Leadership & Business

Are You An Idea Killer?

My new Inc. column, entitled Beware of the Idea Killers is out and focuses on how new ideas are what will help your business remain competitive. However, be sure you aren't killing them before you consider bringing them to fruition.

As Innovation remains a hot topic in 2008 and as executive teams continue struggling to build effective, sustainable, and measurable innovation programs. The battleground becomes how to structure innovation departments, drive company-wide innovation initiatives, and sustain efforts over the long haul.

To help executives with these challenges my company, Breakthrough Management Group (BMG) is hosting a 2-day Executive Seminar February 25-26 in Denver, CO, entitled Chief Innovation Officer: Lead Your Company’s Growth and Innovation Efforts.

This is the third CIO course for BMG.  We hosted two similar events in 2007, each time heralding attendees from industries as diverse as healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and financial services into one room to discuss and learn about what they all have in common – the need to better drive growth and innovation in order to compete in the future. Past attendees include, Levi Strauss, AVNET, Circuit City, NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation and GE Energy to name a few.

If you are interested in Innovation and what it really takes to lead your company to the forefront, I highly recommend this course. More information can be found here.

China—From Cost to Quality in Less Than a Decade

How many of you—readers that is—think China is kicking our rear because of low costs. Well, guess what…you’re right. But you’re wrong, too. That’s because while China IS kicking butt with lower cost manufacturing, it’s long since turned its attention to quality. That’s because any able-minded Chinese business person or politician knows that the more successful they are, the sooner their success will run out. That is to say that the faster they grow, the sooner cost will no longer be a competitive advantage. That’s why Chinese companies have already begun taking quality very seriously. They know that in the future, quality is how they will compete—just like the Japanese figured out in the 50’s and 60’s.

Every time I travel to China I have a mini-awaking upon my return. That’s because I’m always astonished at how much Americans underestimate what’s going on in China. I guess it’s no surprise in a country where 70 percent of the population doesn’t even hold a passport, much less travel abroad, but you’d think television and the internet would fill the gap. Not so.

The rate at which improvements are happening in China—technically, politically, socially—is simply amazing. And what that means in the near term is that there will be no American company will have a competitive advantage simply by virtue of being an American—or western—company. The number of competitors we have to deal with is growing exponentially. Even in my own industry (if you can call it an industry), we’re already finding ourselves competing with Indian consultancies coming here—to the US. They’re not outsourced providers. They’re competitors in our own darn market. How soon will it be before Chinese companies come here to open up factories—much the way Japanese automakers have? The answer…not long.

I encourage every business person, whether you do business internationally or not, and whether you have foreign competition or not, to make an effort to study what’s going on internationally and to be ready for the coming Chinese and Indian quality boom. It’s not far off.

It’s Time to Stop Messing Around

Performance Excellence is poised to become more and more important at your company—or it’s not. Investment in better processes is key to executing your company’s growth strategy, or it’s key to ensuring your company survives a downturn, or it’s key to…something else. Anyway, I’m sure it’s key.

What I’m saying is that the ability to drive growth and reduce cost by simply picking up the low-hanging (or ground) fruit is coming to an end. That’s because there’s just not much fruit left on the ground, anymore than there’s much oil or copper or silver left in the ground. Low hanging fruit as a cheap commodity is running out. So we have to start figuring out how to make our way up the tree to the other fruit that’s up there…somewhere.

Creative Destruction

Creative Destruction – words most often associated with today’s world of newly intensified innovation. A term first coined by economist Joseph Schumpeter in the 1940s, it’s only in much more recent years that business leaders have come to understand its wisdom.

Nowhere is this understanding more clear than in the recent appointment of Robert Nardelli to the helm of Chrysler. Amid a great deal of criticism over his tenure at Home Depot, Nardelli appears to be a perfect choice for Chrysler.

Most experts agree that Chrysler will need to excel on many fronts: a razor-sharp discipline, a take-no-prisoner’s attitude toward cost cutting and a genuine willingness to destroy before recreating will be at the forefront. While many people have accused Nardelli of destroying the culture at Home Depot – much as they’ve accused James McNerney of destroying the innovation culture at 3M – I would argue that perhaps neither destroyed too much of anything in their first forays outside of GE. In fact, they may not have destroyed enough, or done their destroying creatively enough, and they were replaced before they could meet their boards’ high expectations. Then again, neither of them had a predecessor like Jack Welch, who’s own predecessor left him behind instructions to “blow it up.”

Innovation and Improvement: A Distinction Without a Difference

My newest column is up on Inc.com. It talks about how the processes of innovation and improvement are much more intertwined then we generally like to believe.

I would be interested in your comments and thoughts on the subject.

My company is now offering a new and "innovative training course", the first of its kind...Innovation Tools for Black Belts.  Held in Denver, CO Oct. 8-12, this course is specifically designed for Six Sigma and Lean practitioners, the class teaches a number of powerful Innovation tools in the context of BMG's Structured Innovation methodology, D4.

A five-day course, attendees have the opportunity to work on a real business issue with guidance from BMG’s innovation experts; teaching participants a solid, repeatable and predictable process for innovating new products, processes and business models. The first course will be taught by Dr. Phil Samuel, my co-faculty for BMG's upcoming Chief Innovation Officer seminar to be held in Denver, CO  Oct. 1-2, 2007.

I highly recommend it so check both courses out!

My New Article in Inc. - Either-Or Thinking Doesn't Work and Other Things..

My new article Either-Or Thinking Doesn't Work is now posted on Inc.com. It's about how Operational efficiency and creativity both play a part in business success. Let me know what you think.

I will also be facilitating a second Chief Innovation Officer Executive Education Course on October 1-2, 2007 in Denver, CO.  Chief Innovation Officer – Leading Your Company’s Growth and Innovation Initiatives. This program is specifically designed for business leaders who are leading the charge for growth and innovation inside their organizations. This is very dynamic and engaging course, I encourage you to check it out at CIO Course.

Don't Waste Your Innovative Efforts

Just the other day I read a press release titled, “Consulting Firm Warns Companies Not to Overuse Lean and Six Sigma.”  I laughed—for about five minutes.  And then I had an image of this consultant’s next announcement:  “Consulting Firm Warns People Not to Overeat.”   In fact what I really wanted to do was throw the bullshit flag (if you don't know what it is, go to www.bsflag.com).

As I laughed, I supposed that if you want to make your mark by warning others not to overuse something, you can pitch yourself as an expert at just about anything.  Because you don’t have to be an expert—at anything—to know that over use or under use means anything but proper use.

Let’s be serious though.  Anyone reading this has at least a fleeting understanding of the principles of Lean and Six Sigma.  Many of you could be considered experts in your own right.  So you’re probably laughing, too.

But beyond a good laugh, we all have a responsibility to ourselves and our companies to push for proper use.  In fact one of the words that underlies Six Sigma is “optimization” which is just a fancy word for “proper use” when it comes to a business process.  In Six Sigma we look to optimize everything—even the use of Six Sigma. So a good implementation of Six Sigma would focus on just the right amount of effort going into six sigma—not too little and not too much.

Lessons Learned in 2006

Last month Chuck Frey of Innovation Tools asked innovators from around the world: “What is the most important lesson you learned regarding innovation during 2006?" I answered with the following reflection:

THE BALANCED BRAIN APPROACH TO INNOVATION

The big learning for me in 2006, after several years of working with clients on the adoption of different approaches to innovation, is that innovation is not "the next thing you do." Rather, "it is about everything that you do.

While the train has been coming for some time, I felt a little like we were "pushing innovation" and that it wasn't naturally fitting into my clients' businesses. I finally realized that we didn't need to change what we do, but instead we needed to incorporate innovation into everything that we already do.

I also came to realize that while we were very focused on innovation methodologies, we weren't spending enough time focusing on activation of the right side of the brain, resulting more of a whole-brain kind of approach to decision making in business. We've changed all that and now we're trying to help others achieve balance between the right and left side of the brain, because we think the market is at risk of letting the pendulum swing as far right as it swung left during the era of continuous improvement.

You see, continuous improvement, process excellence, call it what you may, has gone too far in teaching us that all we need is the left side of our brain to be effective; that's simply not true. Whether taking a methodical, data driven approach to things, or applying years of experience and intuition, we need a well-balanced application of our cognitive powers to achieve optimal results.

Chuck’s complete list of lessons learned can be found here.

Talking About Ambidextrous Organizations

Earlier this month, Dan Keldsen of The Delphi Group and I set aside some time to talk about INsourcing Innovation, and the performance excellence tools a company can use to become a really outstanding organization.

Feel free to listen in here.

Innovation: Who Cares?

Check out Lee Gomes’ “Portals” column in today’s Wall Street Journal: “Some ‘Breakthroughs' Deserve That Title – But Definitely Not All.”

Gotta love it.

I’ve been thinking a lot along similar lines lately in terms of innovation. Until the recent changing of the guard at Ford, it seemed as if everywhere I turned, I saw Bill Ford’s face in full page magazine ads and 30 second television spots touting Ford’s innovation culture (actually, Bill’s still popping up on the Ford Innovation web site), but take a look at Ford’s recent financial performance— it stinks!

Now, the folks at Ford will probably tell you that the campaign will pay off “in the long term,” but they’re wrong. These days consumers don’t care about what’s coming down the road. In their eyes, you’re only as good as your last product.

Consumers don’t care about what Ford is doing to benefit them five years from now, they’re interested in the cars they can buy today. In five years they’ll be ready to buy their next car, and you know what, if Ford has delivered innovative products, they’ll look at them then. But buying a Ford today doesn’t have a big influence on what consumers will buy five years from now — that brand loyalty thing is old school thinking.

Now don’t get me wrong, Ford’s done some amazing work with TRIZ and USIT in the past (and I’ll be among the first to applaud them for that!), but it seems to me that their latest “innovative” direction is veering them away from the structured innovation path and into the IBM and Intel world of, as Mr. Gomes calls it, “breakthrough inflation.”

What executives around the world don’t seem to understand is that consumers, whether retail or business, don’t care what you’re going to do for them in five or ten years. They care about what you’re going to do for them today, and maybe tomorrow. So for all the talk of innovation, keep it to yourself. It does not impress anyone outside your company. Treat it like your secret weapon and focus on actually producing innovations, not on promising that you will. Because until you get a grasp on what it takes to truly innovate, all you will produce is talk.

So what can CEOs do about it?