Innovation a Prisoner of Inductive and Deductive Logic

by Braden Kelley

I had the opportunity to attend an event hosted by the Seattle office of design firm NBBJ yesterday. The event featured Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, and author of "The Design of Business" and "The Opposable Mind." I'd like to share a video interview I did with Roger before the event:

Interview - Roger Martin - Author "The Design of Business" from Braden Kelley on Vimeo.

I'd also like to share some of the key insights from Roger's talk at the event:

• People think in ways that form rules in their brains, and they are not always aware of the ways that those rules constrain them


• That which tends to get you more reliability often gets you less validity


• IQ tests have test/re-test reliability, but only 30% of life outcomes are related to IQ, 70% is attributable to other factors
  
• Emotional intelligence measures may be more valid, but not reliable


• If you insist on reliability, you can't prove in advance that your heuristic of a mystery is correct


• Innovation is a prisoner of deductive and inductive logic


• We learn to analyze quantities, but what matters more often are the qualities


• Abductive logicians welcome variance because they want to try and understand the outliers. Our modern education system beats abductive logic out of you. Are you focusing on quantities or qualities?


• We depend too much on quantities - Having more Science Technology & Math (STeM) graduates is not the way to invent the future


• Our businesses run on abstractions to help us understand the world, so new ones can be created and existing ones can be questioned


• Outliers in data can be significant sources for growth and innovation. Take the example of Intuit's QuickBooks - it was created because of the persistent existence of Quicken outliers trying to use the program to run their business instead of their personal finances.


• From the book - "It's not necessarily that some young whippersnapper's going to come up with some better idea than you. They're going to start from a different premise and they're going to come to a different conclusion that makes you irrelevant.""


• Sometimes you have to marinate on wicked problems. Instead of trying to simplify them, wade in a ways and then take a break and ruminate.


• If you live in a way that sets up your mind to determine whether things are true or false, then you can't invent the future.


• Innovation is more about combining and synthesizing existing conceptualizations and models. There are three main ways to do this:


1. Disaggregation - Target is a good example - In packaged goods, they focus on price, but in soft goods the focus on design.


2. Doubling-Down - To get the buzz of exclusivity that Cannes gets, the Toronto Film Festival pushed so hard on inclusivity that they created the buzz through the People's Choice Awards


3. Mixing - Hidden gems


• "It's not the job of the customer to invent the future."


• Quantitative and qualitative surveys force customers to make something up when they don't know how to answer


• Customers only know themselves and are happy to talk about themselves


• Interesting question - Should we be teaching intuitive thinking to science, technology and math majors? - Yes! - We should focus more energy in science on the intuitive leaps of the mind necessary to come up with interesting hypotheses.


• CEOs should see themselves as the Chief Validity Officer because of the overwhelming reliability-focus of our organizations


• Heuristics are a drug for strategy & design consultants - Often they are so busy with the heuristics that they don't take the time to push heuristics down into algorithms or to explore new mysteries

My book review of "The Design of Business" can be found here.

My previous interview with "The Design of Business" author Roger Martin can be found here.


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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Personal Innovation - Profiting from Uncertainty

by Paul Sloane

How can you ensure that in turbulent times you not only survive the organizational restructuring but actually benefit by it? Most businesses are having to change not once but over and over in order to meet the challenges of recession, competition and technology convergence. Some changes are all about cutting costs, although they may be called something else. Others are about realigning the business to cope with new opportunities. Either way it can be a bloody affair, littered with victims and casualties. How can you maximize your chances in the change maelstrom? One way is to take a positive approach to change and to be seen as an innovative go-getter who will help make the re-organization a success. Here is how:

1. Adopt a positive attitude

• Don't be cynical about change. Don't assume the worst. Don't believe and repeat rumours about management conspiracies to do down the workforce. Change is inevitable for every organization so it is time to start liking it. Change means new opportunities, new responsibilities, new things to learn and do. People who are positive about new challenges are more likely to be given them. People who are resistant to change and reluctant to adapt are the first to be culled.

2. Become a change agent

• Make suggestions. Introduce ideas and recommendations. Look for ways in which your department could bring in new products, business processes or partnerships. Ask yourself - is there a better way to meet the needs of our customers? Anticipate trends and suggest ways of changing the department to exploit new opportunities and new technologies.

3. Listen to customers

• Where can you find the ideas for change? One source is customers. In your dealings with clients you should make a point of asking how your product or service could be improved. What do they like and dislike about your offering? How are their business needs changing? What will they need in the future? Even better than asking them is to study how they use your product or service. What difficulties do they encounter? How could you alleviate the problems and make their life easier? Do they use your product or service in conjunction with others? Could you co-operate with another company or combine your product with others to bring an innovation to market?

4. Watch the competition

• Keep an eye on what they are doing and any innovations they introduce. Ask customers what other suppliers are doing that is smart and new. Study their initiatives and see what works. Suggest ways in which you can not just match the competition but leapfrog them.


• A copy-machine operator at Kinko's, a major chain of outlets providing copying and document services, noticed that customer demand for copying dropped off in December. People were too pre-occupied with Christmas presents to do much copying for the office. So he came up with a creative idea. Why not allow customers to use Kinko's colour copying and binding facilities to create their own customized calendars using their personal photos for each of the months? He prototyped the idea in the store and it proved popular -- people could create personalized gifts of calendars featuring favorite family photos. The operator phoned the founder and CEO of Kinko's, Paul Orfalea, and explained the idea. Orfalea was so excited by it that he rushed it out as a service in all outlets. It was very successful and a new product -- custom calendars - and a new revenue stream were created.

5. Be sensitive to office politics

• For most ideas it is best to talk them through with colleagues in your department and in other areas to test their workability before you speak to your manager. That way you have checked out the concept, cleared some obvious objections and gained feedback before you propose it. It will sound better thought out. However, there are some ideas that are so sensitive that it would be silly to bat them around the office before proposing them. You have to choose your moments carefully. Often you can prepare the ground by describing the size of the problem and agreeing how pressing it is before you introduce your idea. Catch the boss when he or she is most receptive. Sometimes it is best to introduce your big idea outside the hurly burly of the office. If you can buttonhole the director in the bar or the car park you may have a better chance of a good hearing.

6. Don't insist on the glory

• If you spark an idea and then other people adapt and improve it then that is fine. By letting go you have a better chance of it being adopted than if you insist on driving every aspect of the initiative because it 'was your idea in the first place.' Sometimes the cleverest tactic is to let your boss take it over as his or her idea. People will still know that you were the one who planted the seed.

7. Be prepared for rejection

• Most managers are analytical and critical. They are good at finding fault with other people's ideas. The more radical your proposal the more likely it is that people will feel uncomfortable with it. Propose it carefully. Lay it out in a logical way and explain the benefits. But if your boss disagrees then don't fall out over it and don't bypass him. Let it lie fallow for a while. I once worked for a CEO who would tear new ideas to shreds and ridicule them. But the next day he would often say, "I was thinking about that idea of yours and I can see a way to make it work." His initial reaction was to oppose an idea just to test it. But once the germ of the idea was in his head he could find ways to develop it. Above all don't stop bringing forward ideas because the first few are rejected.

Conclusion

Change means winners and losers. If you can be known as someone who is creative, innovative and a driver of change then the chances are that you will emerge a winner. Not only will you survive the change but you will be given the responsibility of making part of it a reality.

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Paul Sloane writes, speaks and leads workshops on creativity, innovation and leadership. He is the author of The Innovative Leader published by Kogan-Page.

The Ten Tenets of Transformation

THE POINT: How you think about an innovation challenge determines how well you deliver game-changing ideas. Our 10 Tenets of Transformational Thinking may be practiced by anyone, in any industry, at any scale, any time. Farewell, light bulb myths. Hello, consistent performance.


THE TEN TENETS OF TRANSFORMATION

Transformational thinking is all too often thought of as a once-in-an-eon lightning strike moment. Banish this belief once and forever. In our innovation practice, we've found that with the right orientation, transformational thinking leaves the realm of serendipity and becomes a bona fide discipline, as repeatable and scalable as any other.

Commercializing transformational ambitions of course requires more than just coming up with the ideas. But in this chicken-and-egg game, you'll need those ideas first to get the support and resources you need to make it happen, and get famous for it. To abet that pursuit, here are 10 ways Fahrenheit 212 practices the mental gymnastics we call Transformational Thinking. It's our approach to consistently generating game-changing ideas...

1. BUILD A HEALTHY DISRESPECT FOR PRESENT REALITY


• Glory awaits those who successfully overturn the things we most take for granted. Why shouldn't every note of music I own go with me everywhere I go? Why can't alcohol taste as refreshing as water? Get stupid again. It's empowering. If you didn't know you were supposed to run inside when it rains, you'd discover great things.


2. MOVE THE CAMERA TO ANOTHER PART OF A ROOM


• Practice the art of changing perspectives on a dime. With every new constituency considered, every new angle tried, your exploitable assets inventory grows exponentially. Look through the eyes of different consumer segments, your retailers, the guy driving your truck, your suppliers in Fujian Province and new things will come into view. If you're designing a car, know that even the bug about to get splattered on the windshield has a unique point of view that may unlock big ideas.


3. LOOK BACK ON THE PRESENT FROM THE FUTURE


• Changing the world isn't about inching forward from where we are now, but about defining great destinations, and looking back from them to figure out what must be true to make them happen. If you're in technology, a few years is probably as far as you can credibly look back from; but in FMCG, thinking in five or ten-year leaps is not out of bounds. What could the world look like if today's opportunity were pursued with great velocity?


4. THINK IN JAZZ


• Jazz musicians institutionalize the art of listening while playing. Picking up on other players' themes and reinterpreting them, sending a new provocation back to the first player that is then pushed again. Encouraging chain reactions exponentially increases human creativity. Choose jam session players from across your organization, outside your industry, beyond your comfort zone. Such cross-fertilization breeds a bigger, more joyful noise in market. And while some of your colleagues may be tempted to copy your competitors, the transformational approach is to treat it as inspiration to riff on in new directions.


5. LOOK FOR THE PROBLEM BEHIND THE PROBLEM


• Ninety percent of the time, there is a much larger issue behind the challenge you're staring at all day. If you first define and solve that bigger one, the other problems will take care of themselves. If the thing that's costing you sleep is that 21-year-old guys don't love your product anymore, maybe your real problem is that you've got a huge, broadly applicable technology stuck in the small business of pleasing fickle 21-year-old guys. Opening that bigger market is the thing that will restore your share and your dreamtime.


6. SEEK THE ONE-DEGREE CHANGE THAT MAKES A WORLD

OF DIFFERENCE

• Heating water from F211 to F212 unleashes catalytic power. What happens when you muse on the minute? Oh, let's sell the computer before we make it. Let's sell coffee for five bucks a cup. Little changes spawn multi-billion dollar businesses.


7. PRACTICE THE ART OF COLLISION


• The Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is a metaphor for life. What seems completely new is often just an unexpected combination of the familiar but previously disconnected. This is Innovation 101, but too often we forget, and think the one asset we have is the answer, rather than asking what we can bundle it with to transform its value.


8. POWER YOUR BRAIN WITH LAUGHTER


• Landmark studies proved decades ago that people solve problems far more effectively when they're told it's no big deal and primed with Three Stooges movies than when they're grimly told to work carefully. There's science behind it. Laughter sends endorphins to our brain's lateral thinking areas. Sure, the world is going to hell in a bucket, but lighten up: you're more likely to land on a transformational idea.


9. READ UP ON HOWARD GARDNER'S OCTO-THINK


• One-dimensional ideas are rarely transformational. They're easily replicated in a world where competitive response cycles shrink by the day. Harvard's Dr. Howard Gardner delineated eight ways people take in ideas, including verbally, visually, logically, musically, physically, emotionally, spatially and mathematically. Run like the spider using all eight legs. Your ideas will be a whole lot stickier.


10. THERE IS NO TENTH TENET


• Less really is more. The simple idea beats its complicated, overcooked cousin every time.

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Mark Payne is President and Head of Innovation at Fahrenheit 212 in New York. Fahrenheit 212 delivers bigger ideas, faster to market.