by Robyn Bolton | Jan 18, 2022 | Innovation, Leadership
It’s January, and even though the end of the year feels far away, you know that it will be here in no time, and you’ll have to deliver on those revenue and profit numbers you committed to during Strat Plan.
You know that growth in your existing business and cost-savings in your operations will get you partway there, but they won’t get you all the way to those goals (and the fat bonus that goes with them).
You know your business needs to innovate and not just this year but next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and….
You know you need to start now. You also know that whatever you do has to produce results and become the way your business does business in the future. But this has been tried before with mixed (or no) results.
Time to put on your Innovation HAT
Innovation is a leadership problem, and the very best leaders, the ones who turn innovation from an organizational problem into a revenue-generating answer, are honest about what’s needed and what’s possible, action-oriented, and mentally and intellectually tough.
In other words, on Day 1, they put their innovation HAT on, and they don’t take it off until innovation is a business capability ingrained in the organization like marketing, finance, and operations.
Honest
As a leader, you first need to be honest with yourself. You know the results you need to deliver and the ones you want to deliver, but are you realistic about what you can deliver?
I once had a CEO ask her innovation team of 3 people to develop a new business from scratch, launch it in 12 months, and deliver $250M revenue in its first year.
She was not honest with herself and, as a result, did not set realistic goals for her team (which, not surprisingly, was disbanded 12 months later).
I also worked with a CEO who asked his team to develop new sources of revenue from scratch that would generate at least $1 revenue that year. Several years later, the business has doubled, and much of that growth comes from sources that didn’t exist when the CEO set his original goal.
Action-oriented
If you want something different, you need to do something different.
While it’s helpful to spend the first few months engaging in an audit of your existing capabilities and resources, developing an innovation strategy, and designing the supporting structures and processes, it can’t come at the expense of doing innovation.
The most effective innovation leaders know that talking and, more importantly, listening to customers is a “No regrets” activity. They understand that no matter the results of the audit, the strategic priorities, or the structure and process design, talking to customers will deliver valuable insights.
They take action to gather the insights that will fuel innovation while they also lay the foundation for a sustainable innovation capability.
Tough
It takes 66 days to build a new habit.
It takes about three years to build and solidify an innovation capability.
You need to be tough and resilient during those three years because those years will be filled with some wins and a lot of losses. You’ll face questions, challenges, and even ridicule. You will have to lift up, encourage, and advocate for your team despite your concerns and doubts. You’ll have to celebrate the first $1 of revenue with the same enthusiasm as you celebrate $100M in your existing business.
What’s your Innovation HAT?
Like all great hats, your Innovation HAT can (and should) be embellished with other qualities and flourishes the reflect you, your leadership style, and your vision for the organization.
What should be part of every leader’s innovation HAT?
What unique flourish do you add to yours?
by Robyn Bolton | Jan 10, 2022 | Innovation, Leadership, Strategy
“Why doesn’t anyone bring me ideas?”
“Why doesn’t anyone ask questions during my meetings?”
“How can I get people to challenge my ideas?”
If you have asked any of these questions, you are not alone.
I hear these questions from managers to C-suite executives in every industry imaginable because they know that sharing ideas, asking questions, and challenging others are core behaviors in innovation.
The answers vary by person and the company, but all tend to fall under the umbrella of “Lack of Psychological Safety.”
No one wants to hear that the culture of their team or their organization isn’t “Psychologically Safe.” Does that mean that the culture is “Psychologically Unsafe?” That doesn’t sound good. That sounds like a lawsuit. And even if the culture isn’t “unsafe,” what does “safe” look like?
These are some of the questions that Timothy R. Clark sets out to answer in his book, “The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation.”
What is “Psychological Safety?”
Academics have studied Psychology Safety since the 1960s, but Amy Edmondson’s 1999 paper ushered it into daily use. Today, Psychological Safety is commonly defined as a shared belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.
Clark goes a step further to identify four types, or stages, of Psychological Safety:
- Inclusion Safety: People feel safe and accepted for who they are, including the different and unique aspects of themselves
- Learner Safety: People engage in the learning process by asking questions, giving and receiving feedback, experimenting, and making mistakes
- Contributor Safety: People use their skills and abilities to make a difference in the team and/or organization
- Challenger Safety: People speak up, challenge the status quo, and pursue opportunities for change or improvement
Each type builds on the other, which means that, as a leader, you can’t have a culture in which people challenge your ideas (Challenger Safety) if they don’t feel that they belong (Inclusion) AND comfortable asking questions AND are willing to work to improve or change things.
That’s a tall order as far as culture goes. Add to that the common belief that all four types of Psychological Safety are required for innovation, and it’s no wonder you feel overwhelmed by the task of creating an innovative organization.
How much Psychological Safety is required for innovation?
That depends on what you mean by “innovation.”
(sorry, I know that’s a lame “consultant” answer, but it’s true, so stick with me)
If what you mean by “innovation” is something that improves what you already do and how you do it (core innovation) or changes one element of what you do or how you do it (adjacent innovation), then you don’t need all four stages.
Contributor Safety is Required
Core and Adjacent innovation aren’t sexy. But, for most companies, they are sufficient to inspire and grow the business for at least 5-10 years.
As a leader, of a large existing business, with hundreds or thousands of employees and customers, multiple sites, and complex operations, you can’t possibly know everything that’s happening everywhere. So you rely on your employees to work hard, do their best, and bring all their skills and experiences to bear for the organization. You need them to ask, “How can we do this better?” and develop an answer. You need them to contribute.
To ensure that your employees contribute to operations AND innovations, you need to build and sustain a culture where people feel they belong, are encouraged to learn (even from mistakes), and contribute their thoughts based on their knowledge.
Challenger Safety is a Red Herring
Radical, breakthrough, and disruptive innovation are sexy. But it’s insanely hard because it requires the creation of a new business model AND the destruction of the existing one.
The good news is that most companies don’t need to destroy their existing business and replace it with something new. As a result, they definitely don’t need employees constantly challenging the status quo. Questioning the status quo by asking, “How can we do this better?” is fine. Asserting that everything needs to be changed or else is counterproductive.
As a leader, it’s a good idea to cultivate Challenger Safety with a small circle of trusted advisors. Even one person who has permission to challenge you is sufficient. That is how you get to the best idea and create the most value.
You don’t need an entire organization challenging each other and everything they do. That is how you get frustration, chaos, and destroy value.
It’s And, not Or
Psychological Safety is an innovation requirement AND a red herring.
If you know the type of innovation you want, what results you need, and when you need them, you can focus your efforts on creating and sustaining the right level and scope of psychological safety required to deliver on those goals.
Which makes me wonder….
What type of Psychological Safety does your team need?
What do you do to build Psychological Safety?
How do you encourage people to share ideas and ask questions?
Share your answers in the comments. I promise to respond to each one AND I’m certain your fellow innovators will thank you.
by Robyn Bolton | Nov 12, 2021 | Innovation, Leadership, Tips, Tricks, & Tools
“We are not lost. I know exactly where we are. Granted, it’s not where we want to be. Where we want to be is over there somewhere. I just need a moment to figure out how we get there.”
– Me to my husband every time we go to a new city and I convince him to go on a walk.
The Big Squiggly
Last week, the 13th class of Driving Intrapreneurship graduated and, as always, I was tremendously proud of the executives who, in the span of 8 short weeks, went from identifying a problem to writing an innovation business plan to secure funding and resources to continue their work.
One of the things we talk about constantly in the course is “The Big Squiggly” – a simple line drawing that starts off as a big, knotty, crumpled, chaotic mess before eventually sorting itself out and turning int a clean and simple straight line.
We spend most of the 8 weeks in The Big Squiggly and it’s even more uncomfortable and stressful than people imagine it will be when I first introduce the concept. But as the weeks go on, they get a little more comfortable and, by graduation, the mere mention of The Big Squiggly elicit knowing nods and confident smiles.
What To Do When You’re In The Big Squiggly
Innovators live in The Big Squiggly. Some of us love it there and some of us endure it because really, all we want to do, is bring order to chaos. Most of us in The Big Squiggly are like my students – uncomfortable at best and deeply stressed at worst.
In fact, being in The Big Squiggly can feel like being in the middle of a crisis.
Interestingly, they way innovators work through The Big Squiggly is very very similar to how leaders are taught to manage crises. Here is the 6-step approach that Harvard Professor Dutch Leonard teaches in his Crisis Management for Leaders course:
- Establish a team and process to identify, understand, and reframe issues
- Assemble a team with diverse perspectives
- Engage in iterative, agile problem-solving
- Create conditions (facilitated deliberation, diversity, psychological safety, inquiry not advocacy) for successful agile problem-solving
- Execute chosen actions but treat them as tentative and experimental
- Set reasonable expectations that you are making your best effort, learning rapidly, not everything will work, and we’ll keep working until it does
Hmmmmm, sounds exactly like how innovation works, too.
We’re all in The Big Squiggly Together
Everyone is innovating right now. From big companies responding to the Great Resignation and supply chain disruptions, to individuals trying to figure out whether and when to work form home or the office . We’re all doing something different, hoping it creates value, and pivoting until it does.
Yes, we are being forced to innovate and, like all innovation efforts, we’re not getting everything perfect but we’re learning a heck of a lot. Just imagine what we could do if we keep innovating when the crisis ends. Imagine the problems we could solve and the things we could create if we choose to continue to listen, learn, and experiment!
My friend, Dr. Anne Waple, has been a climate scientist for over 25 years. About a year ago, she spoke at Speakers Who Dare about her vision for Earth’s Next Chapter. Even in the early days of America’s response to COVID-19, Anne encouraged people to not just focus on problems because, when we do that, we don’t actually solve them. Instead, she asserted, driving positive, big, lasting global change starts when we ask questions about the world we want and believe we can have fun making it happen.
Together, We Can Get Out of The Big Squiggly
We are not lost. We’re just not where we want to be right now.
Yes, The Big Squiggly is uncomfortable and stressful. But it’s not forever. By asking questions about the world we want, we can define “over there somewhere.” How we get there is through innovation and we know and are already practicing the steps.
by Robyn Bolton | Oct 26, 2021 | Innovation, Leadership, Strategy
A few weeks ago, I wrote that innovation happens in the gaps and offered a few suggestions for finding and closing those gaps.
But I only told you half of the story.
The gaps I wrote about are market gaps, the ones between what your customers want or need and what you offer.
These gaps are relatively easy to close because they exist through no fault of our own and we have tools like customer research and R&D to help close them. Closing these gaps is simply what we are in business to do.
But there are other gaps. Gaps that are harder close, mainly because no one wants to see them. These are the gaps inside your organization – the ones that exist between what you need, want and are willing to do.
These gaps exist because status quo is more comfortable and certain, and executives have little to no incentive to close them. These are the gaps that create room for disruption and take down once-great companies.
Mind the INTERNAL Gaps
Need: What you must do to stay in business. Need To Dos aren’t glamorous, doing them won’t give you a competitive edge or make you immune to disruption. But, if you don’t do them, you’ll go out of business much faster than if you do.
Want: What you aspire to do. Want To Dos are what you wish your company would do, achieve, or be known for. These are the things you declare at company meetings, the BHAGs, and the visions. They are what inspire and motivate employees. They are also things that rarely happen because…
Willing: What you do in addition to the Need To Dos. If “want” is the talk, “willing” is the walk. Doing the Wants drives your resources allocation and investment decisions, drives the goals and KPIs you measure, and determines the expectations you set with shareholders. Willing is what you commit to and base your compensation, and maybe even job, on
Close the Gaps
Need / Want: The Comfortable Gap
Closing this gap is comfortable because you know how to do it. You know that just doing the basics isn’t enough to survive in a competitive world and you have experience investing in improvements that are almost certain to increase revenues and/or decrease costs in the near-term.
If you have a gap between what you need to do and what you want to do, understand why the gaps exist and invest in closing them.
Need / Willing: The Deadly Gap
Avoiding this gap is what drives most executives and entrepreneurs because this is where companies die. Startups face this gap when they need more capital but investors aren’t willing to provide it or when they need to pivot but are unwilling to let go of their idea.
Giant, successful companies face this when consumer expectations change, technology leaps forward, and the basis of competition shifts. They see it happening, but they are unwilling to change. They cling to their business models, relentlessly focusing on better serving their best customers until they are, ultimately, disrupted.
If you face a Need/Willing gap, you need to decide whether you will let go of the safety of the current business to invest in disrupting it or whether you will “get while the getting’s good” and milk as much revenue and profit out of the business before it finally succumbs. Both options are valid but making a choice requires great courage. Unfortunately, most executives are too afraid to make that choice and their companies become victims of indecision.
Want / Willing: The Heart-breaking Gap
Seeing this gap is hard because it exists as a direct result of decisions made by the very leaders who seek to close it. How many times have you heard an executive declare “We need to be more innovative!” and then embark on a year-long cost-cutting initiative? Or ask people to come up with ideas in their free time? Or shift resources from innovation to core business operations?
If seeing the gap is hard, closing it is infinitely harder. Closing it requires change, it requires executives and employees to do things differently, often doing the opposite of what they’ve always done. It requires smart risk taking and the willingness to learn. It requires prioritizing the next decade over the next quarter.
If you face a Want/Willing gap, you need to look in the mirror and honestly answer two hard questions – Why do you want to be more innovative? What are you, personally, willing to sacrifice to be more innovative?
If your only answer to the first question is, “I think we should be,” or your answer to the second is “nothing,” STOP. The gap is too big to close because you don’t have the will to do what needs to be done to drive change.
But if you have clear and meaningful answers to the first question and you’re willing to make personal sacrifices if required, then you’re ready to do the challenging, frustratingly slow, but profoundly rewarding work necessary to close the gap.
Mind the Gap or Close the Gap?
There are gaps that we comfortably live with, gaps that will destroy us, and gaps that will break our hearts. All gaps can be closed, but each requires different levels of commitment, courage, and time.
Are you willing to close the gap?
by Robyn Bolton | Aug 28, 2021 | Innovation, Leadership
I do. We do. You do.
My Mom taught pre-school. It wasn’t a job; it was her calling. Kids gravitated to her like she was the Pied Piper, and she greeted them with unequaled patience, acceptance, and love. Years later, her students would talk about how she changed their lives when they were only four years old. And she did it by following one simple rule.
I do. We do. You do.
Whatever she was teaching, whether it was sitting still at a table and eating a snack or writing the alphabet, she always did it first so the kids would know that it’s possible and not be afraid to try.
Then, they would do the activity together. Side-by-side, they would eat a snack or draw letters, the kids occasionally glancing to the side to mimic her and my Mom gently coaching and encouraging.
Finally, she would step back, never disappearing completely, always within sight, but no longer right there. By doing this, she created the space for them to be independent and to build confidence.
It is easy to say that she was teaching.
It is more accurate to say that she was leading.
It is precisely what executives need to do if they want to build a culture and capability of innovation within their teams and businesses.
I do.
It is not enough to encourage your team to take risks. YOU need to take risks. Ask a question in a meeting. Say, “I don’t know.” Challenge the status quo. Be the first to do something different or uncertain, so your people know that it’s possible and aren’t afraid to try.
We do.
Don’t sit back in judgment, demanding that your teams present their work to you, and bombarding them with questions that begin with, “Did you think about…?” or demands for data that couldn’t possibly exist.
Instead, coach them and encourage them. Sit next to them as they share the work they’ve done and ask questions to learn more. Work with them as they think through options and examine alternatives.
You do.
It’s tempting to want to stay in the work and continue exploring and creating, but you eventually need to step back and let the team work. Give them the time and space to make progress without constant updates. Give them the resources to do bigger and better things. Give them more independence so they can build their confidence and a track record of success.
But don’t disappear. Be close enough that when the team needs you, you’re just a shout away. Most importantly, actively advocate for and defend the team when the cultural antibodies hell-bent on defending the status quo arrive and begin their attack.
I do We do You do is what leadership looks like.
Whether you’re learning the alphabet or innovating within a big company.
by Robyn Bolton | Apr 27, 2021 | Leadership
Some conversations stick with you for a long time.
Some conversations take your breath away the moment they happen.
A few weeks ago, I had one that did both.
“Everyone is focused on ‘humanizing’ work,” my client said. “I wish people would de-humanize work. I would love nothing more than to be treated like a line of code or a piece of equipment. We treat our code and equipment better than we treat our people.
When a piece of equipment doesn’t work, we send in teams of people to fix it. We study what went wrong, we fix the error, and we take action to make sure it doesn’t happen again. We don’t expect a line of code to work in every operating system, to be able to do everything in every context. We know that we need to adapt it for iOS or Android.”
As I picked my jaw up off the floor and put my eyes back in my skull, she continued.
“But people…when a person is struggling, we don’t send anyone to help. We don’t ask why they’re struggling or study the situation or take action so that no one else experiences the same problem. We expect the person to either fix their own problem or to leave.
We expect everyone to be able to work in every situation and when there’s a mismatch, we expect the more junior person to ‘expand their toolkit’ and ‘learn to work with other styles’ or to leave.
“If we treated our people the way we treat our products, our people would be so much happier, and we’d be so much more successful as a company.
Talk about a truth bomb.
And it’s not just her company. It’s almost every company I’ve worked for or with.
Think about it. What happens when a project is going off the rails? Or a product is malfunctioning? Or a shipment is delayed or missed? The team, maybe even the full company, shifts its focus to solving the problem. People, time, money, all of it funnels to fixing the problem and getting things back on track.
But what about when a person or a team is struggling? Or about to burn out? Or devolving into dysfunction? They become the problem and people start to back away. They’re given self-guided training. They’re reminded of their job responsibilities and expectations. They’re put in a new role and made someone else’s “problem.” They’re let go from the company.
When a product isn’t meeting expectations, we rush to help.
When a person isn’t meeting expectations, we back away.
Maybe we do need to start treating our people like our products.
Maybe de-humanizing work is the key to making it work for humans.
