Category Archives: Innovation

Customer Centered Leadership

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Ladies and Gentleman, The Beatles!

If ever there was one best Business Guru, it would have to be Peter Drucker. His work emerged during the height of the Industrial Age and serves as the foundation of management practice in most businesses today. Just like picking your favorite Beatles song (A Day In The Life), it’s kind of hard to boil his work down to one statement. But here’s mine:

Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business (The Practice of Management, 1954).

There is one word in this quote that might need to be modernized, but only because we can assume Mr. Drucker was naturally influenced by his era, and not yet hip to the power of design and the more recent practices of customer empathy. To make the most sense in today’s world, I propose we change the word “create” to “discover” as it better underscores the idea of providing something for a customer versus selling them some new widget. We’ve certainly learned by now that the world will NOT beat a path to your door if you build a better mousetrap (Ralph Waldo Emerson). Customers will flock to your company only if you are solving a problem or fulfilling a need, even if they aren’t aware they have it yet.

Marketing is responsible for discovering customer needs and innovation is responsible for solving them. Hand and glove. Many innovators have an initial customer insight and design a solution for that. Often this is “design for self” where the solution feels right to the one inventing it. I’d say most early stage businesses created only a minimum viable product or have no sustainable advantage, so quickly burn through early stage growth and stall. In today’s Internet fueled, flat world, companies can go through this initial growth stage in a matter of months. In the good ‘ol days of Henry Ford, it could take years to run out of the initial growth stage (perhaps 125, if they don’t get busy quickly at Ford).

The only way out of this problem is to understand your customer intimately, and adapt to the continual pace of change around you. This requires a new kind of corporate framework. The pace of business technology is moving so fast that people are now able to see the real impact of robots, machine learning, and computing power as human jobs are replaced by automation and artificial intelligence. Left to the Industrial model of organization, people are essentially machines who can be replaced with technological advancement. To function in our high tech, rapid change world companies need to build human centered organizations or risk losing all ability to market and innovate. This would be a very bad state for businesses because they would soon be without customers with no human insight, synthesis, or creativity operating within their organization.

Human Centered Organizations

Traditional businesses are built in a hierarchical model that works well in a predictable, stable business environment. In the past several decades, as uncertainty and change increase, there have been plenty of replacement designs proposed (e.g. Holacracy, Heterarchy, etc.). But these distinctions are missing the point, and therefore don’t solve the problem. A human centered organization isn’t a different way to decide or control, it’s purpose-built to enable creativity and collaboration. These are the two essential capabilities underlying the best marketing and innovation functions. Under the dominant hierarchical world, we’re stuck searching for Purple Squirrels to build Unicorns. Wait, What? We’ve designed companies that need extremely rare people to achieve what is now the expected standard of venture capital investments. Sorry, but I can’t help myself, here’s my other favorite Druckerism as it relates to organization design: (Beatles #2=Love Me Do)

No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.

To be successful in today’s world, and achieve the purpose described by Drucker, businesses must enable average human beings to perform at their best. To perform at their best, people need to be well. I’ve covered this part before so I won’t re-hash it here. I will suggest a new label for human-centered organization design for those seeking a simple way to net this out: reciprocity.

Reciprocity

Reciprocity is the organizing principle of a human-centered organization. It is built on the seminal economic insight from the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The essence is that cooperation is natural for humans and better than the rational choice of selfishness. In common terms, we’re talking about “win-win” here. Most traditional organizations are designed to control for selfish/rational behavior and become disengaging as they dehumanize and under value collaboration. A reciprocal organization empathizes with human failings and has support and resources designed into the system to encourage higher order behavior in three ways:

1. Growth Mindset
2. Personal Effectiveness
3. Everyday Presence

When organizations are designed to support employees in these three areas they are far more creative and collaborative. Therefore, they are better able to market and innovate, which is to discover and solve customer problems.

Innovation or hubris?

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I just finished reading a great article by Austin Carr in Fast Company. He tells the long and sordid story of a multiyear, billion dollar effort by Disney to “overhaul the digital infrastructure” and “change the fundamental nature of Disney’s park experience” for customers. Now that’s an ambitious and exciting call to action! The article struck a chord for me because I just got back from a 5 day vacation at Disney World with my family for our Spring Break.

Disney Crowd

I’ve been to Disney parks more than a handful of times since my kids have been around, starting about 15 years ago. I have to say that I did not experience any appreciable change in this last visit that I would classify as an “overhaul” or certainly not a shift in the “fundamental nature” of the experience. I did notice a few new things here and there and was quite curious about the effort it took to replace paper tickets with an electronic pass. I saw people entering with wrist bands, but my family had little plastic cards like you find in most hotels. I found out you have to be staying in a Disney hotel to get one of the bands. Oh well. They didn’t seem to do anything different than the cards and I didn’t have the kids bugging me to buy yet another little Disney item to stick on them.

The dominant aspect of my experience was waiting. Waiting in lines for rides, waiting for the crowd to move so I could get where I wanted to go. Waiting for the Park Attendant to re-set our cards because the Fast Pass names didn’t align with the fingerprint names recorded within. We discovered this problem when we tried to split up on two different rides and we all got blue signals when we tried to get through the Fast Pass gate. We had three great ride entry experiences each day where the Fast Pass shortened our waiting by as much as an hour (down from 90 minutes to something like 30). We also had to wait for transportation… wait for the Monorail, wait for a bus, wait for a boat. All the waiting made my Disney experience something I had to tolerate on behalf of my 4-year old niece who is currently in the Princess Sweet Spot. But it did not really make me happy.

It was very fun to watch my niece’s eyes light up with all the magic, and my daughters really enjoyed taking their little cousin around and experiencing her joy together. I wonder about princesses as role models, and have some vague concerns with the Disney gender stereotypes, but I’ll leave that for another time. Mostly, Disney is good clean fun and overall I’d say I’m a Disney fan, but I was very glad when the trip was over.

cinderella_laugh

The Reinventing Happiness article made me recall many observations and thoughts I had about how Disney World seems to be falling behind, or appears out of sync with today’s ideas of entertainment. It’s quaint, it’s cute, but it’s aging drastically. In Tomorrow Land I rode gasoline powered cars on the Speedway and experienced a traffic jam as the ride ended (more waiting). My son and I sat there breathing in the gas fumes and listening to the “lawnmower” engines revving and I thought, “This is not Tomorrow, this is Yesterday! Maybe they should partner with Tesla to create a driving experience that’s ahead of our time, showing how solar power can be converted to a quiet, smooth, and exciting new driving experience. That would be cool.

I liked the Disney World mobile app for the map showing ride wait times, and a way to keep track of my Fast Passes, but noticed there was no “digital layer” where I could interact with the rides. Now that I’ve read they recently overhauled their digital infrastructure, this is actually startling. While in line (waiting) with my daughter for the Expedition Everest ride, we used Google to look up “tallest coasters” to see just how scary this might be for us. In the line for Thunder Mountain, we Googled a story on the Chilean miners who were trapped for a month, and talked about why there was a canary in the tubes. These were both interesting discussions to help pass the time while we were in line and both digital (Google) experiences were triggered by the rides themselves. I remember thinking that someone should use the Disney story telling prowess to create a companion experience. I’ve been around app building enough to know it wouldn’t cost that much to make something really cool.

At the Animal Kingdom we discovered the “Up” inspired Wilderness Explorers program. It took some searching, but we found a place to get the book and my younger kids got fully engaged in “earning” the badges. I like workbooks as a learning device, and it was cool to see them with pencils stuck over their ears meeting the various “ambassadors” who shared interesting tidbits with them. But again, I started to imagine many ways a digital companion experience could be designed to make the program more powerful and to connect beyond the Park. I even thought a start-up could have a cool partnership with Disney around storytelling and animal conservation… perhaps linking to Kiva or another micro-financing service to put wells in South Sudan. Could they connect with Salva Dut? That would be really cool!

Lastly, I found it humorous and a bit sad that you can purchase a “chip enabled” mug at Blizzard Beach so you can get an “endless soda” for the day. We tested the machines with our water bottles and found that only an activated cup will make the soda flow. I enjoy a corn dog, an ice cream bar Mickey, and a churro as much as the next guy, but endless soda is simply out of sync with public health and basic wellness. A cool digital experience, but completely wrong from a family entertainment standpoint. Maybe they could do a partnership with Fit Bit or Withings or JawBone or Nike…

Unlimited Soda 2

I did experience Test Track, and even without a Magic Band I could use my “magic” card at the touch points of that ride. It was a good ride and the shortening effect on the line was real for me too. A nice step in the right direction. But I don’t think Disney can claim victory on “reinvention” or “transformation” or “fundamental change” from their billion dollar initiative. Not even close. It’s even worse hearing that they think they are leading with creativity and innovation. They are clearly not. That’s why they had to buy Pixar. They do have a great marketing engine though.

I think they demonstrated many of the reasons why many companies fail at innovation. In fact this would be a great case study article (thanks Austin!) on what NOT to do if you want to address transformation. Starting with a leader who mandates “This better work!” and then puts executives in a “bake off” to see who will win the future CEO job, and ending with a bevy of “back up” consultants costing $100 Million.

From my cheap seats on the sidelines, I think the MyMagic+ team attached to the bracelet idea too early and then set about hammering it in to place. This was not innovation, it was a desperate attempt to remain relevant. So they bounced around with a million ideas from every direction and got overwhelmed by internal politics. Innovation requires a compelling vision to overcome that kind of resistance. Innovation is driven from the “outside in” starting with deep insights into the customer experience and emerging via a disciplined process involving intimate collaboration. I’ve talked about innovation many times before, so I won’t go into it further now.

Waiting in lines and messing with paper tickets are pain points for Disney customers, so you could call that a customer insight. But removing an obvious pain point with solutions that are found everywhere, does not qualify as innovation. It is simply keeping up.

Love is a two-way street

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[this post appeared previously on the Bulldog Drummond blog]

Oh Love

Why do you love someone? Not the specific aspects of a specific person, but the broader reasons underlying love. I think it’s because of things like respect, trust, passion and reciprocity. Love is built on deep values shared by both people. This is not a wedding, so I won’t get all religious here, but suffice it to say that love is not about control, it’s about mutual admiration and devotion. If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free.

So why is it that so many businesses rely on intrusion, persistence and repetition to win your love? I think it’s because businesses rarely love their customers the way they expect their customers to love their brands. They are on a power trip. Yes, there are a small number of companies who truly love their customers and provide genuine reciprocal devotion. But not many. In a loving human relationship, there are many things that partners do for each other that have practical value. Like taking out the trash (without complaining) or picking someone up at the airport (a binding social contract according to Jerry Seinfeld). Surely, products have practical value in your life. Isn’t that the whole point? Tide helps you clean your clothes and Toyota helps you get to work… for a fair price.

A practical exchange of value is on the level of paying an employee to do a job. It gets the job done, but is “strictly business.” You pay for the detergent or car, and the company delivers a product that meets your specific needs. But love is on a whole different level. You might even “love” the way your car drives, or the way your detergent smells, but that’s not being in love with the brand. Being in love with a brand requires a deeper, more meaningful relationship… one that goes beyond simply exchanging money for a product. Similarly, being fully engaged in your work requires much more than fair pay for the effort you invest (What is employee engagement?).

Any business that wants to move past a business transaction and into a loving relationship has to start giving more than a product or service. You can’t have it both ways (for long). Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a transactional business relationship. This only applies when a business has decided that love is a better strategy to run their business than a series of practical transactions. But there’s a pile of evidence that love leads to good things.

Elevation

In most businesses, a series of repeated purchases are far more profitable than a revolving door of new customers coming and going after only one try. The Loyalty Effect and Customer Lifetime Value are smart ways to think about evaluating customers over the long term. And Saatchi and Saatchi established the ideal of love marks as the “future beyond brands.” According to them, a love mark “delivers beyond your expectations of great performance and reaches your heart as well as your mind, creating an intimate, emotional connection that you just can’t live without.” So in order to win customers for life, it makes sense to elevate your aspirations and aim for love.

Love Is A Many Splendored Thing, but the stakes are high. You can’t just offer points for repeated purchases as most loyalty programs require. That’s controlling and obvious. Imagine if you only gave your partner a back massage if they take out the trash 20 times without complaining. That looks more like manipulation, and would be a red flag on the health of your relationship.

Every Day is a Winding Road

Both partners have to give fully “above and beyond” the practical value of their existence together to make a loving relationship work. Loving a brand is not all about devoted customers. It’s also about a devoted company. Brand consultants Wolff Olins recommend “thinking less about selling people, and more about enlisting them.” In a Wired interview with former Wolff Olins CEO Karl Heiselman suggests “Unlike the parent-child relationship of the past, or the top-down relationship in the past, companies and people are meeting as equals. It’s much more like a one-on-one relationship you would have with another person. It’s based on reciprocity and honesty and trust” (Check out the Wolff Olins/Flamingo full report).

So what does devotion look like for a brand? It starts with a clear set of values and a strong sense of purpose. Patagonia has stated that they want to save the planet from consumerism. An apparent contradiction for a company that makes clothes and puts out seasonal catalogs to get customers to buy more stuff. But in loving relationships, contradictions are something to embrace and explore together, not to be hidden or avoided. Clearly Patagonia is doing a lot to improve their impact on the planet, and being transparent about their intentions and owning up to their faults builds trust with customers. In an open relationship, there’s no hidden dark side or eventual “gotcha” moment where the truth comes out. There’s an honest, open dialogue about how they can be better.

Being honest and transparent is a great way for brands to demonstrate love for their customers, but there are other great ways. Instead of making every interaction a product push, brands can offer inspiration, insight, or support to their customers between and around purchases. Giving customers something they value beyond the specific product doesn’t have to cost a lot, it just has to feel right to the customer. Sometimes you can just make it easy for a customer by sharing good information or good advice instead of presenting a special offer or feature highlight. This approach to customers is nothing less than a complete re-engineering of advertising from a constant sales pitch to grab your attention, to helpful advice, aducation and inspirational content.

Fools in Love

Sometimes love requires breaking rules based on empathy for a customer’s situation. My family recently took a vacation to France, and while away my Mother-in-law became very sick. She was seriously ill when we left, but had an unexpected setback that suddenly threatened her life. My wife had to return home early, and called Air France to rearrange her flight. Of course this late notice change of plans caused a substantial fare increase of over $1500. The airline was under no business obligation to honor the original fare, so they didn’t. They offered to waive the $150 change fee if she got a letter from the hospital indicating her condition.

This is not love. This is war. We do not fly to France every week, so getting the highest fee for a one-time transaction might be good business. But, I would guess not many people love Air France, which means they’ll choose another airline if given the option. A loving brand would offer support and condolences and make sure she got home quickly with little resistance so she could be with her dying mother.

Brands can be more lovable by setting their customers free to “live their brand” in ways that align with the brand’s values. That’s more than getting people to drink a soda like Mountain Dew or wear a Van’s shoe. Mountain Dew and Vans both show that a real personality attracts a special type of customer into a deeply committed relationship, where they build the brand together into an authentic lifestyle.

The Power Of Love

It’s up to each business to decide if they want to pursue a loving relationship with their customers, or stick to a more businesslike, transactional approach. For some it may be too expensive (or maybe they’re just not ready yet). But there is plenty of research to show that customers actually want to love brands.

A long-term study by The Spending Group found that 48% of American consumers fall into a group they call the New Economic Order (NEO). The research shows that these “NEOs” value factors like design, authenticity, and experience higher than cost. The other 52% fit into a group they call “Traditionals,” who make buying decisions based mostly on the short-term value of a transaction. Both groups are substantial and should be met in an appropriate manner by businesses. But the kicker of the research is that NEO’s account for 77% of consumer spending, which is especially important during difficult economic conditions.

NEOs see products and services as an extension of themselves and seek authentic relationships and meaningful experiences. To win their affections, brands must work hard and offer more than a simple transaction. In the service industry, this is talked about as “surprising and delighting” customers at every turn. Just as you would bring flowers to a friend for no reason at all, brands must provide authentic, non-paying opportunities to connect with their customers if they want to earn loving status. There’s no way these efforts can be a disguised ploy to push product, or it will feel fake or forced to customers. It has to be no-strings-attached, genuine giving.

It’s not easy, but it is possible to establish long-term, committed relationships between companies and customers. And these types of relationships are great for the business and great for the customer.

All You Need Is Love.

Discography:

Oh Love (Green Day, 2012)
If You Love Somebody Set Them Free (Sting, 1985)
Elevation (U2, 2000)
Love Is A Many Splendored Thing (The Four Aces, 1955)
Everyday Is A Winding Road (Sheryl Crow, 1996)
Fools In Love (Joe Jackson, 1979)
The Power Of Love (Huey Lewis & The News, 1985)
All You Need Is Love (Beatles, 1967)

 

 

 

The innovation 2 step

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2stepOne of the longest standing designers at IDEO, Jim Yurchenco recently retired, and they posted a great video of him sharing some of his career lessons.

Jim Yurchenco : Reflecting on 35 Years at IDEO

The part that grabbed my attention was Jim’s statement that you should “never accept done for good, or good for excellent.” He continues by encouraging us to always ask someone you respect to look at what you are doing and say, “What do you think? What could we do better? Does this make sense?”

Innovation is a team sport, never a solo endeavor

While Jim’s first statement is a pithy, memorable bit of wisdom, the second contains the secret to innovation. Innovation is a team sport, never a solo endeavor. Innovation is a creative, iterative, collaborative process that takes place over time… not a single moment of brilliant insight. Sure, there are many insightful moments punctuating each journey, but without input from others those moments drift away, wither into nothing, or fail to hatch.

Input from multiple perspectives is imperative for innovation

Put simply, input from multiple perspectives is a requirement of innovation. It’s not that “aha moment” you have in the shower that’s the key. It’s how you share that idea with others and allow it to be shaped from an insight into an actionable idea that matters.

But even that secret is not sufficient to produce innovation in a reliable manner. You know the go-and-get-feedback routine… you create a first draft, sketch a concept, or even build a working prototype. Then you run it by a bunch of people to gauge their reactions. Some provide good ideas you hadn’t thought of, some just say “cool” and others give you feedback that just doesn’t seem to fit.

Most people take the good reactions as a sign to move forward, discount the worst comments, and perhaps choose a small improvement to add to their idea so they can get on with their plans. But this process doesn’t really transform the idea––it perhaps rounds off a few rough edges, but mostly serves to keep you in your comfort zone with this new idea. The first round of feedback is like an appetizer that gets the party started, but doesn’t really fulfill your needs.

True innovation develops through sharing information and opinions

After watching hundreds of great designers and entrepreneurs go about their daily routines, I’ve noticed they dance with an idea until it becomes something wholly different than what they started with. Sharing the “thing” you’re working on to get reactions, advice, guidance, etc. is just the first of two steps of sharing. The best innovators share the knowledge they’ve gathered in the first step with another set of people to compare the input and make sense of it. Then they start over with the first step and repeat the cycle many times.

The first step is for reactions and ideas on the thing you are working on. The second step is a meta-level “input on the input” discussion where the innovator gains a much deeper level of critique and synthesis that reshapes and improves the input. Instead of just gathering a bunch of single points and comparing them, the best innovators facilitate a spiraling dialog that might look something like this:

Innovator: Why did you say it should be round, but he said it should be square?

Person A: Well, I hadn’t thought about making it square. That’s an interesting point he’s made.

Person B: Yes, I’m sure it must be square because the technology you need won’t fit otherwise. But I see how round would be more appealing now.

Person C: I see how the technology won’t fit, but I really think the user will appreciate a different form. This feels like a compromise. We had this same problem on another project…

Innovation is the relentless pursuit of solving trade-offs until you reach a breakthrough. It’s not easy, and generally not efficient. It takes time, and most importantly, it takes input from others. Don’t hide your ideas and early concepts—get out there, ask for input and ask again (and again) until you refine and shape your idea into something truly excellent.

Grow or die

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This is the irrefutable lesson of open systems, and an important key to understanding trends in your life.

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Open systems

First let’s establish the basic parts of an open system so I can easily refer to them throughout this post. An open system is any complex thing like a plant, animal, or organization. In each of these systems, there are sub-systems that interact among themselves (like breathing and blood flow, the sub-systems have components that do stuff (like lungs pulling oxygen from air), inputs to the system (like air), and outputs of the system (like bad breath). Inputs frequently have an impact on the outputs (like eating garlic), but sometimes are unrelated.

It’s important to remember that the environment surrounding a system changes over time, causing the system to deal with those changes by either adapting or ceasing to work. This circumstance is the basis of the statement, “grow or die.” Other words for growth might be adapt or evolve, but growth has the nice connotation of positive change and forward progress, so I like it better. What might be a good source of supply to a system today could totally disappear tomorrow, causing a complete breakdown of the system (like how jumping into a pool removes access to air for your lungs).

Or perhaps the inputs contain elements that are good and necessary (like oxygen) but also contain things that are harmful (like cigarette smoke or asbestos). Our lungs are able to process the good things and keep our bodies functioning well, but gradually the bad things reduce that capacity or grow into negative subsystems like cancer. Oxygen helps our bodies grow in size and capacity, but the negative elements reduce or limit that growth in trade-offs between good and bad.

So now let’s consider the idea of growth over time and science (i.e. the study of millions of open systems) gives us the S curve.

Growth curve of a bacteria colonyThe S-Curve is often referred to as the Growth Curve because the vertical axis represents the change in size, volume, or some other capacity as time moves forward on the horizontal axis. Consider this chart showing the growth of bacteria in several phases. In many open systems the stationary and decline stages stretch out over a long period of time and look more like a wave. There are alternating periods of growth and decline as the system adjusts to environmental changes like food or some other important input.

Humans can grow in so many different ways it’s hard to keep track of them all.  Our bodies grow physically from birth to adult maturity and ultimately death.  Our relationships grow from inception (did she just wink at me?) to maturity or demise.  Our understanding of the world grows from simple pattern recognition as babies begin to understand speech to complex reasoning and philosophical imagination as graduate students or senior researchers.  Together these aspects of being human combine to indicate our growth as a person.  A simple way to group them all is Mind, Body, and Spirit, remembering that these categories are interdependent, not operating on separate tracks.

Learning is growing

It’s pretty easy to understand how the growth curve applies to the Body aspects of our lives.  As babies, we start out tiny and grow exponentially, rather quickly until we get adult sized.  Then most of us alternate between being fatter and skinnier for the rest of our lives as we struggle with our food intake and exercise (output).  It might be harder to notice, but this same scenario plays out in our Mind and Spirit aspects as well.

The learning sub-system of us humans has components like your brain, your senses, and your emotions.  It has inputs like data, knowledge, information, advice, opinions, and sensory stimuli (like heat, texture, etc.).  And it has outputs like behavior, action, habit, opinion, advice and insight.  None of these examples is a complete list, but hopefully you get the point.

As babies and children we learn rapidly by taking in billions of data points and bits of information through their eyes and ears.  Then as students we read and listen and study to take in facts and information to deepen our understanding of the world.  Even as young professionals we still have to learn quickly to develop practical skills and insights about our chosen area of work.  Then after decades of constant learning we start to stabilize and gradually decline as our experience gets stale and the world around us starts to move on to new ideas and practices that we haven’t kept up with along the way.  We even call this aging process being “over the hill” which I think aptly describes tipping over to decline phase on the curve.

For nearly 800 generations of human history (about 60,000 years), our lifetime learning curve mapped pretty well to our lifetime body curve.   As we got older and started to decline physically, we could also retire and decline mentally.  The world around us wasn’t changing all that much so we didn’t really have to “relearn” anything in order to be at the top of the curve in a relatively stable phase.

But not any more!

According to Alvin Toffler in his seminal book, Future Shock we passed an inflection point in the rate of change in human culture towards the end of the last century.  At that point, people had to start relearning things and adapting to changes in our world or start falling behind rapidly.  Past the inflection point of technological change, we can no longer count on things we learned in childhood being true anymore.  We have to recheck things as science and technology advance human understanding and practices to new levels at an increasing rate of speed.

When my grandmother was born, people couldn’t fly.  When she died, there had been men on the moon.  When I was a kid, there was a planet called Pluto.  Now it’s not a planet.  The periodic table I memorized in high school had 106 elements, now it has 118.  My own kids have already seen unbelievable environmental changes in their lives resulting from mobile phones morphing into powerful computers with cameras.  My mom has an iPad and is the most active person on Facebook I know.  It makes her life better to connect with friends and family scattered all over world.  She doesn’t have to sit in her kitchen and wait for people to stop by, they can play Words With Friends together in different time zones and she can dial them up on video chat to see their smiling faces.  Instead of wishing for the “old times” and falling behind, she has learned new ways to interact and grown healthier as a result.

Toffler called the problem of relearning “shock” because adults were not prepared for rapid change and felt we would suffer in our reactions to it.  The adults of the Baby Boom may have been shocked, but I think people coming of age today are ready for constant change.  Our great ability to understand the world is a natural and agile open system.  The inputs may have changed, but our ability to process them into creative outputs is very resilient.

Breathe!

When you jump in a pool you have to hold your breath while you are under water or else you will drown. But if you realize you are stuck in the pool you come up for air and start to swim (or quickly learn how!).  This sink or swim reaction is a perfect example of grow or die.  So don’t hold your breath and hope the world will stop changing, take a breath and engage with all that is new around you so you can move up the curve not down it.

Sink or swim!

photo from Flickr: TX Erickson Family

 

 

Working Human

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[In case you didn’t catch it… this is a re-post from my guest blogger contribution to the Bulldog Drummond blog on June 19, 2012]

Does this look engaging? (photo by jurvetson via Flickr)

For far too long, we’ve been operating under management philosophies that undervalue being human. The Industrial Revolution did a lot of good things for the world, but the organizations designed to support manufacturing businesses common in that era are not one of them. They are hierarchical and rigid and have little allowance for human variation. Even in their friendliest form, they are paternalistic, placing the burden of responsibility on a select few in positions of authority.

Mechanistic terms and phrases used to describe people and how they work together like: creative engine, mental horsepower, well-oiled machine, weakest link, and human capital are woven through our everyday language. I’m all for the creative use of metaphor, but I think in linguistic terms, the ubiquity of these terms points to an underlying framework that is decidedly not human. At the heart of the industrial view of the world is a reductionist philosophy that leads people to break everything down to the component parts and attempt to optimize the fit and performance of each item in isolation. The problem is humans are not that simple. We can understand how molecules stick together and how synapses fire, but they don’t actually work in isolation of each other. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. People have soul, and heart, and passion.

The effect of not having a human-centered framework for workplace design is decidedly negative. According to the Gallup Management Journal, only 29% of U.S. workers are engaged, while 56% are not engaged, and 15% are actively disengaged. That is, when people are treated (even subconsciously) as machines, they don’t perform at their best. They might do what they are told until they no longer have to, but they are not inspired to create, build, or serve in ways that leverage their full potential and deliver great value.

Join the Human Revolution

Most organizations we know today are built to be stable and predictable, using rigid specifications honed by financial metrics. But there is increasing evidence that this type of organization doesn’t do well in environments that are transforming, ambiguous, or complex (Think: Dinosaurs). See more on this comparison in The Connected Company by Dave Gray. So this is a call for organizations of all types, whether they are businesses, governmental agencies, community groups, schools, or sports teams, to rethink their fundamental principles of organization and shift from industrial age thinking to a human-centered design that helps people thrive.

This shift is intimidating. It’s about losing control and building trust. It’s about helping people grow versus boxing them in with rules and boundaries. It requires a belief in the innate greatness of human kind versus a bureaucratic defense against slackers and cheats.

But the rewards are substantial. Organizations of all types struggle with low creative output, poor service, and declining productivity. Optimization and consolidation can only squeeze performance on the margin so much. For sustainable high performance in service, innovation, invention, or productivity, people must be at their best. And to be at their best, they must be well.

Even in stable environments, where companies make big investments in predictable consumer patterns (like retail or automotive), people perform better when they are treated like people, not cogs in the machine. The Gallup/Healthways Well-Being study demonstrates a very clear economic advantage of employee well-being when you understand the impact of absenteeism, illness, and low engagement on a company’s bottom line.

Before Engagement

Progressive organizations are already committed to the idea that employee engagement drives high performance. But many of these companies still approach engagement with command and control tactics. In response to a slippery company culture concern, I recently heard a very successful business leader say, “Give me 120 minutes with our managers and I’ll tell them how this is supposed to work.” Sorry, but you can’t order people to be good leaders. Or be creative. Or give good service. Or invent a new technology. They have to want to do it themselves and make very difficult emotional, social, and intellectual trade-offs to get there. See a comprehensive view on this point by Daniel Pink in his book Drive.

So while engagement is a great leading indicator for high performance, it’s a lagging indicator of wellness. That is the capacity to give discretionary effort and highly valuable contributions depends on individual wellness. If you are not well, it’s very difficult to be fully engaged.

Viewing wellness as a foundation for high performance makes it more clear what things an organization should have in place to help people perform at extraordinary levels. This is where things start to get messy, because in the traditional relationship of employee and employer many of the requirements for wellness are considered private or “none of your business.” But if learned one thing in graduate school, it came from professor Charles F. Luna: Things that matter are messy.

photo by sanchom via Flickr

Being Fully Human

Many people associate the term wellness with physical health. It’s not hard to understand that proper nutrition, rest, and exercise lead to higher levels of energy. So let’s just start there: What is your organization doing to help your people in these areas? Do you have recess? Do you make people take time off? Do you provide healthy food options as snacks?

But don’t forget that physical health is only one piece of the wellness puzzle. Well-being is about being fully human, which also includes dimensions of mental, social, spiritual, and emotional health. Philosophers have worked on the definition of “being human” since the beginning of recorded history, and probably before then. Aristotle, Maslow, and more recently a slew of companies like Daily Feats, Me You Health, and Kairos Labs have outlined broad models for well-being.

The desire for wellness is not a new phenomenon for us humans. Conventional wisdom is dripping with advice for how to live a good life. Phrases like an apple a day keeps the doctor away; peace (complete with two finger gesture); never go to bed angry; early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise; etc. are “rules of thumb” developed over generations to show the way to balance, fulfillment, and happiness. Research on happiness has boomed recently. I’ve even seen it stated that happiness is the new currency.

So wellness is not new, but it’s very elusive. For many of us it’s very hard to pay attention to all aspects of wellness simultaneously and adjust our habits to get there. Worse, much of the conventional wisdom or common sense tactics for living well are not tested, and some are quite simply wrong. See more on positive habit formation by Timothy Wilson in his book Redirect.

Work is Life

I think the biggest failure by organizations in this regard is the separation of “work” and “life”. Work, as we’ve defined it for centuries, is a burden to bear, not a form of pleasure. And Life is something you do when you are not working. So we “work for the weekends” and then “live it up” only to “get back to the grind” on Mondays. Shoot me now.

Certainly many people along the way have enjoyed their careers and found joy in their efforts. But the dominant mindset of corporations and institutions is to root out all “softer” elements of working under the banners of focus, optimization, and efficiency. Office cubes, assembly lines, warehouses, and even schools and hospitals have been designed to remove critical human needs like friendship, beauty, and laughter, so workers can focus and get shit done. Most corporate policies, procedures, practices, and routines are built on the same blueprint of efficiency and optimization. But all work and no play, makes Jack a very dull boy (Check out this great scene from The Shining to see what I mean!).

There is hope in world of work. Companies like 3M, IDEO, and Google are famous for their humanistic values and have great results to show for it. Zoom out and this transformation seems overwhelming. So you’ll probably just stay the course and ride this out until retirement sets you free.

Zoom in and focus on just one thing you can do tomorrow to start working like a human. Take a walk in the middle of the day. Eat grapes instead of a bag of chips. Personalize your desk with a plant or drawing from your favorite 5 year old. Every little thing counts, but you can’t count unless you do something.

Okay, get moving!

 

Being Successfully Controversial

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In a recent social media frenzy, I stumbled upon a great insight: the link between controversy and innovation. I had just finished my post about how innovation is a natural result of being human, and Lisa Kaye tweeted a quote from actress Eva Le Gallienne, stating that “Innovators are inevitably controversial.”  When I think of controversy, I immediately think of courage.

That same day, innovation guru Diego Rodriguez posted a TED talk by Bryan Stevenson encouraging us all to be courageous.  In his talk, Bryan touches on how we are all inspired by people who are the first to stand up, speak up, lead the way, draw a line, or refuse to budge on principle.  Rosa Parks was an icon of courage for civic innovation and equal rights.  John F. Kennedy was an icon of courage that spurred innovation in science and technology.  Ronald Reagan was an icon of courage for global unity.

Kennedy Space Center (Photo from Smalling Studios)

To make change, it is essential that we stand up for what we believe is right. Courage is one part vision of what could be and one part frustration with what is. Courage is the spark that ignites change and inspires others to join the process and tip from old to new.

Linking controversy and innovation makes it sound like innovation is a struggle against resistance.  Which gets me thinking about resistance as a strengthener.  People do push-ups, lift weights, carry medicine balls, or use elastic bands to build muscle.  You push against gravity to improve yourself.  So it makes sense that pushing against normal is a great way to improve the world.

Courage is only half of the equation

I’ve learned through many, many, many failed attempts, that courage is necessary, but not sufficient in successful innovation.  Courage is only half of the equation.  With only courage, you can come off as righteous, contrarian, or antagonistic.  A thorn in the side.  You face immediate rejection by the established way.  Succeeding only at creating more resistance. It’s really something to speak up, but not enough to leave it at that.  Controversy can end with polarization and gridlock (take the U.S. Congress… please!).  Or controversy can be the beginning of a better world.

The other half of the innovation equation is creativity.  By creativity, I’m not talking about the Crayola-artsy-black-turtle-neck type of creativity.  I’m talking about the well-that-didn’t-work-so-let’s-try-this type of creativity.  Lateral thinking that produces a never-ending stream of ideas and alternatives to test and explore until the right thing happens.  The way Thomas Edison tried hundreds of filament-gas-tube combinations to get the light bulb.  The way Abraham Lincoln tried running for office multiple times before finding his way to the Presidency.  They were successful innovators because they had both courage and creativity.

Against means together?

For most big problems, there is no silver bullet. No single invention.  Innovation is an unfolding, iterative, extended effort that takes place against the normal way of doing things.  So innovation is inevitably controversial, requiring us to act with both courage and creativity to achieve success.

As you may already know, “contra” is a Latin root meaning against.  And “verse” means turn. Literally, “turning against.”  Being interested in linguistics and natural human behavior, I poked around the origins of contra and found that the prefix con- is a variant of com– which means together.  This makes sense if you consider against in this usage: The ball is resting against the wall (they are sharing the same space together).

So perhaps controversial really means, “turning together.” And we humans are designed to work together and constantly improve our condition.

Bottom line: to be successfully controversial, consider your mission as a strengthening exercise you do with a bunch of other people, not a war against the other side you must win (or else!).

 

 

 

Innovation is a natural result of being human

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Our world is faced with a never-ending list of problems we’d all like solved. Some are massive public health and environmental issues that overwhelm us with their complexity. Some are daily nuisances that require simple adjustments in order to put things right. Big or small, complex or simple, when someone makes an improvement to a process, practice, tool or service, he/she is being innovative. Innovation is a natural result of being human. We humans are well-designed to solve problems and adapt to changes in our environment by actively “messing” with the resources we have on hand to improve our condition.

Caught in the rain (Darrell Wong/Fresno Bee)

Watch anyone adjust to an unexpected weather “situation” and you will see what I mean about innovation being core to human nature. People make hats and coats out of plastic bags or newspapers, wrap odd things around them to keep warm, and are suddenly willing to lose major style points when caught unprepared. One time my daughter came home from school and was locked out of the house. The day had been warm and sunny, so she had no coat, just a t-shirt and shorts. As the sun went down and it got colder, she got pretty uncomfortable. By the time I pulled into the driveway after work, she was huddled in a beach towel she had scrounged from the clothesline, and had buried herself under the cushions of our patio furniture. That’s making the most of the resources around you to improve your situation!

Another kid might have been curious about “alternative home entry methods” and found that the second floor porch door was unlocked. But in order to implement that strategy, she would have to be confident in her climbing abilities and weigh the discomfort of being cold against the risk of falling and getting seriously hurt. Given the low threat of hypothermia (her condition was uncomfortable, but not life threatening) I think she made a wise choice with the cushions and towel approach.

Innovation is not about making wild bets on the future or being a whacky creative who dreams fanciful ideas. It’s a careful assessment of where you are versus where you want to be, followed by a series of actions to close that gap. It doesn’t hurt to inject fanciful imagination (I’m sure my daughter was dreaming about a big warm fire or a fluffy comforter wrapped around her), because in those dreams we find the seeds of ideas we can actually implement.  Check out my previous post for a definition of these core skills.

Children are a great source of insight on our natural propensity for innovation. With less concern for negative social consequences, they are built to imagine and explore, and they do it all the time. My son plays with LEGOs on a near constant basis, and it’s amazing to watch his deep level of engagement as he sorts through hundreds of tiny plastic pieces to find just the right one for his latest project.

He’s built many LEGO models by following the prescribed approach in the instructions (he calls the booklets “maps”). His experience with those pre-built models has given him many core components to build on as he invents new structures. He knows how wheels go together, where a driver might sit, how to build a wing from scratch, and how to make a tower that won’t fall down. Mixing and matching these underlying components is a great way to jump-start a new idea or accidentally discover that there are more ways to build a spaceship than the “maps” tell you.

The keys in his natural innovativeness are his willingness to explore and his quick adjustment and continued effort when things don’t work out as imagined. When a structure is not built to handle real play, the feedback is immediate… it falls apart! His natural desire to play out-weighs his frustration with poor construction, so he keeps going.  But there are many times when he gets stuck, and in those moments the “magic” ingredient of innovation comes into play.  Humans are social, and we have a natural desire to help each other, so it’s not surprising that he asks for help almost immediately when he is stuck or frustrated.

The magic ingredient of innovation: asking for help

Sharing your problem with someone else when you are “stuck” brings new ideas and a renewed sense of excitement about what “could be”. When my son can’t figure out how to connect two awkward structures he asks his older sister (or basically anyone who’s within his vocal range) for help. At this moment he is ripe for coaching (motivated to complete his vision, frustrated by his own abilities to pull it off). I call “asking for help” the magic ingredient of innovation because it contradicts the dominant belief that invention (and subsequently innovation) result from a “lone genius” focusing on a problem nobody can solve. Surely, intense focus is a necessary component of complex problem solving, but it is rare that the answer comes from an isolated person devoid of input, discussion, or coaching.

The really big problems in our world require us to work together, applying our different perspectives, styles and modes of thinking to overcome their complexity.

Innovation is a competitive capability

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Companies are forever talking about how they need a culture of innovation, or that innovation is a global initiative for the next important phase of the business, or that innovation will be the engine to drive the company to new levels, etc. I’m sure you’ve seen the word innovation thousands of times in business media in only the past month.

Innovation is nurturing growth

But, really, what is innovation? It seems to be an exciting concept with a lot of fuzzy edges and an elusive magical aura. Few companies could say they have a handle on innovation as a capability they manage like other aspects of their business.  Those that do are amazing and powerful (check out this growth chart for Apple). Innovation makes an organization competitive because it is measured by growth in new products and services or growth in new users (or both).

More often than not, the World’s Most Innovative Companies are a flash in the pan (Groupon?), or have a short tenure at the top of the list and then gradually fade into normalcy. This makes innovation seem even more mysterious and slippery… something to admire, but too vague to manage.  Something based on size or timing, not a sustained advantage directed at a market.

So how can organizations get this capability and why is it so elusive? Let’s start with the elusiveness first. Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management, explains that many businesses have a hard time with innovation because it requires a different mindset than the way most business people approach problems. In his book, The Design of Business, he identifies three types of logic necessary for effective problem solving: deductive, inductive, and abductive. 

The problem is, most of our schools and businesses teach and practice only inductive and deductive reasoning (abductive isn’t even in my spell checker). Frankly, most of us don’t chat about formal logic over coffee and donuts, so you can see why this makes innovation slippery. The less formal version of this logic is often called design thinking and was pioneered by IDEO. But that term is awkward because design is associated with fashion, graphics and art, while innovation is more about doing than thinking. So, I just call it the capability of innovation.  I don’t disagree with Bruce Nussbaum’s focus on creativity, but that still feels incomplete to me.

The capability of innovation is a compound set of three skills that enable you to solve problems for your customers: rigorous observation, creative wonderment, and risk management. Whoa. Did you say wonderment? Yes, yes I did. (see Phineus and Ferb) Innovation is about coping with ambiguity and uncertainty while constantly moving forward to discover new opportunities. Since most business people haven’t developed these skills in their formal training, not knowing the best path forward makes them uncomfortable. So they stick with what they know, which keeps them locked in the present.

Three core skills of innovation

1. Rigorous observation. This is about being obsessed with your customers in action. This obsession involves asking questions, taking photos, and simply watching what they do (and don’t do) when interacting with a product or service. Ironically, many product managers defend their product deficiencies by saying customers didn’t behave as they should (at least they notice the gap!).

2. Imaginative wonderment. Instead of defending them with deductive reasoning, an innovative product manager would ask, “I wonder why that happened?” This is a moment of truth where innovation will live or die. If the leader shifts reasoning modes and becomes curious, the next step is to explore what could be happening instead of defending what is happening. This is not magical or fluffy, it’s a rational leap based on an observed pattern.

The exploration process that underpins imaginative wonderment is essentially the scientific method. It is the rapid iteration of possibilities that are tested against audacious goals (Like Thomas Edison and the light bulb). An emerging solution to a customer problem is driven by simple questions like, “Why not?” but is also constrained by feasibility (can it be built?) and viability (does it make business sense?). This exploration is both serious and fun. Systematic testing and elimination of ideas and options requires discipline, tenacity, and rigor. Generating an endless array of possibilities to test is playful, energizing, and empowering.

3. Risk Management. Overcoming the challenge of risk in innovation starts with a better understanding of the difference between innovation and invention. The dominant (but false) understanding that innovation comes from a blinding flash of insight, or from a lone genius that sees the world from a different angle, makes innovation seem untenable. How is a company supposed to plan for genius to occur? What’s the timeline? No wonder it’s not supported.

Innovation is not driven by breakthroughs in technology… it’s the opposite. Innovation is driven by commitment to satisfying customer’s needs and keen observations about what is and what is not working. These observations push the limits of technology and force the breakthroughs. Innovation in practice couldn’t be farther from being a lone inventor in a lab. Innovation is a collaborative, hands-on experience, taking place on the front lines with customers.

So the way to manage risk in innovation is first to stay very close to your customers, second to create a portfolio of innovation projects designed to solve their problems, and third to move very quickly to determine what doesn’t work so you don’t waste time and resources on unacceptable solutions.

Not every idea will evolve into an innovative solution (either attracts new customers or more engagement from current customers). An effective innovation portfolio should work much like an effective stock portfolio. There should be a mixture of incremental improvement ideas, evolutionary ideas, and revolutionary ideas. Investing in a balanced portfolio of several ideas mitigates the risk across all of them instead of placing “all of your eggs in one basket.”

Innovation is not whimsical, magical, or fluffy. It’s not accidental or even unpredictable. The problem with innovation for some companies could be that it’s more about nurturing than managing, a human-centered style not often associated with the titans of business.

 

Focus your feedback

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There’s one thing I’ve found that separates good feedback from bad.  Really!  Just one: more focused questions generate higher quality responses. Usually you get dead air and blank stares when you ask a generic question like, “Does anyone have any feedback for me?” The typical response, “Uh, fine… uh, really great… yeah, good job!”

Typical response to a generic request for feedback. From: photo.net/photos/zbbrox

It’s a lot of work to give someone good feedback, and most people simply aren’t prepared when you spring it on them like that. Remember, the burden of gathering feedback falls on you, not the provider. So make it easier for others to help you out by asking more focused questions. After you ask a focused question, behave like a curious four-year-old and ask, “Why, why, why, why?” to get underneath surface level generalities to real opinions that help you grow.

Of course if you really don’t want to know how you can grow, and are just asking so you can say you did, you need to return to GO (do not collect your $200) and start over with why it’s important to get feedback in the first place.  See more on that in my post Get Some Grit. Don’t waste your time (or other people’s energy) by asking generic, open ended questions. They don’t work.  For more on why, see my post Ambiguity kills feedback.

Here are some tips for getting focused feedback:

Focused questions generate more complex (valuable) answers

1. Use good manners:
Be curious, persistent, patient, and grateful.  Feedback is a gift, but you have to wrap it yourself.  When you ask one question, follow it up with a deeper, probing question to help the person in his/her thinking.  Something like: “Thanks for that. Do you think if I try that next time I’ll get better results?”  Followed by, “Okay, sounds good.  Has that worked for you?”

2. Focus on priority and purpose:
Ask high level questions that help you determine if you are working on the right things.  For example: “If I do these three things well, do you think I’ll be successful?  Or: “Which of these five things would you do first?”

3. Seek advice before you act:
Sometimes it’s easier to give an opinion before an action has occurred because there’s no implication of judgment. Use questions like, “How would you approach this project?” After you gather advice from several perspectives, review for patterns of agreement and disagreement. Follow up with another round of questions to get advice on the patterns you’ve found.  “I have two opposing ideas on how to approach this.  Which one do you like better?”

4. Invite critique on approach and impact:
Cue feedback by asking for direct opinions that leave no room for one word replies. Bad: Do you like this? Better: How could this presentation be more clear? Best: On slide three, how could I present this concept better?  For critique on the value of your efforts, ask about your impact on the person, team, or organization.  Questions like: “Was my contribution what you expected?”  “How could I have helped our team accomplish more?”  Or, “What could I have done to increase our results by 10%”

5. Cross-pollinate good ideas: Share what someone else has told you to jump-start their thinking and generate discussion.  “I was talking with Dave about this and he said…”  This helps the person you ask learn something about another colleague too.

Final thought: even when you ask a very precise opening question, you are still likely to get a simple answer.  Successful learners ask several polite follow up questions to help those around them warm up to their situation and be more helpful.  Don’t be satisfied with someone’s first answer.