archive: February, 2010

7 Keys to Innovation – European Style

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

bmw

Last month, I attended the Front End Innovation Europe Conference (FEI Europe) held in Amsterdam.  One of the highlights was seeing the car in the picture above in person.  Yes, they drove it into a large conference room inside the Hilton Hotel.  It is the 2010 BMW Vision EfficientDynamics Concept car, and it is even more cool in person than in the photo.  It’s BMW’s answer to the green car revolution.  Though perhaps a little late to the game, I suspect it will eventually prove to be a huge success as they continue to do engineering with more style than most other car makers.  In addition to seeing the car, we got to hear directly from Adrian van Hooydonk, the Director of Design of BMW Group and mastermind behind the group that developed the car.  They clearly rose to the challenge of eloquently working Future Sustainability into their brand of the Joy of Mobility in a record amount of time.

We also received a lesson from Josephine Green, a well-known leader in trends and strategy from Philips Design, on Engaging with the Future Differently.  It was a real eye opener for many.  We also heard fantastic examples of innovation in conjunction with universities from Sigvald Harryson with Copenhagen Business School that left us all realizing the vastness of the untapped resources lurking around our universities.  The event concluded with a superb presentation from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and an interactive session that literally no one wanted to leave.  All in all . . . a huge success!  If you missed Europe, don’t miss the Front End Innovation USA in Boston coming in May.  I suspect it to be equally as tantalizing.

I’ve written previously about the Pitfalls of Innovation, and I still believe that far more talk about innovation occurs than actual innovation because true innovation comes from doing not talking.  Just go to any third world country where people are forced to live with minimal resources and you will see what true innovation is all about.  It comes more from unmet needs and a gap in resources than heavily padded budgets purposed toward the never-ending replacement of old gadgets with new gadgets.  None-the-less, well done conferences such as FEI, are well worth it.

Below are the 7 Keys to Innovative.  Some are my standard favorites, and others I picked up at the FEI Europe Conference.

7 Keys to an Innovative Business

1) Multiple Approaches to Innovation Provide the Best Results

  • Hire people with innovative characteristics
  • Seek partnerships / the more unlikely, the better
  • Lead users and co-invention can be extremely useful in some sectors
  • Complex Coalitions (public/private/univ/venture/research) are coming

2) Don’t Overlook the Importance of an Innovative Business Model

  • Ensure culture and vision include a commitment to innovation
  • Business as usual is no longer an option for 21st century success
  • Traditional hierarchical and rigid organizations don’t foster creativity
  • Change should be the fuel of your business model not what creates a crisis

3) Find the Right Balance Between Old, Adjacent, and New Business/Products/Services

  • Varies between industries, companies, and brands
  • Don’t chuck out the old, just for the sake of it
  • How much of the value of your firm is based on its future potential?

4) Innovation Requires Optimism, Curiosity, and a Splash of the Future

  • Spend more time studying the fringe / the middle is already known
  • Analyze what isn’t and not what is / finding the gaps
  • Understand the “big think” trends
  • Get to know younger generations, they will be running things soon

5) From Linear, to Exponential, to Circular

  • From “out of the box thinking” to “thinking without boxes”
  • Renewable and sustainable are circular concepts and here to stay
  • Constant feedback loops are critical to staying ahead of the curve

6) Cultivating the Right Mindset is 90% of the Battle

  • Learning from failure is a key to success
  • Blur the lines and anxiety around internal vs external
  • Collaboration with competitors can be the best option in some situations

7) Leadership Sans Egos

  • Cultivating trust requires the courage to be vulnerable
  • Constructive conflict produces the best answers
  • Business model intimacy – creating solutions with customers
  • Money is a low-level motivator . . . find out what really motivates your employees

Originally published as guest post on Blogging Innovation !  Blogging Innovation is a great source for all things Innovation and they publish a tremendous amount of very useful information.

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The Naked Truth About Lencioni’s Latest Book

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Getting nakedThe first time I read a Patrick Lencioni book, I was the COO and Managing Director of a global corporate finance company.  I hadn’t been there long and was already regretting the move.  My first thought after finishing The Five Dysfunctions of a Team was, “How do I leave of copy of this for the team without them knowing who left it?”  Sadly, my boss was most likely coming to his own conclusion that hiring a member of the leadership team that thinks differently and speaks her mind, wasn’t really what he wanted after all.  Thus, my only option was to “do” the book instead of trying to “preach” the book.  It was actually beginning to work quite well, and an endeavor that taught me a ton.  Then the financial crisis began and fear took hold of most people in the world of finance, and well, basically all hell broke loose in more ways than I can count.

This time, as I read Lencioni’s latest book, Getting Naked, I had a different reaction.  I knew this book would be a fantastic tool, not only to fall back on as a reminder to never give up on what I believe in (which we all need on occasion), but also to give to clients as a way to help them achieve more.  It’s possible that I also did a small happy dance for my own little consulting company as I saw many parallels to the way we already do things here at YURU.

Getting Naked presents the business world with a new kind of 21st century risk that can provide the taker with a competitive advantage that will leave heads spinning in disbelief.  The ability to harness what Patrick is sharing is what will separate the good, and yes even the great, companies from those that dare to be extraordinary.

Understanding Lencioni’s three fears that hinder client relationships can provide the insight necessary to take such risks.  If you can find the courage to be honest, authentic, and buck-naked vulnerable with yourself, your teammates, and your clients, the sky is the limit for anyone or any business.  There are plenty of brilliant nuggets of wisdom in Getting Naked no matter if you are a consultant, manage a department, a business student, run a multi-national company, or are part of the small business backbone of our economy.  There is something for anyone who has clients, which at the end of the day is pretty much all of us.  I have seen first hand, with myself, and my own clients, how these concepts can literally transform people and companies.

The story-telling style of Lencioni’s books, gives the reader that sense of “what happens next” that good fiction employs and shows us how his theories would look in real life as opposed to simply preaching them.  That one extra step really allows the information to sink in at a different level.  Plus, it’s just more fun to read.

I highly recommend Getting Naked with its high quotient of nuggets of wisdom to words read.   In other words, lots of great stuff packed into an easy to read book that will fit into your busy schedule.  Plus, it can be a great conversation starter if you simply carry it around for a couple of days.

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Individually AND Together

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Karthik's Photo

“Individually and Together” — three words I heard this weekend from Will.i.am being interviewed as he fondly remembered the journey of success for his group The Black Eyed Peas.  Yes, I am over 40 and a fan of the Black Eyed Peas!  As a writer, sometimes you hear a group of words in one context and your mind instantly relays them to another and you know that somehow you must capture that connection on the page.  For me, these three words hold the keys to success in the 21st Century for any business, large or small, local or multi-national.  When I was growing up, if a member of a band did something on his or her own, it was basically viewed as defecting.  Today, the Black Eyed Peas show us that band members doing their own thing and great stuff with the group is actually great for business.  Maybe the Cold War really is over.

How does one reconcile the dichotomy between a world increasingly focused on the individual and simultaneously asking its citizens to work in greater collaboration for the greater good?  The problem lies in seeing the two forces as a mutually exclusive.  The minute we begin to see them as more alike than unalike we begin to tap into their power.  By individually pronouncing ones passions and desires and focusing on what really drives you forward, you are more able to contribute to joint tasks in a selfless manner.  It is difficult for many of us to see this because society dictated for much of the last century that you are either out for yourself or you are for the good of others, and never the two shall meet.  The missing link is the belief that somehow left to our own devices, we are pre-programmed for choices and behaviors that are unsuitable and against what is good in this world.  Based on my experience, this could not be further from the truth.

Leaders today are challenged with how to allow maximum individualism while maintaining a strong thread of common vision between every person in an organization.  It’s a bit like the challenge that search engine companies are facing today: how to put a context around what any individual is searching for (based on their individual profile) such that they find exactly what they are seeking and perhaps something even better that they didn’t know existed . . . all the while maintaining some semblance of privacy.  When the figure it out, it will be a game changer.

It’s about giving employees back their power of creativity, permission to fail in search of excellence, and the respect that every person on the planet deserves regardless of their role.  It’s about leadership with less ego and more personal confidence creating the skills necessary to embrace and lead any group of individuals to their highest potential.  It’s about tapping into the personal energy of every member of an organization such that the energy of the group expands beyond the sum of its parts.

In another part of the same interview, Will.i.am spoke of inspiration, indicating that when it calls, you don’t hang up . . . you give it directions to your house.  Unfortunately, most of us hang up on inspirational thoughts and chalk it up to another wrong number from Mr. Impossible Dream. When, in reality such inspiration can at any moment become a pivotal point in our lives leading us to create a life full of impossible dreams that come true every day.    It’s a mindset that I have been aware of in my own life for sometime now and have slowly been shifting toward, and I will tell you that its power is immeasurable.

So, what does it really take to be a successful 21st century leader that can relate to each individual and then relate them all to each other?  It takes courage to love who you are, to love who everyone else is (regardless of where they are in life), to believe your team can connect the un-connectible dots, and the sincerity and vision to bring everyone together.  It takes the courage to know when to go for it and when to do more research.  It requires a willingness to take personal risk by really putting yourself out there.

Be the energy . . .

Posted in Courage, business, creativity, leadership, success | 1 Comment »