The first leg of my US export adventure is almost over. The Kellogg School Marketing Master Class has really inspired me, and it’s worth taking some time to let the learning simmer and distill. But for now, it's time to shift gear, take a short schlep to our office in Delray Beach and manifest ideas into reality. This includes swapping chilly Lake Michigan for the warmth of the Atlantic Ocean.
I get my best ideas in the ocean – I love to plant my feet on the ocean bed, hold my breath and let the waves churn me upside down until I don’t know which way is up. Management gurus would call it a ‘pattern interrupt’ but really, it's an act of surrender.
Why is it so important? Because innovation starts with letting go.
Innovation is not invention; it’s not just about new products; nor is it a radical departure from the past. It’s not even about more new ideas or letting people loose. Innovation is a mind set; an open way of looking at the world that encourages deviation and rewards early failure. Here’s the Kellogg definition:
“Creating new value for customers and the firm by creatively changing any dimension of the business system.”
And the measure of success is new value, not new technology or products. There are twelve vectors of business innovation and only one of them involves traditional knowledge transfer from the labs of universities to the manufacturing shop floor.
Apple doesn’t do invention. The company has a successful one pronged innovation strategy - take what doesn’t work well and make it work better.
Dell waits until a product is commoditized and then competes on its innovative processes.
Then there’s customer innovation, the art of discovering unmet customer needs, (Philips Norelco’s Bodygroom Razor serves men’s needs to shave “below the neck”), or channel innovation to find new routes to market, such as Bank of America’s mini-branches inside supermarkets.
It’s also about overcoming fear of change. In this global economic climate, market safety and financial security are more wobbly than ever. If the most sustainable route to success is through innovative organic growth, then hanging onto the wobbly bits may not be the best strategy for survival.
I recently heard the story of the monkey, the scientist and the banana. A group of monkeys were placed in a cage with a banana hanging from the top of a ladder. Each time a monkey reached for the banana the whole group was hosed down. So the monkeys learned never to reach for the banana. One monkey was replaced. When the new monkey tried to reach for the banana the remaining group attacked it. Eventually all the original monkeys were replaced. This second generation knew never to reach for the banana but had no idea why.
Human organisations are no different! Mr New-Boy joins the company and asks his colleagues why they follow particular ways of working. The response, “that’s corporate policy”!
In the words of Prof. Mohan Sawhney, “Innovation is something that has survived all of management’s attempts to kill it.”
The good news is that most innovation happens in SME start ups. Imagine the international tour de force if business export support were combined with creative innovation support as one integrated, holistic service for small businesses? Now there’s an idea…
They’re calling my flight. All that remains is to say thank you to UKTI, Ellis Goodman and BA for providing an incredible opportunity for our small company to flex its wings and fly. And with that, I’m heading down to the Sunshine State for something completely different… see you all on the other side of security…