“When people hear ‘Innovation’ they think of shiny new objects. So, we don’t really use that word anymore. Now we talk about growth.”
My friend, a VP of Innovation Growth at a large media and entertainment company summed up the state of “innovation” pretty well with that comment.
“Innovation” has become a meaningless buzzword and, after decades of failed investments and initiatives, corporate executives have grown tired of its theatrics and empty promises.
I don’t blame them one bit.
But swapping out one word for another simply because it has less baggage is not the answer.
It’s like putting a Rolls Royce hood ornament on a Kia and trying to sell it for $80,000. It just doesn’t work.
Here’s a break down of Growth, Innovation, and the latest addition to the buzzword pantheon, Transformation.
GROWTH
INNOVATION
TRANSFORMATION
Growth is required for organizations to stay viable. There are a variety of ways to achieve growth including, but not limited to, selling existing offerings to new customers, selling new things to existing customers, and reducing costs.
Innovation is one of the ways that organizations can grow and is most effective when it is used strategically and consistently.
Transformation is required when the likelihood of long-term growth diminishes and the only way to remain a viable entity is to radically and fundamentally change the nature of the organization.
Now that we’ve got the right hood ornaments (definitions) on the right cars (words), I hope that my friend can keep working on innovation and avoids operational efficiency efforts. After all, as a VP of Growth, both could reasonably fall under her mandate.
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Buzzword-iness Scale: 🙄 (1 eye roll): Relates to an essential topic but is probably overused and/or used in a way that is so ambiguous as to elicit sighs, knowing glances, or eye rolls. 🙄 🙄 (2 eye rolls): Appears with greater frequency in the business press and consultant presentations; lots of senior executives and consultants use the term but no one can quickly or concisely define it or explain why it’s important. 🙄 🙄 🙄 (3 eye rolls): Inescapable and meaningless but has been used for so long that we’re stuck with it; lots of people use the term, everyone has their own definition, most can explain why it’s important, few have successfully done it. |
I love stories. When I was a kid, my parents would literally give me a book and leave me places while they ran errands. They knew that, as long as I was reading, I wouldn’t be moved.
But there was one story I hated – The Emperor’s New Clothes
I hated it because it made absolutely no sense. It was a story of adults being stupid and a kid being smart, and, to a (reasonably) well-behaved kid, it was absolutely unbelievable.
No adult would try to sell something that doesn’t exist, like the clothiers did with the cloth. No adult would say they could see something they couldn’t, like the Emperor and the townspeople did. Adults, after all, don’t play at imagination.
As a kid, this story seemed completely wild and unrealistic.
As an adult, this story is so true that it hurts.
The truth of this story touches so many things and innovation is at the top of the list.
I’ve spent my career working in innovation working within large companies and as an advisor to them. I know what executives, like the emperor, request. I’ve said what the consultants say to sell their wares. I believed all of it.
Now I need to be the kid and point out some of the lies, as I see them.
There are lots of reasons why companies won’t and don’t disrupt themselves but, in my experience, there is one reason that trumps them all: It’s not in anyone’s interest.
In most companies, there is not one single person, including the CEO, who has a vested interest (i.e. is incentivized) in taking the time and allocating the resources required to disrupt the current busines.
In most companies, however, there are lots of people who have a vested interest (i.e. make lots of money) in delivering on quarterly or annual KPIs.
Disruption takes time. It took more than 20 years for the hard disk drive industry, the focus of Clayton Christensen’s doctoral research and the basis of the theory of Disruptive Innovation, to be disrupted. Even in today’s faster-paced world, it’s hard to find an industry that, in a span of 5-10 years, ceased to exist as a result of disruptive innovation.
Companies have the resources to disrupt themselves. But executives don’t have the incentive.
OK, this one is more false than true.
Companies need to engage in multiple types of innovation:
Companies should only “act like VCs” when dealing with breakthrough innovations.
VCs are purpose-built to be financially successful in environments where there are more unknowns than knowns. This is why the central tenant of acting like a VC is adopting a portfolio approach and making little bets in lots of companies. When large companies who take this approach to breakthrough innovations, they, like VCs, invest in lots of initiatives thus increasing the odds of investing in a winner.
However, companies that “act like VCs” when it comes to their entire innovation portfolio simply dilute their resources, investing too little in too many things and ultimately decreasing their already low odds of innovation success.
This is because when engaging in core and adjacent innovation, the bulk of innovation pursued by large companies, the knowns typically equal or outweigh the unknowns. As a result, it makes more sense to NOT act like a VC and make medium to large bets in a few initiatives, enabling companies to rapidly launch and scale their core and adjacent innovation initiatives.
The fact that the emperor and all the townspeople believed the emperor was wearing clothes didn’t make it true.
And no amount of “pivoting” – it’s not silk, it’s wool! It’s not green, it’s blue! – was going to make it true.
The same can be said for innovation.
If the innovation isn’t solving a problem, there is no market. Shifting from a product to a service, won’t change that. Nor will changing from a transaction-based model to a subscription model.
Pivoting is how you fit a square peg into a round hole. It’s not how you create a hole for your square peg.
Of course, it’s easy to come up with one, or two, or maybe even three examples of the lie being true. It is those one, or two, or even three examples that are trotted out in every speech, book, article, and consulting pitch to convince us to believe. But the reality is that the exceptions, in this case, prove the rule.
After all, the emperor wasn’t completely naked. He was wearing a crown.
But that doesn’t make the lack of clothes any less embarrassing.
“When you say, ‘uh-huh’ over and over like that, I can tell you’re not listening to me.”
Me, age 7, to my mom
It doesn’t take a lot of experience to know when someone isn’t listening. From a young age, we can tell when someone is listening and when they’re simply responding.
When we’re with the person, we notice the lack of eye contact or the blankness in their eyes showing us where their thoughts are actually at. When we’re on the phone, we hear the repetitive and monotone mumbles that tell us they’re attention is elsewhere.
Yet often, what we want most is simply to be listened to.
This is true in our personal relationships and in our relationships with the businesses and organizations we support. We want people and businesses to listen to our opinions, to understand them, and to thoughtfully respond to them.
Instead, people and businesses simply “hear” us.
According to the Oxford University Press, hearing is “the faculty of perceiving sounds” while listening is “give one’s attention to a sound” and “take notice of and act on what someone says.”
As I explain to my clients, surveys, focus groups, and even in-depth qualitative research is often a Hearing exercise – the company develops a list of questions, asks their customers to answer the questions, then tabulates the answers and passes them along to whoever needs them.
This is a transaction. An exchange of information. It is not listening.
Listening requires engagement. It happens during EPIC conversations, those typified by empathy, perspective, insights, and connection.
Listening accelerates innovation and drives transformation. When we’re listening, we’re learning new information and discovering new insights, which enables companies to create and act differently, differentiating themselves from the competition and ultimately gaining an advantage.
Whether you’re talking to a customer, a colleague, or a friend, you’re talking to someone who wants you to listen, to hear and understand what they are saying. These 5 tips will help you do that and, if done well, discover something wonderful and unexpected with the power to transform.
Originally published on April 20, 2020 on Forbes.com
If you’re innovating without involving your customers, you’re wasting time and money.
I believe this so deeply that I require all of my clients to spend time talking with and listening to their customers at least once during our work together. Investing in customer research, I explain, is the single smartest and best investment that any business can make. Just 5 or 10 customer conversations can dramatically alter the course of an initiative, positioning it for incredible success or killing it before too much time, energy, and money is wasted.
Understanding your customers, especially through Jobs to be Done, is the hill I will die on.
But I actively resist doing this for my business.
The idea of interviewing my customers, or investing to understand their Jobs to be Done, or altering aspects of my business based on their feedback triggers a cold sweat and a very real flight response.
So why is my business different? (It’s not)
Here are the thoughts that run through my head when I consider talking to my own customers:
It is SO much easier, and it feels so much safer, to keep doing what I’m doing because it’s what I’ve always done and it’s what bigger and more “successful” firms do.
Over the years, I’ve spoken with lots of corporate innovators who proposed customer research only to be told, “We already know what we need to know” or “we did research a few years ago, let’s just use that,” or “sure, but we don’t have the resources right now so check back next quarter.”
These reasons make sense. On the surface.
We all know that getting feedback is key to keeping customers and it’s cheaper to keep a customer than acquire a new one. We’ve heard AG Lafley, P&G’s former CEO, proclaim “the consumer is boss.” We understand that when Steve Jobs said he didn’t do customer research it was because he and his inner circle were the customers they designed for and the rest of us would catch-up.
So we come up with reasons why something else (waiting, referring to old data) is a better option. We decide with our hearts (emotions) and justify with our heads. We give logical reasons – we already know this, we’ve already done this, we can’t do this now – so that we don’t have to confess the emotional reasons – fear, discomfort, insecurity – for refusing to do something that seems like common (business) sense.
Here’s what I’m doing:
Honestly, I’m on step 4 and really not looking forward to 5, 6, and 7 but I know that, when this is all done, my business and I will be better off.
At the very least, I will no longer be a hypocrite.
