Innovation Process: How to Re-Invent It for Massive Growth
What is a fundamental requirement for an extraordinary innovation process? Collaboration in my mind, hands down. While the main focus of our agency is marketing, customer service, and business success, we also focus on creativity and innovation. Why might you be thinking?
Because everything in marketing and customer service depends on creative and innovative change. So from time to time, we address interesting ways to enhance creative thinking and innovation. Today we address what we consider to be the fundamental building blocks of an innovative process.
Collaboration drives creativity because innovation always emerges from a series of sparks – never a single flash of insight.
-K Sawyer
Let’s get the discussion started:
Problem understanding
Alright, you probably think you have a good understanding of what problem you are trying to solve, right? Then go ahead, explain it in one sentence to the person next to you. No one around? Explain it to yourself. Take note of the many “ahems and pauses you are going to make. Don’t worry it takes quite some time and lots of repetition to master this.
Want to see seven ways to improve your collaboration?
Ask the question why … often
What problems are you facing that could be approached differently simply by asking WHY and then WHY again, and then WHY again … until you get to the real definition of the problem?
If you don’t, you may just end up not correctly defining the problem. Not good. Nothing worse than solving the wrong problem. So put in enough time to understanding and defining your problem. Don’t leap to problem-solving before you do. Lots of whys help us explore and thoroughly define the problem.
It takes a keen ability to create spaces where trust can happen, where risks can get taken. We tend to our operationally minded view of the world to try and mitigate and design out as much risk as we can. However, if you want to innovate, you have to take risks. And to take risks, you have to some level of trust within the organization where the innovation is taking place.
Develop beginner’s mind
The beginner’s mind refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner in that subject would. That is a key mentality you need for innovation.
Trial and error
Take the example of Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, to represent this building block. He did not build the networking site into a $1-billion valued company in one day. He developed his skills and tested ideas while launching and experimenting at SocialNet and PayPal. That is what it takes.
Since long hours of work might be required to satisfy your curiosity, what’s important is how you respond to failure. Can you find the courage to respond, not with embarrassment or regret, but with more questions: Why did this fail? What can I learn now? What will I do differently next time? If you can, like most great inventors and creators throughout history did, you’ll be well on your way.
Experimenting is a critical innovation skill. None of us think twice about learning to ride a bike through trial and error, so why is it so rare in business innovation?
Empathy
A sense of inquiry, of curiosity, is essential for innovation. And the quickest way for removing curiosity, in my opinion, is to have organizations that are too inward-facing. Those are the ones that don’t spend enough time out in the world, particularly with their customers.
But a sense of curiosity, openness, a sense of empathy for the world, for people whose problems they might be trying to solve that’s essential.
Use lots of prototypes
If you’re serious about innovation, you must learn, as second nature, to convert your ideas into prototypes. And as quickly as possible.
Funny thing about ideas is they’re never fully formed – they morph and twist as you talk about them, and as long as you keep talking they keep changing. Converting your ideas into prototypes puts an end to all the nonsense.
Job 1 of the prototype is to help you flesh out your idea – to help you understand what it’s all about. Using whatever you have on hand, create a physical embodiment of your idea. The idea is to build until you can’t, to build until you identify a question you can’t answer.
Job 2 of the prototype is to help others understand your idea. There’s a simple constraint in this phase – you cannot use words – you cannot speak – to describe your prototype. It must speak for itself. You can respond to questions, but that’s it.
And for the questions you cannot answer, they are the next set of learning objectives. Go away, learn and modify your prototype accordingly (or build a different one altogether). Repeat the learning loop until the group has a common understanding of the idea and a list of questions that only a customer can answer.
Job 3 is to help customers understand your idea. At this stage, it’s best if the prototype is at least partially functional, but it’s okay if it “represents” the idea in a clear way. The requirement is prototype is complete enough for the customer can form an opinion. Job 3 is a lot like Job 2, except replace coworker with the customer.
Building a prototype is the fastest, most effective way to communicate an idea. And it’s the best way to learn. The act of building forces you to make dozens of small decisions to questions you didn’t know you had to answer. The physical nature the prototype gives a three-dimensional expression of the idea.
There may be disagreement on the value of the idea the prototype stands for, but there should be no ambiguity about the idea.
If you’re not building prototypes early and often, you’re not doing innovation. It’s that simple.
Innovation process stages
Innovation process … rely on intuition
As our life becomes more dynamic and less structured, intuition gains more and more recognition as an essential innovation decision-making tool. You have probably heard of experienced decision makers who can directly recognize the best option or course of action in many tricky situations. The solution just comes to them from somewhere in their subconscious mind.
Yes, intuition can make you a much more effective at innovation decision maker, especially when you deal with non-standard situations or inexpedient decision making.
Try lots of ideas
A straight forward, simple five-step innovation strategy formula fits the bill:
Step 1 Try lots of stuff.
Step 2 See what works.
Step 3 Heavy up on stuff that works quickly.
Steps 4 Quickly kill stuff that doesn’t work.
Step 5 Review and repeat.
“Unlearn” outdated knowledge
Challenge the way you’ve always done things. Block your mind from thinking in the traditional manner. It’s hard but has to be done.
Compelling leadership
Innovation can be a solitary endeavor, but to be successful, innovators need to be able to rally a team around them. The best leaders get their people so fired up that they’re ecstatic to do their jobs. Their dream is adopted by others, and their team picks up the torch to make that dream a reality.
Just think of Walt Disney, whose empire has grown exponentially since his first sketch of Mickey Mouse. The collective passion of decades of talented artists, Imagineers, and operations personnel has kept his legacy alive and enabled tremendous company growth.
Importance of design
Apple is Apple because of the integration of design and utility.
Design alone won’t get you anywhere, but without a physical, visual appeal, you won’t get anywhere either.
If whatever you’re selling doesn’t look great and isn’t easy to use, it’s lacking. And if it’s lacking, it leaves room for improvement — improvement someone else is likely to act on.
A story to end on
Before the days of one-hour photo shops, digital photography, and instant video feedback, people had to wait up to a week for their pictures to be developed by the local pharmacy or camera shop. When Polaroid came out with a camera that delivered a finished photograph in sixty seconds, people were amazed; the era of instant gratification had begun.
So the story goes, a group of adventurers traveled deep into the Brazilian Rainforest to learn about the indigenous people. When they came across a tribe who had never seen outsiders before, they befriended them and took pictures of them with the Polaroid cameras they brought along. The natives loved the pictures since they had never seen anything like this before, but they did have one complaint, ‘why did it take so long for the pictures to develop?’
The problem is not technology; the problem is one of perception. Like the natives who perceived the sixty-second developing of photographs to be slow, so to do many Web- users perceive the Internet to be slow when in fact it is an incredible technological achievement. Think about it for a moment. Anyone with a computer and Internet connection can access information from all over the world in seconds.
The bottom line
We are entering a pivotal era. We are currently undergoing four profound shifts, that include changing patterns of demographics, migration, resources, and technology. The stress lines are already beginning to show, with increasing tensions over race and class as well as questions about the influence technology and institutions have over our lives.
Need some help in improving the innovation process for you and your staff? Innovative ideas to help the differentiation with your toughest competitors? Or maybe ways to innovate new products and services?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new innovative ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Do you have a lesson about making your innovation learning better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on creativity and innovation from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Learn How to Think What No One Else Thinks
Generating Ideas by Convergent Thinking
Amazon and Managing Innovation … the Jeff Bezos Vision
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
