Winning the Gold Medal

by Holly G. Green

I love the Olympics. I am fascinated by curling (although like most of you I can't quite figure out the rules). I love the thrill of the downhill, the luge, the speed skating, hockey, and the snowboarding events. And I am especially enthralled when I watch the Olympic athletes visibly get clear on winning.

Did you notice Lindsey Vonn at the top of the slope? Eyes closed, arms moving, legs bending as if she were already traveling down the slope in just the manner necessary to win? She was using a practice known as 'success visioning'. She was imagining the course, every twist, every turn... and how she would successfully meet the challenge of it and win the race. Olympic athletes have used success visioning for decades; since the time Roger Bannister broke the world record for running the mile in less than 4 minutes in 1954.

Premier athletes the world over know the power of getting clear on winning BEFORE they get in the race. They imagine it. They get clear on what it looks like, what it feels like, and what they must do. And it works because your brain is amazingly powerful. Once you are clear on winning, your body will follow. In many ways, it can't not follow. Your brain does not know you can't run faster, ski quicker, make higher jumps... it only knows what you tell it and your body steps up to deliver.

Winning also requires practice. Winning for an athlete means he/she is in top condition. It is likely they have practiced their race thousands of times. They are eating the right foods, taking care of themselves, and making progress almost every day towards their goal. Lindsey did not just sit around for a year, jump up, and ski her race. She got clear on goals, met them, and then set new ones. She spent her time and energy towards achieving them. She stopped doing things that got in the way. She stayed focused.

Are you clear on winning in your business? Do you know what it looks like at the end of 2010 when you have been insanely successful? What are the key operating achievements you will have accomplished; what will your company culture be including in regards to the attitudes, beliefs, values, and operating principles; what skills/knowledge/abilities will exist in your organization; what organizational structures will be in place; what work processes and metrics will be used; what tools, systems and technology are necessary; what products will be in market (existing and new); what products will be in development; who will the customers be; who will the competitors be/what types of companies will you compete against; what will the brand represent?

Get clear on winning, your body will follow.

Is it obvious to you and everyone on your team and in your company what it will take to win a gold medal? If not, what race are you running?


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Holly is the CEO of THE HUMAN FACTOR, Inc. (www.TheHumanFactor.biz) and is a highly sought after and acclaimed speaker, business consultant, and author. Her unique approach to creating strategic agility, helping others go slow to go fast, will change your thinking.

Creating Innovation Best Practices of Tomorrow

by Paul Sloane

Directors constantly strive to increase efficiency, implement best practice and deliver increased shareholder value. They seek to improve cash flow through efficiencies of scale and cost reductions. But there are limits to cost saving. In a global economy your competitors in lower-cost countries can beat you at that game. The best way to create value is to innovate your way ahead of the competition. You need to create temporary monopolies where yours is the only show in town. You can do this by harnessing the creative power of your greatest asset, your people. The goal is to turn them into opportunistic entrepreneurs who are constantly looking for new ways of doing business.

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 color 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.

This kind of creative energy should be the goal for every organization. How can you make all your staff into creative entrepreneurs like the operator in Kinko's? How can you energize people to see problems not as obstacles to success but as opportunities for innovation?

To build a truly innovative organization you need to have a vision, a culture and a process of innovation.

The key elements of creating a truly innovative and entrepreneurial organization can be summarized in the following eight steps:

1. Paint an inspiring vision.
   
2. Build an open, receptive, questioning culture.
   
3. Empower people at all levels.
   
4. Set goals, deadlines and measurements for innovation.
   
5. Use creativity techniques to generate a large number of ideas.
   
6. Review, combine, filter and select ideas.
   
7. Prototype the promising proposals.
   
8. Analyze the results and roll-out the successful projects

Painting the vision

You start by painting a vision that is desirable, challenging and believable. If you can do this then there are three big gains for the organization:

First, people share a common goal and have a sense of embarking on a journey or adventure together. This means they are more willing to accept the changes, challenges and difficulties that any journey can entail.

Secondly, it means that more responsibility can be delegated. Staff can be empowered and given more control over their work. Because they know the goal and direction in which they are headed they can be trusted to steer their own raft and to figure out the best way of getting there.

Thirdly, people will be more creative and contribute more ideas if they know that there are unsolved challenges that lie ahead. They have bought into the adventure so they are more ready to find routes over and around the obstacles on the way.

At GE the vision is "We bring good things to life." The Ford Motor Company vision is "...to become the world's leading consumer company for automotive products and services." Vision statements should be short and inspiring. They should avoid vague and woolly clichés about outstanding customer service. The vision should not be restricted to today's type of business. It must set a goal that gives employees enormous freedom in finding ways to achieve it. The pharmaceutical giant Glaxo Smith Kline has a mission "to improve the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer." They do not define their mission in mundane terms of drugs or medicines or markets but in inspirational terms of helping people do more, feel better and live longer.

Just painting the picture is not enough. It quickly fades from view if it is not constantly reinforced. Great leaders take time to meet staff. They illustrate the vision, the goals and the challenges; explain to staff how their role is crucial in fulfilling the vision and meeting the challenges. They inspire people to become crusading entrepreneurs finding innovative routes to success.


Empowering

You cannot deliver the change on your own. The best source for the idea-generation and creativity needed for innovation is the team within your organization. To turn them into entrepreneurs who are hungrily looking for new opportunities you have to first empower them. The purpose of empowering people is to enable them to achieve the change through their own efforts. They need clear objectives so that they know what is expected of them. They need to develop the skills for the task. They need to work in cross-departmental teams so that they can create and implement solutions that will work across the organization. They need freedom to succeed. And when you give someone freedom to succeed you also give them freedom to fail.

People want to understand and agree what is expected of them. The scope of their freedom and their responsibility must be agreed. They need training, coaching, reinforcement and encouragement. They need support in acquiring creative problem-solving skills and encouragement to be brave enough to come with radical innovations. Above all, empowerment means trusting people. It is by giving them trust, support and belief that you will empower them to achieve great things.


Overcoming Fear

People are anxious about change. Change is uncomfortable. Change means winners and losers. It is natural that people will prefer to stay within their comfort zones rather than risk an embarrassing or costly failure. You should spend time with people encouraging them to undertake risks and reassuring them that those risks are necessary and worth taking. Fear of failure often inhibits people from pushing themselves to new limits. You have to show that doing nothing has its risks too; that staying in the corporate comfort zone is a dangerous option. You have to reassure them that they will not be punished for taking risks, for worthwhile failures, for bold initiatives that do not succeed. Of course taking risks means taking calculated risks not wild risks. Every employee who is undertaking a risky initiative needs freedom but they need mentoring and guidance too.

Once again communication is the key. Informed people don't fear change. As Dick Brown, Chairman and CEO of EDS put it, "People are not afraid of change. They fear the unknown."


Using Innovation Techniques

Can creativity be taught or is it a rare talent possessed by a handful of gifted individuals? The answer is that every one of us can be creative if we are encouraged and shown how to do it. We were all imaginative as children but gradually most people have their creative instincts ground down by the routine of work. With proper training people can develop skills in questioning, brainstorming, adapting, combining, analyzing and selecting ideas. They can be the innovative engine your organization needs.

The process of finding creative solutions is something that can be built into the culture of the organization. This is done by techniques, methods, workshops and a pervading attitude of encouragement for crazy ideas.

The goal is to change the organization; to achieve a metamorphosis from a routine group of people who are doing a job to a highly energized team of entrepreneurs who are constantly searching for new and better ways of making the vision a reality. We want to use creative techniques to drive innovative solutions to reach the goal. But just encouraging innovation is not enough. You need to initiate programs that show people how they can use creative techniques to come up with new solutions. People need training in order to learn the skills and to develop the confidence to try new methods.

The innovation process involves the generation of many ideas in response to a given issue or challenge. The ideas are then whittled down to the most promising. The key then is to move rapidly to prototyping the best ideas. Businesses that are fast to market carry out quick pilot tests rather than spending months in "paralysis by analysis." For new products, innovation projects go through a number of evaluation "gates" that test the feasibility, attractiveness and payback. Those that pass through the gate are given more funding.

The innovative organization is constantly trying new products, new processes, new business practices and new partnerships. Its people share an open, questioning, empowered and entrepreneurial culture. They know that innovation is the only way to remain agile and ahead of the competition. After all, it is the innovation of today that becomes the best practice of tomorrow.

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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.

What do you REALLY do?

by Matt Heinz

If you're a book publisher, you're not really in the book business. You're in the information business. How that information is shared is largely irrelevant, as long as it creates value for your customers and can be monetized.

If you're a newspaper, you're definitely not in the printed news business. Certainly not anymore, or at least not for long. I read The Seattle Times more now than ever, but I don't get ink on my fingers. I read it online, and read some of their bloggers multiple times a day. Competing in the category of news will be difficult (or at least highly competitive) for newspapers moving forward. But the opportunity to synethize large piles of complicated information into something that's understandable, relevant and actionable for me? That has value.

PR agencies shouldn't be selling access to the press. They shouldn't put focus on press clippings or media tours. They sell awareness, consideration and purchase intent for their clients. That has value.

Of course, Starbucks isn't in the coffee business. They're selling affordable luxuries. Yes, they've had missteps along the way, but they know the physical assets they're selling doesn't equal what they really do.

Smart companies and brands define themselves not by what they produce, but by what that asset creates and/or enables for the customer.

Take what you do, for example. Keep asking the question "why does that matter" or "why would someone need that" or "why do my customers care about that" until you can't anymore. The last answer you had? That's what you do.

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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

What do you really mean?

by Mike Brown

Many (okay, let's be real, nearly all) corporate visions, missions, values, BHAGs (you name it), sound alike. They either extol bland concepts (i.e., "our associates will be the best") or meaningless ideas (i.e., "our human intellectual capital will leverage world-class synergies").

If you have boring or confusing strategic statements in your business, here's an approach to correct it: ask the questions below to help simplify and enrich the language in your strategic statements:

• How would customers describe what we're talking about in ways very meaningful to them?


• If we were telling somebody who knows nothing about our business about why this idea is important to the company's success, what would we say?


• How would we communicate this in a way that really inspires our employees to greatness? How about potential employees?


• What are more emotional words to describe this statement?


• How will we talk about it when we've accomplished this goal?


• How would one of our mothers proudly tell a relative about what we're trying to do?


• If we had to explain this to children, what would we say so they could understand it and be able to act?

Give these questions a try with your management team or on your own. Take the words and phrases you imagine and start turning strategic corporate speak into language that moves the hearts, minds, and actions of everyone in your company!

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Mike Brown is an award-winning marketer and strategist with extensive experience in research, strategy, branding, and sponsorship marketing. He's a frequent keynote presenter on innovation and authors Brainzooming!

Developing an Innovation Vision

by Paul Sloane

You cannot expect your team to be innovative if they do not know the direction in which they are headed. Innovation must have a purpose. It is up to the leader to set the course and give a bearing for the future. This is set in broad terms and is described as the mission, core purpose or vision for the organization. Although each of these is different, they share much in common and whichever you choose, there should be one overarching statement which defines the direction for the business and which people will readily understand and remember.

Jack Welch, CEO of GE said, "Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion."

As a leader you don't want happy, comfortable people in your team. You want passionate, energetic people who are keen for the journey and ready to take on a challenge. Your job is to communicate a destination and to persuade them it is a target that they can believe in and a goal worth reaching. You can then ask them how best to reach the destination. Once you have established a vision that is inspiring you can ask people to be creative and innovative in moving towards it.

The vision or mission is the starting point for strategic plans, objectives and metrics. The key performance indicators of the business will measure how progress is made in meeting the goals that flow from the vision. Striving for the vision will always involve change. It is a journey from where we are today to a better future. There is a risk in making the changes necessary on this journey but the leader has to persuade people that there is a bigger risk in standing still. The organizations that have no vision for the future and no desire to change are the ones destined for obscurity and obsolescence.

You must paint a vision that is desirable, challenging and believable. If you can do this then there are three big gains for the organization:

1. People share a common goal and have a sense of embarking on a journey or adventure together. This means they are more willing to accept the changes, challenges and difficulties that any journey can entail.


2. It means that more responsibility can be delegated. Staff can be empowered and given more control over their work. Because they know the goal and direction in which they are headed, they can be trusted to steer their own raft and to figure out the best way of getting there.


3. People will be more creative and contribute more ideas if they know that there are unsolved challenges that lie ahead. They have bought into the adventure so they are more ready to find routes over and around the obstacles on the way.

Many mission statements are boring, long-winded, long on platitudes and short on inspiration. Here are some good ones:

• Lego - To nurture the child in each of us.


• Disney - To use our imagination to bring happiness to millions of people.


• Merck - We are in the business of preserving and improving human life.


• Tesco - To create value for customers to earn their lifetime loyalty.


• 3M - To be the most innovative enterprise in the world.


• WPP - To develop and manage talent; to apply that talent throughout the world for the benefit of clients; to do so in partnership; to do so for profit.


• GSK - To improve the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer.

Just painting the picture is not enough. It quickly fades from view if it is not constantly reinforced. Great leaders spend time with their teams. They illustrate the vision, the goals and the challenges. They explain to people how their role is crucial in fulfilling the vision and meeting the challenges. They inspire men and women to become passionate entrepreneurs finding innovative routes to success.

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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 Blogging Innovation Mantra

Blogging Innovation exists for one main purpose, or mantra if you will:

"To make innovation and marketing insights accessible"

In July and August we have added more than a dozen contributing authors including: Rowan Gibson, Stephen Shapiro, Kevin Roberts, Matthew E May, Drew Boyd, Hutch Carpenter, Paul Sloane, Matt Heinz, Mike Brown, Steve McKee, Mike Myatt, Jeffrey Phillips, and Stefan Lindegaard.

Why did you open up your blog to outside authors?

To bring you more than one voice, more than one perspective on innovation and marketing, and to deliver more value to you - the readers.

At the same time, we also created a Continuous Innovation community over on LinkedIn for members to share interesting articles, innovation job postings, and to provide a place for lively innovation discussion.

Why include marketing insights on a blog about innovation?

Well, two of the key functions of marketing are to understand and communicate with customers, and it is ultimately the successful collaboration of marketers with inventors that creates innovation.

What's next for Blogging Innovation?

We are still looking for great authors who make a habit of sharing interesting innovation and marketing insights. If you have anyone to recommend (including yourself) to increase the diversity of perspectives, please contact us.

Tomorrow (August 10, 2009) we plan to announce a new monthly special feature that I hope you will find of great value (possibly as a contributor). If you're not already subscribed by RSS or e-mail, then please do so in order to get our steady stream of innovation and marketing insights.

Finally, I'd like to offer you a sincere thank you to all of you for following and contributing to Blogging Innovation!

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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.