Companies need an innovation process (way beyond creative thinking) that starts with a vision, then moves to the architecting, and results in a systematic execution of change. This does not only address quandaries, but also creates something new. Many companies follow a process similar to this: Feet on the Street – Talk to end users…
A Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal (BHAG) is a challenge to align the business behind; leveraging content expertise, decision-making ability, and accountability. Employees might not know how they’re going to get there, but at least they know the direction in which they are going. A leader drives system-wide, enterprise change. This gives employees permission to think…
Most companies are structured and designed to maximize profit and minimize risks, yet they still need to innovate in order to become the disruptor, instead of being the disrupted. Larry Page invests in Google X (like the name!) to work on bold, new projects (i.e., self-driving car). Disney has their own accelerator where employees act like…
Once a company’s strategy predicts a future landscape, then it is time to innovate and adapt by positioning choices on where/how to compete. The goal of innovation is to exploit unseen possibilities/breakthrough constraints. This is more difficult for incumbents, who could see shrinking revenue from cannibalizing with a new product. In addition, they have significant…
20+ years ago, less than 3% of the world’s population had mobile phones and less than 1% were on the Internet. If we limited ourselves to those numbers, we would have missed out on the market today…Where it 2/3 and 1/3 respectively (Source: McKinsey). Contrast that with the next 10 years, when survey respondents said…
Danish toy company, LEGO, was founded by woodworker Ole Kirk Christiansen originally as a wooden toy making company. He started during the Great Depression and his four sons joined him at work. When he saw the future in plastic toys, he bought a plastic molding machine. However, three of four sons left him to continue working…
I had lunch with an innovation expert in food – originally from Sweden, he has now worked for some of the top American brands of food. The 1981 US government food pyramid turned out to be all wrong, and there is increasing pressure of nutrition today, which includes putting cheap ingredients in food (i.e., pink…
I toured John Hopkins Sibley Memorial Hospital’s innovation center in Washington DC, and was amazed at what they are accomplishing with their human-centered design approach. Their projects included everything from helping moms interact with newborns in the NICU, to a story-telling approach to make MRI machines less scary for children, to how patients park at…
Thomas Edison created the electric bulb. Yet, to be useful, this bulb needed a system of electric power generation, as well as transmission. So, an entire new industry and marketplace was created around the bulb. Some of Edison’s keys to innovation: Envision how people will want to use what is created, taking into consideration their…
One of the most famous innovators, he was a German-born American physicist and Nobel Prize winner. He had a tendency to reject conformity and instead, questioned conventional ways of thinking. His curiosity led him to appreciate music, philosophy, mathematics, and science. These interdisciplinary interests informed his worldview and approach. He said, “Imagination is more important…
