June 2011 Strategic Innovation Newsletter

 

Welcome to the June 2011 edition of Strategic Innovation newsletter, a free monthly newsletter on leadership, strategy and innovation. Delivered on the first Tuesday of each month.

Back issues are archived for free downloading at www.daniellockconsulting.com/newsletter

 


Tips for improving

 

A. The sooner you involve others in the development and decision making process the better the decision, and less back end work required.

B. The corollary of A is, people will also have more ownership because they will be somewhat invested in the outcome. In organisations this is often hard to get people together, but it’s worth it.

C. Don’t assume people are damaged and hate change. People change everyday: they get married, buy houses, and sometime just take a detour on the way to work. People need to see why a change is required. Appeal to their (rational) self-interest.

D. Identify the constraint in your business. This is the single thing that is preventing you from achieving your goal. Go to work here. Spending time on anything else is just busy work.

E. Sometimes the constraint is you don’t know what your constraint is. Call a meeting and go back to A.
 

 


Article of the month: A process for innovation and opportunism

 

LAST month I went to the United States on some business and R&R. Vegas and NYC. Vegas was for a consulting conference and, well, gambling. Vegas is like Disney Land for adults. But amazingly I walked away, from the tables at least, $200 up. (Hey big spender.)

The lasting impression, perversely perhaps, that Vegas left me with was a sense of possibility. The whole city is built in the middle of nowhere, it exists for no other reason than gambling tourism, it has no natural reasons for being there. Yet it works. It’s an innovation on a city wide scale.

How much of your organisations time is spent inwardly on petty issues or office politics? Energy that is not focused outwards, on the client, is energy wasted. Instead we need to be observant for opportunities.

This is he attitude we must have as managers in our businesses and the organisations we run. Peter Drucker said there are only two things a business need do: innovation and marketing. Two things Vegas does well.

Innovation and problem solving is not rocket science (even rocket science isn’t rocket science anymore), rather, a process made up of two parts problem solving and two parts opportunism. Do you have a deliberate process and approach to problem solving and a method to capture opportunities as they arise?

Steven Johnson in his book, "Where Good Ideas Come From,” articulates how Apple go about their process well:

  • "Apple calls is concurrent or parallel production. All the groups – design, manufacturing, engineering, sales – meet continuously through the product-development cycle, brainstorming trading ideas and solutions, strategizing over the most pressing issues and generally keeping the conversation open to a diverse group of perspectives.”

Most discussion around Apple is about how much Steve Jobs contributes to the business, and how when he leaves the business will suffer terribly. But I’d say his biggest contribution is setting up the systems, processes and tools to enable people to collaborate on important problems and integrate opportunities in the market place into profitable (and very cool) products.

I don’t think Apple has anything to worry about with Jobs leaving because he has inculcated a culture of continuous improvement. Centred on problem solving, and innovation.

Most people are gambling in Vegas, but a few, playing Black Jack or Poker, actually have a process and take money out of the house. The business world is competitive; you need to structure your organisation take advantage of opportunities as they arise, and better yet, create opportunities yourself.
 

 


Technique of the month: Set up a cross functional team.

 

  1. Invite a cross functional team (especially people in up and downstream departments) to attend a brainstorming session.
  2. Set out the problem to be addressed.
  3. Using a facilitator, spend a minute writing on post it notes all the ideas you have around the particular issue at hand.
  4. Collate the ideas into groups.
  5. Map the themed ideas to the area of the problem to be solved.
  6. Use these to create high-level plans of action.
  7. Assign accountabilities.
  8. Follow up.