Visitors to blogposts

Interesting to note which of all my past blogposts have been visited most in the past month as a result of Google searches:

After Eight (6 October 2012)

Ideas (several posts)
An Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump (29 April 2012)
Survival of the Fittest (naturally) (14 February 2011)
Fact based management (12 July 2012)
Innovation Funnel (31 August 2012)

Who’d have thought it?

Switching to INTRIGUE

An elephant trap in innovation is judging new ideas too early.

Indeed one of my clients introduced a scheme whereby all the company’s thousands of employees were encouraged to submit ideas, which were then each immediately submitted to some basic screening questions.

Is the idea likely to sell over $x million? Is it a practical, implementable idea? Will it fit with existing systems and capabilities?

The consequence was efficiently to kill off at birth all the most exciting and ground-breaking ideas suggested. For, in the earliest stages, anything radical is highly likely to fall short when subjected to those innocent and sensible-sounding questions. .

A much better approach to ask is this question:

Is the idea INTRIGUING? If we were to devote time and attention to it, using our best creative problem-solving and design skills, might it turn into a real humdinger?

That way, breakthrough ideas get selected, developed and implemented. And it’s the paltry, incremental, time-wasting ideas that get discarded.

Knowledge: does it really exist?

So many universities have vision or mission statements based around the notion that they are in the business of “knowledge transfer”.

It always seems to me a very doubtful proposition.

Ever since I encountered the work of Karl Popper, I’ve been less than entranced by the idea of “knowledge”. It seems like practically every day that some apparent certainty, some aspect of “knowledge” or other, is overturned and replaced by new thinking.

In truth, the best one can say for the new formulation is that it may represent our Best Current Thinking. Even the most significant – Newton, Darwin, Einstein – they all developed ideas that had the ring of final truth. Not so.

So much more open to creative new possibilities, Best Current Thinking. So restrictive, knowledge.

Is it possible for universities to let go of all that emphasis on certainty and embrace something more open-ended?

Ten reasons why good ideas get strangled at birth

1. Sounds too risky.
2. There’s little solid research support.
3. The “experts” in the field think it sounds a bit absurd.
4. The potential market seems too small.
5. The idea comes from R&D (and marketing says it’s not based on sound consumer insight).
6. It would be first to market.
7. It would be following a previous entrant that didn’t do so well.
8. It surfaced too early – not following corporate innovation process.
9. Top management demands breakthroughs, but draws short of funding them in practice (see reasons above).
10. Because it wasn’t my/our idea.

I’ve had each of these with my clients. Usually followed by a competitor taking the opportunity quite soon after.

Additions? Builds?

Are ideas born in start-ups?

Where is it that new ideas are born? In large companies or small?

There seems to be a widespread assumption that creativity flourishes in small organisations – and that big new ideas emerge mainly in entrepreneurial start-ups.

It may well be true that new ideas see the light of day in start-up companies. The question is: were the ideas actually conceived there?

Some years ago I saw a presentation at a conference from Aston University, whose research showed that ideas were often conceived in large organisations, where they had been either suppressed, or rejected, or simply hidden, before being brought to market by breakaway staffers.

This is certainly a syndrome that I’ve observed frequently. What’s more – it has happened to me personally, a wonderful new business being born.

A very successful example is Innocent Drinks. They tell the story on their website.

The learnings?

Here are a couple of them. In large organisations, it behoves leaders to think twice before rejecting or suppressing the ideas of their more creative colleagues. And for governments, it might be good to re-think their assumptions concerning the sources of new ideas.

“We’ve got plenty of ideas”

In a recent Comment, Arun Prabhu of Arla wrote: “Where I work we are growing in ideas, every time someone runs an idea generation session of any sort, the same "brilliant" ideas come up. The credit deserves to go to the ones who push ideas through the system, into reality and make them succeed.”

So often I hear from clients that they have plenty of ideas, but have difficulty turning them into reality.

It’s a very real issue and for that reason I do more masterclasses on the subject of “Turning Ideas into Action” than any other.

And yet…

Do these organisations really have a surfeit of good ideas? Of ground-breaking new thinking? I’m not so sure.

And the unintended consequence of placing all the emphasis on implementation, as some do, can so easily be that over time the ideas themselves become atrophied, a pale shadow of what will make a real difference, and the flow can start to dry up.

Virgin birth for Egg?

I’ve been re-reading an article from 2008 in The Director magazine about Mike Harris. Apparently he’s the “creator of banking pioneers First Direct and Egg”.

Turns out neither of these innovations was actually Harris’s idea. And, what’s more, “Harris isn’t too concerned where the ideas came from”.

Aaaah. Virgin birth? Wonder how the actual originators of both ideas feel about that? Who were they?

More recently Harris has been part-time “chairman of innovation” at RBS. Think I’m getting a picture here.

Words, words, words

At risk of catching the dread disease of definitionitis (see blogpost, 27 October 2010), I think it’s useful to distinguish between some words that are commonly used and confused. For example…

Invention: is the application of creativity to solve a problem, usually involving technology of one sort or another.

Discovery: is usefully applied to productive new insights and new understandings.

Creativity: is the generation of new thinking, ideas that may be quite speculative in nature.

Innovation: is the process of turning new ideas into reality, making them happen. It usually involves problem-solving.

How am I doing?

Start-ups: where do they start?

Where are ideas born?

There seems to be an assumption that creativity thrives more in small organisations than large ones – and in particular that big new ideas emerge mainly in entrepreneurial start-ups.

It may well be true that new ideas see the light of day in new companies. The question is: were the ideas actually born there?

Some years ago I saw a presentation at an innovation conference from Aston University, whose research showed that ideas were often conceived in large organisations, where they were either suppressed or rejected or simply hidden, before being brought to market by breakaway individuals or teams.

This is certainly a syndrome that I’ve observed frequently over several decades of innovation work. What’s more – it has happened to me personally.

So what are the interesting learnings?

For large organisations, it behoves them to think twice before rejecting or suppressing the ideas of their more creative colleagues. For governments, it might be good to re-think their assumptions concerning the sources of new ideas.

Strangeness in proportion

There are always problems in recognising breakthrough innovations at the initial idea stage.

Incremental innovations are a doddle to get by comparison. I’m sure there are no hard and fast rules. But generally real breakthrough ideas do make one feel uncomfortable. Sometimes even slightly cross.

The real question to ask is: is it really intriguing? Is there something about it that, although it feels unnerving, has one sensing that it just might change the game, be disruptive, break current rules, create a new way of being?

Sir Francis Bacon, a contemporary of Shakespeare (wrongly believed by some to have written those amazing plays and poems), wrote: “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in proportion.”

Worth bearing in mind when you’re confronted with tomorrow’s equivalent of the internet, the mobile phone, the airplane, the bicycle, the light bulb, the plough, the wheel…

Connecting with metaphor

If you catch a cold when things go badly, you’re using metaphor.

If you reach for low hanging fruit when you want immediate success, you’re using metaphor. If you decide to get focussed, deploy new tactics, develop a strategy, attack the competition at their weakest point, launch a new product – you’re using metaphor.

If your sales spike, or peak, or plummet, or plateau, or even are smokin’. Or maybe you’re pushing water uphill. You’re using metaphor.

If you’re going all the way, or the extra mile, or the full nine yards. If you build castles in the air, or on rocky ground. If you’re feeling fragile, or bubbly, or the shadow of your usual self. If you saw it coming, or are in a mental cul-de-sac.

If you have a heart of stone, or, better, of a lion. If you are the light in my life. My North, my South, my East, my West. If you had better pull your socks up. If you’re drowning in work, or jumping for joy. If you’re the apple of my eye. If it’s raining cats and dogs. If you can charm the birds out of the trees. If you’re cold to someone, or coarse, or hard, or flexible, or polished, or soft, or sparky, or seedy. You’re using metaphor.

The theatre and opera director, Jonathan Miller, once wrote: “Since finding out what something is, is largely a matter of discovering what it is like, the most impressive contribution to the growth of intelligibility has been made by the application of suggestive metaphors.”

And since so many of our best new ideas spring from the use of metaphor in making new connections, often quite accidentally, it’s probably best to get good at using it as a more systematic tool in creativity.

As PG Wodehouse put it: “I pressed down on the mental accelerator. The old lemon throbbed fiercely. I got an idea.”

Now that’s the spirit…

But-people

The British are not alone in having a hundred ways of saying “Yes” when we mean “No”.

One of the most effective (and irritating) is the “Yes, but…” formulation, especially when it’s used in response to hearing a new idea for the first time. It has the trappings of positive response, with the sting in the tail. It can sound open-minded without being.

In 1934 the Czech writer, Karel Capek, wrote a piece entitled “About But-people”:

“If you tell them that two twos are four, they will promptly reply with a certain superiority ‘Yes, but, my friend, two threes are six’,” wrote Capek. “Whereupon they leave you feeling satisfied they didn’t yield a point.”

But-people, he concludes, “are by nature poor conductors, so the passing of communication disappears in them.”

“Yes, and…” can be so much more useful - often leading to productive problem-solving.

Dynamic Duo: Dyson and Who?

All the world knows about the brilliance and business success of the British engineer, James Dyson. Widely celebrated as the creative genius behind, amongst others, the bagless vacuum cleaner that showed Hoover the door. Charismatic and articulate front-man. He who talks with prime ministers and presidents.

But, hey, what is it that accounts for the dramatic rise in the company’s business since 1996. The company has grown since that time from £50 million to a staggering £770 million, a fifteenfold increase. At the same time, the company has diversified into 50 countries and is number one in the USA, Japan, much of continental Europe and the company’s home market, Britain.

It was in 1996 that Martin McCourt joined Dyson as a senior manager, becoming CEO in 2001. Clearly Dyson and McCourt make an absolutely outstanding team. What are the ingredients?

“I’m an engineer,” says Dyson, “and I need to know what people might want and where the market might go.” So that’s clear enough. Technical expertise, customer insight and imagination.

But what does McCourt bring to the party? He has described himself as “driven, approachable and questioning.” Three great qualities. But qualities shared with many other top managers.

So what does he look for in new hires? “Come with ideas and have the guts to push for them,” he says. “I like problem-solvers and people with high levels of inquisitiveness.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. Especially as recent research tells us that less than one third of British companies have anything to do with ideas, or problem-solving, or inquisitiveness in their recruitment processes.

I wonder what else there is in their particular mutual chemistry?