7 Keys to Innovation - European Style

by Kathy Robison

Two weeks ago, I attended the Front End Innovation Europe Conference (FEI Europe) held in Amsterdam. One of the highlights was seeing the car in the picture above in person. Yes, they drove it into a large conference room inside the Hilton Hotel. It is the 2010 BMW Vision EfficientDynamics Concept car, and it is even more cool in person than in the photo. It's BMW's answer to the green car revolution. Though perhaps a little late to the game, I suspect it will eventually prove to be a huge success as they continue to do engineering with more style than most other car makers. In addition to seeing the car, we got to hear directly from Adrian van Hooydonk, the Director of Design of BMW Group and mastermind behind the group that developed the car. They clearly rose to the challenge of eloquently working Future Sustainability into their brand of the Joy of Mobility in a record amount of time.

We also received a lesson from Josephine Green, a well-known leader in trends and strategy from Philips Design, on Engaging with the Future Differently. It was a real eye opener for many. We also heard fantastic examples of innovation in conjunction with universities from Sigvald Harryson with Copenhagen Business School that left us all realizing the vastness of the untapped resources lurking around our universities. The event concluded with a superb presentation from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and an interactive session that literally no one wanted to leave. All in all... a huge success! If you missed FEI Europe, don't miss FEI USA 2010 in Boston this coming May (see editor's note for 20% off). I suspect it to be equally as tantalizing.

I've written previously about the Pitfalls of Innovation, and I still believe that far more talk about innovation occurs than actual innovation because true innovation comes from doing not talking. Just go to any third world country where people are forced to live with minimal resources and you will see what true innovation is all about. It comes more from unmet needs and a gap in resources than heavily padded budgets purposed toward the never-ending replacement of old gadgets with new gadgets. None-the-less, well done conferences such as FEI, are well worth it.

Below are the 7 Keys to an Innovative Business. Some are my standard favorites, and others I picked up at the FEI Europe Conference.

7 Keys to an Innovative Business

1. Multiple Approaches to Innovation Provide the Best Results


• Hire people with innovative characteristics
  
• Seek partnerships - the more unlikely, the better
  
• Lead users and co-invention can be extremely useful in some sectors
  
• Complex Coalitions (public/private/univ/venture/research) are coming


2. Don't Overlook the Importance of an Innovative Business Model


• Ensure culture and vision include a commitment to innovation
  
• Business as usual is no longer an option for 21st century success
  
• Traditional hierarchical and rigid organizations don't foster creativity
  
• Change should be the fuel of your business model not what creates a crisis


3. Find the Right Balance Between Old, Adjacent, and New Business/Products/Services


• Varies between industries, companies, and brands
  
• Don't chuck out the old, just for the sake of it
  
• How much of the value of your firm is based on its future potential?


4. Innovation Requires Optimism, Curiosity, and a Splash of the Future


• Spend more time studying the fringe - the middle is already known
  
• Analyze what isn't and not what is - finding the gaps
  
• Understand the "big think" trends
  
• Get to know younger generations, they will be running things soon


5. From Linear, to Exponential, to Circular


• From "out of the box thinking" to "thinking without boxes"
  
• Renewable and sustainable are circular concepts and here to stay
  
• Constant feedback loops are critical to staying ahead of the curve


6. Cultivating the Right Mindset is 90% of the Battle


• Learning from failure is a key to success
  
• Blur the lines and anxiety around internal vs external
  
• Collaboration with competitors can be the best option in some situations


7. Leadership Sans Egos


• Cultivating trust requires the courage to be vulnerable
  
• Constructive conflict produces the best answers
  
• Business model intimacy - creating solutions with customers
  
• Money is a low-level motivator... find out what really motivates your employees

Editor's Note: As an added value to our Blogging Innovation subscribers, we have negotiated a 20% discount for you. Just register using the discount code - FEI2010BRADEN.


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Kathy Robison is the CEO of YURU, (The Guru Is You), dedicated to assisting businesses to realize the full potential of their success through innovative business strategies, executive coaching and leadership development.

Realistic Impossibilities

by Kathy Robison

Being on the wrong end of the continuum between realistic and impossible is what plagues many of today's large multi-national corporations. The fear of failure by employees who are only partially engaged and don't entirely feel like valued members of the team, will always translate into goals and ideas that are mediocre and achievable and never ones that are innovative or impossible. In the 21st century, which is fraught with global economic adjustments, global-interdependence, developed world saturation, and a consumer base that is rapidly changing, creating the impossible is the only way to break away from the competition, ensure success and create a meaningful impact on the world.

Unfortunately most large companies live in the land of the realistic. It has permeated their business model, their culture, and the expectations of their customers. Many of these companies are starting to realize that creativity, thinking differently, and innovation are the keys to success in the future, but they feel stuck in how to achieve such goals. Hopefully some will view them as impossible and find the courage to achieve them anyway. You see, if you want to create a culture that reaches for the impossible, despite the odds, it must begin at the top and it often begins with an updated and innovative business model.

Designing an innovative and exciting business model with impossible goals is often a much easier and less expensive way to creating a culture of creativity and innovation that trying to dictate it. Processes, procedures, and changes in organizational structure can be dictated; innovation and creative thinking must be experienced and nurtured. The act of dictating, making rules, and imposing your will on others are the very things that have turned off our creativity, thinking, and innovative traits in the past. It was OK in the last century where the goals were to build, duplicate, and be efficient. The difference now is that we are moving from a world of industrialization and knowledge to one of conceptualization and connection.

Yes, there will be impediments and unforeseen circumstances that get in the way of creating the impossible, but they must be viewed as learning and growth opportunities. And, yes, there is always the possibility of failure, but failure is not altogether a bad thing. We must learn to accept failure as a part of the process of success. Unfortunately, many corporate cultures are so anti-failure that they no longer reach for anything exciting, tantalizing, or remotely interesting, which are the very things that improve productivity, reduce turnover, attract talent and create cultures that regularly innovate.

The disillusionment with big business and the realization that job security was really an illusion anyway is the fuel for new competition that will come charging out of the gates with all of these new attributes in tact. During the next 50 years, we will see some of the biggest companies in the world come crumbling down as well as the birth of some of the greatest companies in the world. It will be an interesting game to watch and fascinating to see the rules of play take a completely new direction. Here are a few of my favorite new perspective one-liners to start 2010:

• Do as Wayne Gretzky and "Skate to where the puck will be"


• Have the capacity to collaborate with the most unlikely of players


• Create something larger than the products you sell


• Lead with the tenacity of an underdog

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Kathy Robison is the CEO of YURU, (The Guru Is You), dedicated to assisting businesses to realize the full potential of their success through innovative business strategies, executive coaching and leadership development.