Innovation

Ideating by Breaking Silos: 6 Common Bugs and their Fixes

Published date: July 13, 2022 в 4:11 pm

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Category: Innovation,Organizational Innovation,Strategy

Companies are all too aware of “silos” and the difficulty of sharing and collaborating among departments or units. They therefore embark on joint ideation exercises, that often end with disappointingly meager results. Why?

1. Sharing starts in meeting

An effective encounter of teams, be they warring tribes or (more difficult still) adjacent units in a corporation, requires meticulous preparation. Just throwing together people from different cultures doesn’t bring out the best in them. Minimum preparation includes defining what they would like to achieve in the meeting and what they are willing to contribute to its success, and (as detailed in #4 below) a sincere mapping of potential conflicts of interest.

2. Inter-unit meetings often start with mutual presentations of achievements

But listeners can usually put into practice very little of what they hear, due to limits to one’s capacity to absorb when passively listening, especially when the subject matter is, by definition here, not yours.

Facilitated properly, the session should consist of alternating presentations and interactive exercises. Presentations should be broken up into chunks, each followed by questions from the audience and the facilitator. Listeners should be encouraged to both interact with the presenter and take notes for use later when ideating.

3. Incentives and motivations to collaborate are not analyzed and aligned

Yes, we are all in this together, yes, we all know “it’s important to collaborate”, but what are the actual incentives to do so? Most chances are that if you present something of use to another of the participating units: a) they may end up doing better than your unit, b) they may use up even more of your time later, coming back with questions and additional requests, c) your boss will be unhappy with both (a) and (b).

While planning the silo-busting session ask yourself (and answer): apart from overall benefits for the organization as a whole, how can these specific units and participants be incentivized to share and collaborate? Can you keep score of “assists”? Celebrate those who share most? Formalize the accounting of knowledge-transfer between units?

4. Hidden agenda stays… hidden

I’ve often been asked to facilitate an encounter of two teams called upon to collaborate, in which all are aware that success for team A would entail damage to team B and/or vice-versa. Example: a successful product launch of A would cannibalize and therefore decrease sales of a B product. Common practice in these cases is to avoid conflict, going through “creativity exercises” pretending that no conflict exists. We recommend the opposite approach: put the elephant on the table at the outset and discuss potential ways of overcoming, or at least moderating risks to one of the parties or both.

5. A-priori blinders

Imagine an organization in which business unit A targets, say, women (or the elderly) and BU B targets men (or youth). A (commendable) silo-breaking approach leads management to throw together a mixed team of A and B, so they can invent by learning from each other. But participants will tend to listen with their professional blinders on, and therefore, even if fully motivated to collaborate, they will find it difficult to imagine how a feature designed for the other team’s women can inspire novelty for their men, or how an insight about teenagers can spark an innovation for the over-80’s. This phenomenon will limit not only the listeners, but also the presenters who will tend to limit themselves to what they a priori consider to be relevant to the other team.

The solution is to engage the team – from the outset – in some preliminary exercises of fixedness-breaking, opening their consciousness to their current limitations, whet their appetites with examples of crossover ideas that have been successful, and then, throughout the sharing presentations, challenge them to force-fit some of what they hear to their reality, even if the exercise initially feels contrived and useless. It never is.

6.

Sharing processes typically end when the silo-breaking session ends. But these exercises, even in when most productive, are only the initial step. If participants run out from the session only to shut themselves back into their respective silos, the chances of translating budding insights into development projects are slim.

The optimal solution to this phenomenon is to build into the plan, from the outset, mechanisms for continuing collaboration efforts beyond the initial attempt. This is easy to agree upon in principle, but is very rarely implemented in practice, for a variety of reasons, mostly related to the incentives of the players involved. The BUs will return from an offsite, especially if it lasts several days and/or requires travel, to find their desks and calendars even more cluttered than when they left, and most chances are that initial ideas that were sparked by sharing with colleagues from other silos will be low on their de facto priorities. Meanwhile, the corporate organizers of the multi-unit event will have spent considerable amounts of time and energy on preparing and running it and will now either lick their corporate wounds or hopefully bask in the glory of their successful event for a brief moment as they dive back to their regular responsibilities. No one, therefore, including all those who absolutely promised to do so once the event has ended, will have the time or disposition to follow up properly. Unless it has been firmly embedded into the program from the start.

Conducting a poorly planned or badly executed silo-breaking session is usually worse than not holding one in the first place. And the difference, as is often the case, is in the details. Remember:

  • Preparations
  • Interactive
  • Incentives
  • Conflicts
  • Agendas
  • Follow up

Enjoy!

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome: What Are the Sources of Your Confidence?

Published date: July 6, 2022 в 4:48 pm

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Category: Innovation

Do we talk enough about imposter syndrome?

I remember the first time I facilitated a live innovation session in front of clients. I had been at my company for quite a few years by then, and had been wing-man in dozens of such sessions. I had been rigorously trained for this. I was dressed for the part. On paper I was ready, but I was shaking in my boots. The session was going well overall, when suddenly one of the participants steered the conversation towards more loaded areas. Like a deer caught in the headlights, it was a sink or swim moment for me. Since running for the hills wasn’t an option (sadly), I had no choice but to keep plunging forward, thinking that at any moment they will read me like a deck of cards. (Afterwards, when the session ended successfully and my breathing resumed to normal, I certainly felt like kicking myself for all the drama I worked myself up over nothing.)

Classic imposter syndrome anyone? Imposter Syndrome is when a person doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments, and has a constant fear of being exposed as a fraud.  A person believes that they’ve succeeded by luck, not because of their talents or qualifications, and that one day – everyone will know that they don’t really have what it takes. It’s hard for them to internalize and own their successes. While any person in any field can experience this, I find that in innovation it’s worse since there’s already added skepticism to begin with.

According to the HBR, Imposter Syndrome disproportionately affects high-achieving people, who find it difficult to accept their accomplishments. At first it was believed to be more common in women, but further research has shown that it affects men and women equally. So if you’ve ever felt that you’re not good enough at work, you’re certainly in good company.

 

Basically we’re dealing with a psychological state, where it’s in the person’s mind.  In general, people have a fear of failure hanging over their heads, so coupling that with imposter syndrome is enough to squash anyone’s self-confidence. And the question that begs is, how can we overcome so that we’re not debilitated by it? Yes, it is plausible that there was an element of luck somewhere in the process in which you’ve been chosen for the role you fill. But more likely it was your qualifications, and now you need to remind yourself of what they are. These are what we call The Sources of My Confidence. Here are five buckets that you can dip into, to help you answer the negative voices in your head (adapt as needed):

  • Past successes – Think of roles that you’ve filled successfully, projects that you are proud of, sticky situations that you’ve solved, deadlines that have been met, and achievements from working with or leading a team. You’ve done it before – you can do it again!
  • What you bring on a personal level – You have life and professional experience when approaching a task or interacting with people. You are educated – whether due to a university degree and courses, or “street smarts” and know-how gained from your own curiosity and thirst for knowledge. You have an individualized skillset – quick thinking, problem-solving, sensitivity to others, and eloquent. You know how to talk to people and you’re easy to talk with. You’re likeable.
  • The organizational umbrella – You have access to your company knowledge base (materials and such). You have people to consult with and throw ideas around with. There are learning opportunities in the company of which you can take advantage.
  • What you bring as a member of the team – You have the trust of the team/organization in selecting you for this role.  You have people to support you and who look to you for support.
  • The process – You follow tried and true company processes and protocols that lead to success. Here’s a shout out to my fellow Innovation Managers and iCoaches – It can be a super daunting role since innovation requires tolerance to ambiguity and you never know for certain what will come out of a session or a meeting. So remind yourself – you are guiding people through a process that you believe in and that works. You are involving intelligent people, and therefore, even just having a regular discussion in a room will yield results.

 

Imposter syndrome does have an upside to it. A good friend, who is VP Product of a large startup says that she (and her other successful siblings) suffer from it tremendously. However, instead of having it get them down, they use it to push themselves forward. They find it makes them work harder, learn more in order to prove to themselves and “others” that they can really do it. At the end of the day it’s making them more successful. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

It looks like Seinfeld is an Attribute Dependency pro

Published date: June 29, 2022 в 5:20 pm

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Category: Innovation,Methodology

Do you know this feeling, when you learn something new, and you suddenly recognize it around you everywhere?

We recently wrote here about how one can break “Relational Fixedness” using the thinking tool called Attribute Dependency. In the opening of the article, we used the following quote from the episode “The Chinese Restaurant” of the “Seinfeld” series, in which Elaine had a brilliant idea as to re-ordering the queue to the restaurant:

“You know, it’s not fair that people are seated first come – first serve. It should be based on who’s hungriest”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn9EYWG_fOI

Attribute Dependency, as explained, is about modifying existing relations (or dependencies) between the characteristics of a given system, product, or situation.

Soon after publishing this article, I discovered that in “The Old Man” episode, Jerry was using the same thinking tool to suggest a new speed limit guideline for elderly people:

“You know, I think old people should be allowed to drive their age. If you’re eighty, do eighty. If you’re a hundred, go a hundred. I mean, they can’t see where they’re going anyway. Let them have a little fun out there.”

Amazing! This suggestion is very similar to the optical retailer campaign mentioned in the previous article, according to which the number of percentage points of a discount is equal to the customer’s age.

I therefore realized that the writers of “Seinfeld” are aware of the creativity inherent in the Attribute Dependency tool. Their show may be about nothing, but they take it very seriously, so, I figured, there must be something to learn from it.

Although their main goal was the creation of comic situations and not necessarily the development of products or services of economic value and applicability – they perfectly demonstrate the power of the AD tool.

For the sake of research, I decided to binge on a few more episodes (or maybe I was just looking for an excuse to do so). Amazingly, I found quite a few additional examples of Attribute Dependency. Here are some of them.

In “The Pony Remark” episode, Jerry and Elaine arrive at a funeral, where they have a short discussion about the parameter that dictates the duration of the ceremony. Jerry expresses a rather surprising view:

Elaine: How long does a funeral take?
Jerry: Depends on how nice the person was. But you gotta figure, even Oswald took forty-five minutes.

And here is what Elaine suggests in “The Strongbox” episode. While talking to a friend, she states that in the case of executions, the last meal cuisine should depend on the method of execution:

Glenn: “You would choose your last meal based on the method of execution? “

Elaine: “Right. If I was getting the chair, I’d go for something hot and spicy. Thai, maybe Mexican. Lethal injection? feels like pasta – painless, don’t want anything too heavy.”

The creators of “Seinfeld” realize that Attribute Dependency can also be applied by disconnecting or eliminating an existing relation, and not just by creating a new one.

Jerry’s opening monologue of “The Jacket” episode is all about the future of clothing. He envisions that the single characteristic that will determine both the color and the shape of our clothes in the future will be the planet we came from.

I think eventually fashion won’t even exist. It won’t. I think eventually we’ll all be wearing the same thing. ’cause anytime I see a movie or a TV show where there’s people from the future of another planet, they’re all wearing the same thing. Somehow, they’ve decided, “This is going to be our outfit. One-piece silver jumpsuit, V-stripe, and boots.” That’s it. We should come up for an outfit for earth. An earth outfit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceRsfMaQ4r0

The writers of the series even use this thinking tool to make fun of what people perceive as an existing relation between characteristics.

In “The Note” episode, Jerry grins at the “tell the doctor you know me” recommendation:

“Make sure that you tell him that, you know, you know me.”  Why?  What’s

the difference?  He’s a doctor.  What is it, “Oh, you know Bob!  Okay, I’ll give

you the real medicine.  Everybody else, I’m giving Tic-Tacs.”

Last (but not least funny) example uses some bad language but perfectly illustrates one cognitive advantage of creating a surprising new relationship between two characteristics of a system.

In “The Parking Garage” episode, Jerry humorously suggests replacing the numbers and colors of each floor in the parking garage of shopping malls with names that will allow them to be better remembered:

See, the problem with the mall garage, is that everything looks the same. They try to differentiate it. They put up different colors, different numbers, different letters. What they need to do is name the levels, like, “Your mother’s a whore.” You know what I mean? You would remember that. You would go, “I know. I remember, I’m parked in ‘My father’s an abusive alcoholic.’ I know where I’m parked.”

No doubt, innovating by using Attribute Dependency can be a lot of fun! Feel free to share with us your funny examples of applying this technique – surely some of them will not only be funny, but also valuable and applicable.

And Now, Finally: THE Right Answer

Published date: June 22, 2022 в 5:31 pm

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Category: Innovation,Innovation Facilitation

I recently read an interesting article about presentation tips. The author, a “cognitive neuroscientist and chief science officer”, opens her article thus:

Which is the odd one out?

14

40

68

96

A paragraph later, she writes:

If you think about the mental calculations required to reach the right answer in the above exercise (as you probably discovered, it’s “40”)…

I felt a bit stupid, since I had not “discovered” that the answer was 40. In fact, even after giving it some thought, I’m not sure why it is obvious that “the right answer” is 40.

Before continuing, pause – do you have a good explanation why 40 is the right answer? Do you have another suggestion for a right answer?

Lacking a convincing argument in favor of 40, or any of the other numbers, I jotted down candidates for answers that came to mind:

1)     Sixty eight – only one with two “t”s

2)     14 –only one with a “1”; 40 –only one with a “0”; 68 – only one with a “6”; 96 – only one with a “9”

3)     14 – only one not divisible by 4

4)     96 – from 14 to 40 there is a gap of 26, from 40 to 68 the gap is 28, so the next number should be 68+30, therefore 98, but it’s 96, so that’s the odd one out

5)     40 – only round number, only one that has no units, only tens

6)     40 – all other numbers are composed of either only straight lines (1,4) or curves (6,8,9) and only 40 has both linear (1) and curvy (0) numerals.

7)     40 – only one that doesn’t have an “o” when written in Spanish, only one that can be written as a single word in Hebrew

8)     68 – only one that has a factor which is greater than 10 (17)

9)     96 – only one that stays the same when you turn the page on its head

10)  69 – only adjacent pair of numerals (vertical or horizontal) that creates an odd two-digit number

How, then, can one speak of “the right answer” in this case? What kind of minds are we creating in our children (and grownups) when we pose these questions and program them to seek a single “right answer”?

This reminded me of a small puzzle we often use in our workshops.

Which is the odd one out?

1)     15

2)     17

3)     19

An arithmetically correct answer is “15” – the only one which isn’t prime.

Another potential answer is “2”. This is the innovation facilitator’s favorite answer, highlighting the cognitive fixednesses that prevent one from recognizing this possibility. The answer “2” may, to some, feel inferior to “15”, an obviously correct reply. Others prefer “2”, as it requires a shift from the regular/intuitive/standard way of perceiving the problem. But, beware, for this strong preference often leads facilitators to now refer to “2” as “THE answer”. Why? Because just as the math teacher uses the question to check her students’ understanding of prime numbers, so do workshop facilitators want to drive home their anti-fixedness message. Both err in inculcating in their listeners the mindset that questions tend to have one single correct answer. Most don’t.

HOW DARE YOU?

Published date: June 9, 2022 в 4:37 pm

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Category: Innovation,Organizational Innovation

The AUTHORITY to LEAD a TEAM to INNOVATE

7 Questions You Have to Ask

Some 20+ years ago, I was brought in to facilitate an innovation project for the BBC – television. Early into the session, one of the participants, who I had noticed to be seething with anger, finally burst out in response to a comment I made: “That’s not the way you do TV! We’ve been doing the best TV in the world for dozens of years, who are you to tell us we should be doing it differently?”. Good question, I thought to myself. What DOES give me this authority? It got me thinking about the sources of authority that we, and others in the innovation-facilitator role, exercise in sessions and projects we facilitate.

First point to clarify was, that I was not there to TELL THEM what to do, but to enable them to discover novel ways of going about their activities, making use of their professional knowledge and skills. But still, what makes one worthy of their trust? When I pooled my colleagues for their answers to what gives them the sense of authority to facilitate an innovation process, I received a wide range of replies, all the way to “my baritone voice” (which, unfortunately, I do not at all share). We noticed that there was a difference between what was PERCEIVED as bestowing authority (voice, looks, title) and what facilitators felt actually gave them real authority. But, since authority describes a relationship between (at least) two parties, what is seen as subjective can play as important a role as what one deems to be objective.

When you are tasked with leading a team to innovate, be they clients or teammates, ask yourself what you are basing your authority on. And when you engage someone else to do the job, ask yourself why you are willing to entrust this challenge in her or his hands. This short list can help you decide.

1) Is it my my job/role to be in front of you?

2) Do I have expert knowledge of innovation processes? Have I been trained in a method for this task?

3) Do I believe it can be done? Am I (reasonably) fearless facing participants and task?

4) Have I done it before, repeatedly? (Experience!);

a. done it in your field, in others;

b. done it with people like you? With others?

5) Am I able, and do I have the patience, to listen to you carefully and respectfully?

6) Do I myself have a certain ability to innovate?

7)Do I CARE? (About you, task, results, their impact?)

 

No one scores perfectly on all parameters, nor does one need to. My advice:

1) When selecting someone to lead you, test them according to these factors, decide, and once positive – trust them and go for it.

2) When assuming the task – review your sources of authority, strengthen where you can, emphasize those you shine on, don’t pretend where you don’t and make the most of the former while leaning on others to overcome the latter.

Enjoy!

Starting an Innovation Lab

Published date: May 19, 2022 в 4:32 pm

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Category: Innovation,Organizational Innovation

We keep hearing from companies, organizations and even cities of their wish to establish an “Innovation Lab”. But this has become such a catch-all term for so many different activities, that it is often difficult to even start thinking about the task, harder still to design a reasonable plan of action and rare to the point of being exotic to see one that actually delivers on the typically high expectations of its founders. Several useless versions of innovation labs that you may encounter:

  1. A place in which engineers and developers do what they always did, now with a fancy name and increased budget;
  2. A repurposed room in which nothing particularly innovative happens, except for the excuses why not, and maybe the furniture;
  3. A multidisciplinary team of talented associates who are given a chunk of time and the freedom to brainstorm, resulting in a three-phase process: nervous enthusiasm at the outset, followed by frustrating and frustrated attempts to justify the endeavor and, finally, a desperate effort to avoid shame by eking out some semblance of a result that can plausibly be hyped and presented as a successful outcome.

BUT an Innovation Lab is not necessarily a dead end. Here are 4 key topics worth considering as you go about the task:

  1. Objectives. Make sure you are clear as to why your organization wants an IL. What, exactly, would be considered a success? New products? Startups? Or influencing the organization’s culture? Beware the “all the above” answer to this question.
  2. People. Who will run the lab? A dedicated person/team? Or those who participate in its activities? And as to the participants: will they leave their current jobs to join the lab? If so – for a certain period (8 weeks? A year?), or as their new job?
  3. Enablers. Which resources or tools will be provided to the IL team? Throwing people together, giving them free reign of their time and motivating them are important ingredients, but very far from sufficient to achieve results. Asking them to Brainstorm only makes things worse. The effect of colorful poofs is yet to be researched. Which effective tools, then, are you going to supply them with?
  4. Support. An innovation Lab is often the baby project of a President or CEO who has seen the light. Other members of the leadership team will at times lend only grudging support. The crucial question is: how much patience does the organization’s leaders have as they wait to see concrete results? If they don’t, they won’t.

Additional factors will also determine the success of an Innovation Lab: financing, selection criteria for participants, interface with business units and more. The two main take-aways I recommend from this post are: 1) It is very easy to get an IL wrong; but 2) designed and implemented correctly, an IL can greatly contribute to your organization’s innovation efforts.

USING DESIGN THINKING? 5 PITFALLS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM

Published date: May 12, 2022 в 4:26 pm

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Category: Innovation,Methodology

Most versions of DT have these components:

1) Empathize     2) Define      3) Ideate      4) Prototype      5) Test

A key benefit of DT is that it is a full process. Embrace it to structure some innovation activities, BUT beware, while parts of the process are highly conducive to innovation, others are useless or even harmful. These are 5 major pitfalls, and the corresponding advice on how to avoid them:

1)     WARNING: The crucial flaw of DT is in stage 3 – Ideation. You are required to create ideas, based on insights and observations, which you then proceed to prototype and test. But HOW do you come up with these ideas? DT doesn’t provide any tools beyond variants of Brainstorming, which do not work.

1)     TO DO: Embed a structured method for breaking fixedness for stage 3. (We obviously recommend our method – SIT – but others can serve as well, provided that they are not BS variants).

 

2)     WARNING: DT assumes that you first conduct ethnography and insight-hunting and relegates the “creative bits” to the next phase. Mistake! If you search for insights without first breaking fixedness you are searching with blinders and will rarely find novelty.

2)     TO DO: Combine ethnography with tools for challenging assumptions. You’ll be surprised at the results.

 

3)     WARNING: DT assumes that creativity and ideas are needed only until the end of stage 3. In reality, even more creativity is needed in adapting your ideas to reality, overcoming emerging challenges and selling your ideas internally (stages 4-5 and beyond).

3)     TO DO: Build in problem-solving sessions and fixedness breaking exercises into prototyping and testing.

 

4)     WARNING: Designers do great stuff and have a cool job. But it’s their job. Not yours. What sense does it make to try to think “like a designer” if you’re not one? Doctors save lives, farmers grow food – lots of professions do useful stuff, but what has that got to do with your task as innovators?

4)     TO DO: Don’t try to emulate designers. Stick to your professional knowledge and use robust techniques for challenging your concepts and breaking your fixed ways of seeing. Use methods that work, not stuff that’s “cool”.

 

5)     WARNING: “Having fun” is a distraction. It’s cotton candy. Innovation requires challenging one’s thinking. When done properly – it’s painful.

5)     TO DO: People can and should enjoy innovation sessions, as you enjoy a tough workout in a gym, or a 5-mile run. Spend minimum time and efforts on getting people to have fun, just enough so they are motivated to collaborate until deeper satisfaction emerges from feeling the results of one’s hard work.

In sum: DT has powerful features and serious bugs. Pick carefully from the former while avoiding the latter.

More on Design Thinking: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:6777325214293405696?updateEntityUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_updateV2%3A%28urn%3Ali%3AugcPost%3A6777325214293405696%2CFEED_DETAIL%2CEMPTY%2CDEFAULT%2Cfalse%29

Having the Vulnerability to Innovate

Published date: May 4, 2022 в 4:14 pm

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Category: Innovation,Organizational Innovation

“The secret killer of innovation is shame” – Brené Brown

Given my “slight” infatuation with Brené Brown, it’s comical for me to think that I almost didn’t watch the first video of hers that I encountered. She was speaking to teachers. I’m not a teacher and therefore was wary of how it would be relevant to me. But having heard her name floating around I pressed play, only to realize that it was a 20-minute video!! But as they say – in for a penny, in for a pound.

And that’s how I found myself hearing her say these words:

“No vulnerability, no creativity, no innovation”.

Have 20 minutes ever gone by so fast?

In case you’re unfamiliar, Brené Brown, is a Social Researcher in the area of vulnerability and shame. She defines vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure”. Her research, even without strictly focusing on innovation, sheds so much light on what prevents innovation from thriving in companies.

Think of the innovation processes in your company, and how many stages a person has to go through in which they render themselves vulnerable:

  1. Taking the time to work on an unknown outcome innovation instead of the pile of work on their desk
  2. Taking a leap of faith in getting an idea off the ground
  3. Presenting an idea to management
  4. Answering nay-sayers who doubt you and/or your work
  5. Using budget and resources without a guarantee of ROI
  6. Enlisting the help of others
  7. Accountability (for the project outcomes, for managing the project properly)

The list goes on.

But in order for innovation to happen we have to go through these stages, and therefore need to stick our neck out there.

But really, no one likes to be vulnerable.

 Now why is that? Brené’s answer – shame. “Every time someone holds back on a new idea, fails to give their manager much needed feedback, and is afraid to speak up in front of a client you can be sure shame played a part”. We have a deep fear of being wrong, belittled or feeling less than other people. And this is what stops people from taking risks.

But if innovation is what we’re after, then we got to get people on track: vulnerability -creativity – innovation.

So how can we encourage people to take that first step – vulnerability?

  • The Institutional Yes (Amazon.com) – Usually when someone has a new idea, they must prove to the manager why they think the idea is a good one. The Institutional Yes shifts the responsibility to the manager, by having the default answer of the manager be YES. If the manager wants to say no, they are required to write a two-page thesis on why they think it’s a bad idea. In terms of helping with vulnerability, if the manager can’t prove his poor opinion of the idea, the accountability is now shared for this idea.
  • Kickstart Innovation Workshop (Adobe Systems) – The Kickbox is a small, red cardboard box containing $1,000 in seed money and everything an employee needs to generate and prototype an idea all the way to selling the idea to management. The idea behind the Kickbox is that instead of funding a few big ideas that do get presented, the budget is spread out to potentially find the big ideas that usually go unpresented. Anyone in the company can obtain a Kickbox. Results need to be shared, but there is no deadline when they need to be presented, and more importantly in terms of vulnerability, no judgment if their Kickbox bet doesn’t pay off.

These next three examples address vulnerability by embracing outcomes, even if they were not the desired ones:

  • Heroic Failure Award (Procter & Gamble) – This award honors the employee or team with the biggest failure that delivered the greatest insight. As Nelson Mandela would say, this award demonstrates “I never lose. I either win or learn”. After all, crossing off something that didn’t work and understanding why, gives room to then find what needs to be fixed /pivoted to work the next time.
  • Dare to Try Award (Tata Group) – This award is given to ambitious projects that didn’t materialize due to any number of factors – cultural issues, technology, inability to commercialize. Yet, it recognizes that someone allowed themselves to be vulnerable enough to try, and therefore can now teach us what doesn’t work.
  • Wall of Shame (3d signals) -The Wall of Shame, located in a central part of the company, acknowledges employees who were voted in for saying something spectacularly, well, thick. The CEO of the company, Ariel Rosenfeld, says the wall helps people not take themselves too seriously, and realize that we’re all human, and everyone makes mistakes. To date, the company’s CTO holds the record and has just had his 5th saying hung on the wall.

These examples obviously are not intended to just reward failure because they “tried”. Rather it’s to show people that when they are willing to make themselves vulnerable, we’re willing to help them take sensible risks, and that there is just as much that can be learned from success as there is from failure.

 A last piece of advice from Brené for the road – In order to develop manager’s abilities to cultivate an openness to vulnerability in their teams, they need to allow themselves to be vulnerable as well. They would lead by example and demonstrate that the picture of the leader needing to know all the answers is no longer the case. In reality, we’re all in this together.

HOW TO BE PAST-READY

Published date: April 13, 2022 в 4:45 pm

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Category: Innovation

Yesterday it occurred to me that none of my girls actually knew what a letter even was. They knew the word but none had ever written nor received one. They had never lived the experience of running to the mailbox to see whether an envelope with a stamp was waiting, bringing news from a dear friend from which they had not heard for months.

I tried to convey this long-lost reality with its accompanying feelings and managed mainly to elicit laughter and ridicule, but also some genuine curiosity.

“So how did they know that you had received and read the letter?”

“Yeah. Imagine them sitting in a caffe in Brasil three weeks after sending it and suddenly hearing a buzz in their ear and saying, ahh great, they opened my letter.” LOL

“And then, when they received your response, it would say: last time she wrote a letter was on November 16th, at 13:45.” LOLer

“What?!? Then it could take like 6 weeks between the moment you wrote to tell her of the video you had just seen and the moment you received her response??? So why bother being in touch with people that far away, anyway?”

And so on and so LOL.

While they were laughing and making fun of us old-timers it suddenly occurred to me: we humans are not only limited in our ability to imagine an unknown future; we’re just as challenged when we try to overcome our fixedness about imagining unlived pasts! In fact, why should there be a difference? Why would it be easier for someone who doesn’t know what is, say, a letter, to invent the concept – that was once an obvious reality to all and sundry – than to invent the next WhatsApp or Telegram?

It somehow feels that it is more difficult, and I have some thoughts on why this is the case, but also the suspicion that the main difference is that we are simply more interested in future-looking-fixedness-breaking than in its past-looking sister, and that is why we invest so much effort trying to invent difficult-to-imagine futures rather than understanding just-as-difficult-to-comprehend pasts.

We tend to believe that innovation necessarily means advancing from iPhoneX to iPhone X+1, 2,3… But what if iP7 was actually better than iP9, say? Which innovation mechanisms do we have to help us correct our course by stepping back? Advancing backwards? Or, on a larger scale, from the perspective of say 1990’s McDonald’s – given that they were clearly selling a mostly harmful product, the obvious innovation strategy, which to a certain extent at a certain point they followed, was to try to make the product more wholesome or, at least, less harmful. This is certainly a worthy effort and a beneficial use of the company’s innovation abilities. From the perspective of the rest of humanity, though, wouldn’t the most effective and benign strategic innovation be to go backwards to a McDonald-less world? Or at least to scale it back in size and reach? In terms of our definition (click here to read the article) this course of action would undoubtedly count as a great instance of innovation, complying with our two criteria:

1)      Important impact has been achieved – less harmful food is being consumed;

2)     A fixedness has been broken – that the best course of action for MD is to grow and grow, regardless of its impact on society.

Innovation can, I am suggesting, work in both directions. It can mean breaking our fixedness to imagine futures that are seemingly inconceivable with our current knowledge, and it can also lead us to what is often the even more difficult task of realizing that we have forged forward on the wrong branch in the tree of possibilities and would do better to advance backwards to the last fork and select a different route to advance along.

So, as the world reaches increasingly more dead ends, those who have the skills to reimagine quasi-forgotten past-solutions and “invent backwards” to lead us to ways of being whose value we can now appreciate, with the benefit of hindsight, more than we ever did in the past, may become the visionary leaders of the future. Hindsight is given a bad rap because it is assumed that one cannot go back to make use of it. But what if one could?

The Five Drivers Behind Food Innovation

Published date: April 8, 2022 в 4:34 pm

Written by:

Category: Innovation,New Product Development

One of my best friends, Rosa Seidenwar, is a pastry chef, food photographer, and stop motion artist. This gives me many perks, especially when a new recipe is in the works and I get called upon for my taste testing skills. Yes, it’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. As I nibbled, taking in all the flavors and textures, I couldn’t help but marvel. Even with the colossal amount of food items, recipes, cookbooks, food blogs, food shows, restaurants, delivery methods (did I leave anything out?) – people are still able to come up with something new! And what’s more, consumers aren’t ready to say – Thank you! We have enough! In fact, according to a study by NielsenIQ, a third of Americans are actively looking for new products to try. Which makes product innovation still a lead runner for food corporations, as opposed to, say, taking a year off and just focusing on productivity (same study states that 30,000 new products are launched each year in the consumer packaged goods industry). Having worked with food corporations in the past and seeing their modes for launching innovations, I was curious to also hear Rosa’s take, as representing the personal brands rising in the industry.

 So if food innovation is your bread-and-butter, here are five drivers that keep product innovation going at such an intensity:

  1. Technology: New technology is affecting practically every aspect of the food industry – whether it’s the ingredients themselves (think cell-based meats), the equipment used on manufacturing lines, and kitchenware readily available and affordable to the regular consumer. This can deliver a whole slew of products that consumers can try out, whether because they can be manufactured, or because they can now be tried out at home.
  2. Digital: Apps and social media have changed the way we interact with food altogether. Whether its tracking calories, scanning QR codes on labels for the history of a food product, and the constant picture-perfect meals uploaded to insta, keeping up with the Jones’ has reached new heights and consumers are demanding products that meet these needs.
  3. Trends and lifestyle: I hate to use the C word, but Covid has changed a lot about how we connect with food. Whether it’s dining-in, family oriented meals, meals that are experiences, the food industry picks up on these trends (and other non-C related ones) and will create new products or adapt existing ones to suit. Working from home requires less products suited for eating on the go and gives rise to products like subscription boxes for creating meals at home. We see global trends such as sustainability affecting how ingredients are used and used up. And of course, while healthy eating never goes out of style, the introduction of new diets (Keto, Whole 30) also spark interest in new food items to match.
  4. New ingredients: The introduction of new or lesser used ingredients like monk fruit, microalgae, etc. (remember when spirulina was new?) or finding new uses for favorite ingredients like chocolate, peanut butter, and yogurt to fuel the inspiration for new products on the market. The motion for reducing waste and upcycling food leads to creativity in using previously overlooked by-products in new products.
  5. Your “Secret Sauce”: This last point is what gives each brand their exclusive drive. Ultimately, the food industry is made up of people, whether it’s one person in their home business, or teams of people in a large company). Each person involved in the food industry has their own unique offering and passion that they bring with them. It could be their experience from working in the industry or on a certain product line, the training they received at culinary school or degree in food science, or their market knowledge. It could be on a personal level such as affinities for fair trade, use of specific ingredients, risk taking, simple vs. complex flavors, specific cuisines. The combination makes up their secret sauce for what drives their creativity. You can look at this on a broader level, as what is each company’s secret sauce? What are the resources and strengths and cumulative experiences that can inspire?

So which is the biggest driver for you? The upside is, these drivers are very much connected. Ingredients can lead to products that establish behaviors. Behaviors can influence which ingredients are used. Technology can feed into trends that lead to products, and so forth. So once you get yourself onto one, you can always follow the arrows to the other.  But your “Secret Sauce”? No one can follow that but you.

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