just fluff. Such conversations tend to be rich and rewarding to both parties whether they are ever hired or not.

If in the course of these conversations, we become serious about one or more of these candidates, what do we do next? That will be our the topic of June’s blog.