MAGNIFICATION
Monday, April 22, 2013 at 2:29AM Magnify the process to magnify the impact.
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Monday, April 22, 2013 at 2:29AM Conception
Tuesday, April 9, 2013 at 9:16PM
A great conception leads to world class innovation
Today I wanted to talk about conception. Not the conception in love making but the conception of an idea and innovation. Like everything, everything starts somewhere and innovation is no different. Conception is an innovation skill that enables you to create the meaning and motivation behind an idea. If you don't have a good reason to motivate, it's unlikely that you will innovate.
The conception point of an innovation is a combination of a variety of factors it includes:
- Your Motivation - the way you are doing it
- The Function - the essence of how it will work
- The Brief - the explanation of it all to give the big picture behind your upcoming innovation
In design thinking there is a classic saying that form follows function. Simply put your reason for creating a design is the motivation that determines the final form. While there can be some exceptions to this rule or credo, most of the time it stands true.
A powerful example of this is the not-for-profit behaviour change company called 'We Are What We Do'. In 2004 their mission was to look at effecting change to better the planet and the life of it's occupants. Not an easy thing to do with a limited budget, and being a non for profit to boot. The solution, create a burning mantra concept and the innovative idea will come. And yes the idea did come, in the form of a book called "Change The World For Ten Bucks" . The book had the most simple of premises. Save the planet, and doing it cheaply.
Did the book sell? You bet, it had sold 50,000 of them before even going to print. All because of its clear. simple, unmistakable concept. A concept so powerful and inviting that they even managed to get the Australian prime minster of the time to endorse and launch the book. The organisation is still around today staying true to their cause.
The question is what's the clear concept you have behind your innovation? What's been coming first? Has it been trying to focus on the 'form' of the innovation or the reason and motivation for innovating?
A great conception leads to world class innovation.
PS: If you'd like to receive some complimentary innovation mentoring why not come along to this months complimentary Innovation Shortcuts session in Sydney. For more information check out "Nils Vesk's May Innovation Shortcuts: 'Mentoring Meets Execution' Session".
Numbers are limited so book quickly.
Nils Vesk is an innovation architect who applies the process of design thinking to the business of generating and realising ideas. Click here to find out more about his book Ideas with Legs.
Cheers,
Nils
Nils Vesk
Innovation Architect (p)1300 139 272
The Value of Organisational Innovation
Monday, March 25, 2013 at 10:09PM There is a direct relationship between the quality of an organisation's ideas and their business success. The journey an organisation takes can vary from being painful to exhilarating. Unlike a roller coaster ride, going down in business is something that we want to avoid. There are generally 4 stages along an innovation success journey. The stages we get stuck on or progress to, are largely determined by the quality and quantity of ideas. There are also 3 basic types of businesses in regards to innovation. They are:
1. The Copycat Business
The copycat business is the organisation that doesn't believe in the power of innovation. They think it's easier and cheaper to copy what the competition is doing. And yes, while copying what your competitor is doing can lead to a small amount of success, imitation is not innovation and the market place are quick to pick up that. When we stick in the copycat mindset we will forever be trying to compete on price. Most compete on price by using a less superior product or service to achieve this. The business is far from sustainable and the future is clouded with uncertainty. This is the first stage on an innovation journey that for many will never improve.
2. The Pedestrian Business
The pedestrian business at the beginning think for themselves. This 1st step of creating their own ideas rapidly brings them more success than the copycat businesses (stage 2). The pedestrian business usually starts strong with a few good ideas, but not long after (because of a lack of continuing idea generation), the number of good ideas they can choose from declines and they're left with mediocre ideas. The resultant products, process or services become run of the mill ie. they meet a need yet don't create raving fans. Without intervention they are often headed back into a black hole where the emphasis of the business becomes one about performance improvement (without considering continuing innovation). The performance mindset can't help but look for tweaks in the production or service line. A cost saving here and cost saving there, and you're back to competing on price and being a copycat business.
3. The Exciting Business
The exciting business has pushed past the early glory phase of 'runs on the board', they understand that a successful business depends on a continuing number of fresh ideas being generated (stage 3). They realise that quantity leads to quality in their ideas. With such a large number of ideas being generated, it becomes easy to spot the brilliant ideas that the business needs (stage 4). By creating ideas, products, process and service that are so good it creates a contagious effect on the end users. Sales increase, satisfaction increases, team motivation and recognition increases and so to does the business success. The exciting business continues to innovate and therefore maintain and continually increase its margin of success.
I look forward to hearing about your contagious ideas!
Nils Vesk
Innovation architect
Innovation Blueprint - founded by Nils Vesk
Nils Vesk is an innovation architect who applies the process of design thinking to the business of generating and realising ideas. Click here to find out more about his book Ideas with Legs.
Innovation is just a habit
Tuesday, December 4, 2012 at 5:18PM Most of us operate habitually day to day. In our organisations we follow processes, have little rituals and habits about what we think, and what we do. Not all our habits are great, many are good (they help us get where we are) and others are not so good (they stop us from growing and improving).
Our negative habits get in the way, when they prevent us from doing something more extraordinary, something more valuable or more innovative. The key part of the brain that controls our habits is the Basal Ganglia, this little piece of brain machinery is responsible allowing us to do and make so many of thousands of decisions we make everyday. In fact if it wasn’t for the Basal Ganglia, the processing power that our brains would require to process a decision from start to finish every time would be so huge that our heads would be too big to allow us to be born. The Basal Ganglia allows the brain to utilise previous experiences as a way to shortening our processing required in making decisions. In essence habits make our life easier for our brain and for ourselves.
Innovation is just a series of particular habits, brought together to create some commercial magic at the end of it all. If we can create some awesome innovative habits and maintain them we can make innovating much easier.
Our challenge is:
- What are the innovation habits that we want to create?
- Are there any habits I need to eliminate or change that are hampering or preventing my innovation as it stands?
- How do I continue my habits for a long time to come?
- What is it that creates a habit in the first place?
In his awesome book the Power of Habits author Charles Duhigg, takes readers on a journey into the world of habits. After an intense investigation of Habit scientists, Duhigg reveals some of the secrets behind habits.
One key take away is that a habit is made up of:
a trigger
- a routine
- a reward
- a craving
Say you start your day at the office by checking your emails as soon as you sit down.
The trigger may be seeing the computer. the routine might be to log in and check emails, the reward may be the number of emails that you look at and the craving that you are trying to satisfy may actually be trying to get a sense of control in your day to day life.
Negative habits are often continued because of the craving that it satisfies not necessarily the reward. As Duhigg shares, one of his habits was to head to the cafeteria and buy a cookie. By applying a habit awareness process, Duhigg started to capture his thoughts and feelings when this habit came on – what was he feeling? and what was he thinking etcetera.
Part of chaining habits (if you feel they are not serving you) is in realising that we can change the reward to satisfy the craving and therefore change the habit. Duhigg tried substituting the biscuit with some fruit. Was he craving the sweet sugar hit? The fruit didn’t satisfy him, perhaps it was something else?
What Duhigg realised was that he was really craving the social interaction of the cafeteria. So rather than head to the cafeteria where he was likely to buy the cookie, he instead went for a wander up the corridor to see if a colleague’s door was open and have a quick chat. Craving satisfied and a new habit created.
The point to this story about habits is twofold:
First go and buy the book it’s a great read and second, we need to be vigilant about bad habits that prevent us from innovating & replace them with new habits.
Here’s five quick routines or processes to start to get an innovation habit happening. Try doing one habit once a day, that way you can do 5 of them a week.
- Ask yourself if you could reinvent the way you work differently by starting from scratch.What would you do to make your work easier? – this could be making something faster, slower, simpler and so on?
- Scan a part of the world for something that catches your eye or your imagination – the further afield it is, the better it will be. If you’re in the world of finance explore the world romance, if you work in digital, explore the world of handcrafts. If you see am idea imagine you have to incorporate the key attributes of the idea into your world. What would that look like and how would it work?
- Map a part of a process that you do in your day to day work. Identify the steps that make up the process. You could think of it as a series of check lists, or a mind map of how all the elements relate to it.
- Look at a map of the processes you have mapped before and force yourself to improve some of the steps. Start small and stay specific, how could you improve it?
- What’s something that your client or team dislike about what you do in your work? What could you do to make working with your service, process or product the best experience imaginable? Now, how can you make it happen?
So what’s the craving that you’re looking for? Relieving boredom? A sense of excitement of doing something no one has done before? A challenge, a a puzzle? A sense of pride? Recognition?
Some our habits such as playing in the footy tipping competition while might be fun may not be that innovative, but it satisfies the craving of fun, and a sense of competition in a simple game with simple rules. We can do the same by creating a gaming environment around the innovation we create, with clear rules, objectives and a way of measuring ones progress with constant feedback.
Is it the number of ideas created per week? Number of new ideas or initiatives implemented in a quarter? Number of projects completed? The rules are up to you as are the opportunities.
Start your new innovation habit today.
Cheers,
Nils
Nils Vesk
Innovation Architect
Innovation Speaker
Innovator profile
Sunday, November 4, 2012 at 8:39PM What kind of innovator are you?
I reckon that there are 3 levels of contribution that people make to innovation.
1. Those of us who believe we have no innovative bones in our body (which is totally untrue) and therefore our contribution is minimal.
2.Those that come up with one idea once in a blue moon, which is good but we could be doing even more, and
3. Those who come up with commercial ideas day in day out, which is fantastic.
What separates an individuals level of innovation contribution often comes down to one or two criteria.
1. The individual hasn't learnt any innovation skills to apply
OR
2. The individual believes that they possess very little if any innovative ability (again which is totally untrue).
What can help us all to increase our level of innovation contribution is to get a handle of what kind of innovator we are and what innovation skills we already possess (and yes you do have some). If we can get more clarity on what our innovation tendencies are, we can utilise this to build on our strengths for the innovative projects we create. Better still, it enables us to utilise the innovative talents of others working on our team.
As you can imagine, any profiling tool is limited and flawed. Despite the flaws that come with any model, this profiling tool is not only fun but more importantly will help us realise that we already posses a number of innovative skills.
I have a number of hobbies that keep me occupied in my spare time, and one of them is teaching oriental yoga. The oriental yoga I teach is based on the same principles that acupuncturists use in oriental medicine. What I've found is that for the 10 years that I've been teaching yoga and the 15 years of working in the world of commercial innovation, is that there is an uncanny similarity between the personality types that an acupuncturist classifies and the key innovation personalities I see in organisations around the world.
So let's find out what kind of Innovator you are.
There are 5 key elements and personality types in the field of acupuncture.
They are:
1. Fire
2. Earth
3. Metal
4. Water
5. Wood
The Fire Innovator's five key attributes are:
1. Infectious energy - wherever you go, you create excitement and inspire others about your project
2. Fast thinking - ability to think on your feet and create idea with minimal preparation or background information
3. Problem solving - ability to deconstruct problems and create multiple solutions quickly and effectively
4. Opportunity Hunter - If there's an opportunity to seize, you'll find it and start innovating to acquire it (even if you don't know you're doing it)
5. Social Seeker - You get energised by being with others, and like the idea of contributing to a group cause. You love sharing your ideas and suggestions
The Earth Innovator's five key attributes are:
1. Practicality - you're the realist and grounded personality who knows when to pull things in. While you don't want to rain on other peoples parades, you know when a project will work or not.
2. What's in it for me? - Your selective about the innovative projects you want to work on, if there's something that interests you, you're in, if not, you're not quite willing.
3. Reinvention expert - you have a practical knack for turning something ordinary into the extraordinary and making the old new
4. Adaptable to change - change comes easily for you, while others baulk at the slightest whiff of a change, you're actively seeking change and adapt accordingly
5. Supportive & communicative - a great communicator, with the ability to express yourself. With a supportive focus you're a contributor to others ideas, not a destroyer of their ideas.
The Metal Innovator's five key attributes are:
1. Sharpness - your intellectual sharpness allows you to see what's really going on and define the root cause of a problem
2. Combination - ability to bring components from totally separate areas and bring them together to create totally new innovations
3. Decisiveness - being quick to work out what 'not to do' and what 'to do' make you an effective decision maker
4. Concentration - laser like focus, ability to shut out everything and focus on the task at hand
5. Desire for action - not willing to be idle, you dislike small talk and believe in the motto 'clarity follows action'
The Water Innovator's five key attributes are:
1. Resourcefulness - limited budget and several constraints is your thing. You have an innate ability to innovate using whatever tools, elements and resources are at hand
2. Hindsight - with a great memory, you revel in knowing the outcomes of previous projects and applying the key learnings key to your current situation
3. Wisdom seeker - always asking your self, what am I learning from this? How can I apply this elsewhere?
4. Introspective - You prefer your own company above others, and your best thinking comes on your own
5. Contingency thinker - you worry about the details and therefore create back up plans for every conceivable problem
The Wood Innovator's five key attributes are:
1. Growth & improvement junkie - a 'Kai Zen' continual improvement believer. For the wood innovator and 'Kai Zen' devotee there is no such thing as perfection, only continual improvement
2. Discipline - you excel at creating processes that help people keep on track, on time and on task
3. Planning - you deeply understand the need for a plan and how to co-ordinate with others
4. Vision and foresight - ability to anticipate what the market needs and the direction you need to take
5. Challenger - you're not afraid of challenging the status quo for yourself and for others. Your ambition makes meeting challenges 'head on', a game you love to play
Through experience I have found that we tend to have one dominant innovation personality and one supportive personality piece. Once you have identified some traits that seem indicative of your own personality, this can help you to not only tap into your own strengths but the strengths of others as well.
Here's how you can tap into the strength of other innovators to help your cause. Say for example if you've been working on a project by yourself and you're predominantly a water innovator, then chances are you might be thinking about the tiny details too much and ignoring the big picture. This is when it's good to get an opinion from a wood innovator (someone who has good foresight) to ascertain what they think of the direction of your project.
If you're a predominant Earth innovator and are good at using all the resources at hand, you might find you have a tendency to use just what's in front of you, rather than think further a field. Finding a metal innovator and asking for suggestions of what other elements you could combine to your project idea can help to give you some new insights that will complement your resourcefulness.
I'm sure you get the gist of how to further use this profile tool.
Cheers,
Nils
Nils Vesk
Innovation Architect
Innovation speaker