Today’s episode will talk about a recent experience I had while attending a remote event related to innovation and my thinking process digesting some testimonials. I will also develop three best practices to effectively drive innovation in your business while dealing with daily business activities.
Is the Innovation rate growing exponentially?
Last week, while attending a remote event sponsored by The Austin Forum on Technology & Society, I realized a hard truth about innovation and resistance to change.
The audience talked about a book called: Exponential: How the Next Digital Revolution Will Rewire Life on Earth. While some attendees doubt the assertion of an exponential growth rate (it may be polynomial), everybody agreed that innovation is a crucial driver for success for entrepreneurs and businesses.
Still, an attendee asked the audience their opinions as to why several business industries have shown no critical progress in innovation, such as government.
Some professionals argued that this was probably a consequence of political (not business) agendas.
I like to think of a parallel explanation based on physics and understanding static and dynamic friction.
What Friction can teach us about resistance to change
From Physics, we learn that the energy needed for an object to start moving (static friction, inertia) is hundreds or thousand times more than the energy required to keep the object moving (dynamic friction).
So, if you follow this argument, we may say that it often takes a massive effort to start a change, because of the static friction, versus the effort to keep things as is.
We may think that static friction is the status quo in a business or social event. The dynamic friction can be related to the organizational synergy acquired by becoming a learning organization and looking for new challenges to drive additional customer value.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Maybe, expressions such as that or ”We need an ROI analysis before deciding to take this initiative to the next level” are early indicators of the need for excess energy (effort) at the initial stages of the initiative to drive the change.
Innovation as a critical driver for success
At the same time, and in contradiction, it is a no-brainer to accept that innovation is a critical success factor behind many success stories.
So, if the business needs to innovate to survive, and the energy or effort required to approve the initiative is much higher than what we can afford, what can we do as business leaders or trusted advisors to be of genuine assistance in the initial stages?
Building momentum during the innovation analysis and approval stages
My personal experience is to provide technical information supporting the decision, connected via an Executive Summary filled with personal gains from an emotional point of view.
It is essential to recognize that if the Decision Maker or Executive Sponsor joins the crusade, they need to see some personal gain. They want to be connected emotionally with the initiative most of the time.
I see Jose; It is about why me, why now?
– Yeap, you got it. 😊
Best Practices for building value during the initial stages of an Innovation based initiative:
1. It is an excellent approach to document and highlight both technical and emotional gains of the initiative as perceived by the Decision Maker:
- Business: Technical, integration, simplification, elimination of siloed applications or data, new revenue streams, among others, reducing cost per transaction.
- Emotional: Efficiency, work-life balance, quality of life, building customer intimacy, developing a long-term relationship, corporate branding, and personal branding, among others.
2. Evolution is simpler to accept than disruption: It is better to introduce a disruption based on the minimal required functionalities (Minimal Viable Product, MVP) and to later include new phases with new versions of the MVP, based on evolution, rather than going for a Big Bang, full implementation of the solution.
3. Building a learning organization willing to drive change from incremental steps is a successful way to reduce the approving complexity of new initiatives. This is complementary to the previous topic but addresses the benefit of endorsing the need of including new organizational ways to improve efficiencies, such as Agile, Continuous Delivery, and Continuous Improvement.
I see your point, Jose; one comment:
We will often face a situation where the business leader is engaged but unwilling to sponsor the initiative; many factors include short-term issues or long-term goals. (more on addressing short-term needs while executing your long-term plan in Episode 7, Episode 8, and Episode 9)
Any comment on that?
Yes, at times, Business Leaders fall short of specific initiatives and think they need to postpone them based on other current events.
Sometimes, these can be done without consequences to the business; other times, there wouldn’t be a second chance: the organization will be forced to drive innovation at a premium price (financial, technical, life balance), competing against a new digital-born leader.
It is better to look for ways to reinvent yourself and become a digital business leader than to react to a digital-born player with a disruptive business model.
Good enough?
I hope you find this episode valuable and entertaining.
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