Innovation by SIT

Apocalyptic newspaper headlines cause panic. Panic induces paralysis. The media is overloading us with evermore information and commentaries about “the situation”: poorer quality of life, higher unemployment, pay cuts, zero real growth, etc. Most companies in the market usually react alike. Companies start operating on ‘automatic pilot,’ or, in the worst-case scenario, they act on impulse, adopting clichés which are not necessarily rational, like laying off workers, cutting wages, putting trainings on halt and such.

Inventive thought and innovation are usually seen as a prerogative reserved for markets in times of growth, while, in fact, during slowdowns and recessions, there are plenty of good reasons to be creative, to invest in innovation, develop innovative strategies and even launch new products.

Past recessions have proven themselves as times of opportunity for growth and new product launching (Kimberly-Clark Corp.’s Pull-Ups Training Pants, Axe body spray, Crest Whitestrips, the soap opera genre, etc.). In previous posts we explained why it is worthwhile to implement creative thought (and actions), especially in turbulent times. Moreover, during slowdowns and recessions, there are plenty of good reasons to apply SYSTEMATIC inventive thinking. After all, thought-specific guidelines help us overcome our fixednesses and eliminate knee-jerk reactions, creating products that differ from what we have become accustomed to.

The steps companies take during economic crises tend to be, as mentioned, instinctive. If we were to display the common responses on a graph where the X axis is the severity of the crisis and the Y axis is the intensity of our instinctive actions, we would get something that looks like this:

As the recession worsens, more layoffs are evident, wages are cut, welfare benefits are withheld, training is put on hold etc. But what would happen if we would artificially create or visualize a graph displaying the opposite trend, or with a straight line?

If we try to change the graph, and even if it is only for the exercise, it would force us to think in a different way and be more creative. In reality, this would possibly make us think and, in turn, act differently. Let us take, for example, the action: “employee layoffs”. The reverse line depicts a reality in which as the crisis worsens, fewer employees are laid off, and manpower might even be recruited; the straight line depicts a situation where the severity of the crisis has no affect on manpower. It is true that such a reality is not always possible, but could we imagine a reality in which a company recruits more workers as the slowdown becomes more severe (and I am not talking about a company that specializes in going bankrupt)?

Let us imagine that we own a somewhat exclusive chain of cafés with average distribution of branches. Intuitively, our brains tell us not to open more branches during a recession. That is to say, as the crisis worsens, fewer branches are opened and, possibly, existing branches are closed. But let’s force ourselves to imagine the opposite scenario. The more severe the crisis, the more branches we open. Of course this is not always possible, but would it be to our advantage?

We could open new branches that do not share the same chain characteristics as the existing branches. Instead, we could use mobile coffee stands, functioning each a mini branch of the chain. What would the advantages of such a move be? We could significantly improve chain distribution, at a much lower cost than opening new branches that stand up to the elegant standards of the chain. We thereby increase customers’ awareness of the brand. Another idea could be to limit the move and declare that stands are positioned in each neighborhood for as long as the recession continues, suggesting that quality coffee is a necessity and not a luxury for our customers. We would probably not be able to afford such a step in normal times as it damages the stylish branding of the chain. But the time limitation as well as linking it to the recession and identifying with the customers’ needs, enables us to implement the idea. We could reinforce the idea by hiring people who have lost their jobs in the current crisis, thereby boosting our brand’s image and esteem.

The entire concept - mobile stands, the time limit, and employing ‘victims’ of the crisis—is not trivial for turbulent times. Like many good ideas, it is specific: it is a good idea for the time, during the recession and for the specific industry – coffee chains. It does not mean that any business owner should open more branches during a recession. For this reason, when trying to think of non-trivial solutions to a problem, it is important to be specific and not to think of generic solutions which need to be right perpetually and across the board.

The thinking tool used here is called Attribute Dependency. The idea is to force us to imagine a different – sometimes opposite – relationship between the variables. In this case we reversed the relationship between the variable “severity of crisis” and the variable “number of layoffs”. Can you come up with non-trivial solutions for the economic crisis in a specific field? Can you think of other variables whose relationship should be reversed to come up with non-trivial ways of surviving the situation?