Roberto Verganti on “How to Sell an Idea to Your Boss”

Roberto Verganti

Here is an excerpt from an article written by Roberto Verganti for the Harvard Business Review blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Review’s Daily Alerts, please click here.

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“My problem is not how to be innovative. My team often comes up with interesting ideas. But when we introduce them to top executives, they always turn them down. How can I convince my boss to invest in our ideas?” The question — asked at the end of a seminar on innovation at a major IT firm — did not surprise me.

One of the hardest challenges for creative people — especially those working in units such as R&D, design, or marketing — is how to win top management’s support for their ideas. Many feel that their proposals are killed not because they have poor potential but because their boss simply does not understand them or does not even listen to the presentation. They feel frustrated and dream of working with CEOs like Steve Jobs or Alberto Alessi [the “godfather of Italian product design” and Managing Director of Alessi Spa], who often invest in breakthroughs.

The solution to this problem is to have your boss onboard long before the idea comes up. Top executives who successfully promote innovation hardly invest in unexpected breakthroughs. They are actively involved upfront.

Therefore, avoid situations in which you have to sell an innovative idea to your boss. You might succeed, but the outcome will depend on factors that have nothing to do with the merits of your idea (e.g. how you presented the idea and the mood of your boss). Executives give poor responses to cold calls — especially when it comes to breakthrough concepts that require deep understanding and may have risky implications for the business. In such a situation, they, of course, prefer to say “no.”

Instead, start the interaction with senior executives earlier in the innovation process:

• Get an endorsement to investigate a business challenge. For example, if you work in the R&D department of a food company, a challenge could be coming up with new products that are healthier and provide a better experience by eating less. It’s more likely that you will gain support for investigating such a challenge than suddenly selling an idea for a new valuable cheese that people will buy in smaller quantities. So even if you already have an idea for solving a problem, don’t immediately pitch it.

• Design the innovation process together. Once you have top management’s support to tackle the challenge, come to an agreement on how to come up with ideas for tackling it.

• Update top executives frequently. Keep feeding them information on how the investigation is developing along the way. When you do so, don’t talk about the emerging possible solutions; instead, provide information on how you are interpreting the challenge. In this way, executives will more easily grasp the solution once you present it.

• Involve top executives in the creation of the solution. By doing so you will not only receive precious insights but also stronger support, because executives will feel they own the idea. (This implies that your boss will put his or her name on the idea. Are you ready to sacrifice your ego for the sake of the innovation?)

I’m not implying that if you follow these steps, the idea that you ultimately propose will or should be accepted. (A recent article in Fast Company [click here] reports that Steve Jobs’s “default answer is no.” And Alberto Alessi [the “godfather of Italian product design” and Managing Director of Alessi Spa] receives every month hundreds of ideas that he turns down.) But your boss will definitely have a better understanding of your proposals, your company’s decision-making processes will substantially improve, and you will feel more supported and less frustrated.

In summary, if you’re pursuing radical innovation, do not sell the idea. Sell the process.

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Roberto Verganti is the author of Design-Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating What Things Mean [click here]. He is a professor of the management of innovation at Politecnico di Milano, a visiting professor at the Copenhagen Business School, and a member of the board of the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management.

Who Do You Hang With? – Maybe It’s Time To Widen Your Circle; Really!

People are different.  And the more diversity between the people, the more differences there are.

So – here is the question of the day:  Do you always hang out with the same people – the same kinds of people? If so, maybe it’s time broaden your circle.

This simple advice is a key part of the message from Yale’s President Rick Levin to the arriving freshman class.   (I read this in this blog post by Arianna Huffington).  Here’s a key excerpt:

Levin pointed out how the students “come from all 50 states and 58 nations” and urged them (and their parents) to go “entirely outside the range of your past experience,” and “stretch yourself.” “If the friends you make here are exclusively those who come from backgrounds just like your own and went to high schools just like your own,” he said, “you will have forfeited half the value of a Yale education. Seek out friends with different histories and different interests; you will find that you learn the most from the people least like you.”

I’ve read plenty of books that offer similar advice.  Like this:

Sticking to the people we already know is a tempting behavior.  But unlike some forms of dating, a networker isn’t looking to achieve only a single successful union.  Creating an enriching circle of trusted relationships requires one to be out there, in the mix, all the time.
(So, therefore):
Set a goal for yourself of initiating a meeting with one new person a week.  It doesn’t matter where or with whom.
Keith Ferrazzi, Never Eat Alone:  And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time (The Ultimate Networker Reveals How to Build a Lifelong Community of Colleagues, Contacts, Friends, and Mentors)

and

Seize any opportunity, or anything that looks like opportunity.  They are rare, much rarer than you think.  Remember that positive Black Swans have a necessary first step:  you need to be exposed to them.  If a big publisher (or a big art dealer or a movie executive or a hotshot banker or a big thinker) suggests an appointment, cancel anything you have planned:  you may never see such a window open up again.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan:  The Impact of the HIGHLY IMPROBABLE

In my own life, I am always learning from the wide array of people I “hang with.”  I speak monthly at the Urban Engagement Book Club, which includes a true mix of people:  non-profit leaders, business folks, some people who are pretty much in the homeless category, retired people…  I have experienced no other mix of people like it in my lifetime.

And I teach at a local community college.  There are people from multiple ethnic backgrounds, and all levels of the economic spectrum.  My students teach me so much every semester.

And then we have the audience of business leaders who attend the First Friday Book Synopsis.

And I lead regular sessions (Current Events and reading/discussion groups) with retired people.

You put all of these together, and my life is a rich, diverse set of moments that represent genuine diversity.

But I need to become even more intentional about this – as, I suspect, you do.  So, here some suggestions for us all:

1)    Go to at least one gathering, on a regular basis, that is made up of people who are not all “like you.”
2)    Read authors, and types of books, that are outside of your beaten path, and represent points of view that you disagree with.
3)    Look for another “new” person, and some new event, regularly.

Diversity is good for us.  But experiencing true diversity will not happen by accident.  You have to get intentional about it.  There are people to meet, ideas to discover, viewpoints to ponder.

Hanging with people who are not all just like you may be the most neglected learning discipline of them all.

Graham Jones on the nature of pressure

Graham Jones

In Thrive on Pressure recently published by McGraw Hill, Graham Jones shares his thoughts about how to “lead and succeed when times get tough.” Here is what he has to say about developing “mental toughness”:

• Pressure assumes at least two forms: pressure that is externally imposed and pressure that is self-imposed by either actively seeking it in the environment or through creating it within your own mind.

• Pressure can either facilitate or debilitate performance, depending on how you respond to it.

• Mental toughness can be developed.

• Mental toughness enables you to cope with and even thrive on pressure.

• Mental toughness comprises four key skills that form the foundation of sustained high performance: staying in control under stress, channeling your motivation to work for you, strengthening your self-belief, and directing your focus to the things that matter.

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RELEVANT QUOTATIONS

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re probably right.” Henry Ford

“Champions get up when they can’t.” Jack Dempsey

“Spend less time on what is urgent and more time on what is important.” Stephen Covey

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”  Reinhold Niebuhr

“Mental toughness is to physical as four is to one.” Bob Knight

“Five Things John Madden Teaches Us about Leadership”

Here is an excerpt from an article written by John Baldoni for the Harvard Business Review blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Review’s Daily Alerts, please click here.

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Boom! John Madden has retired [click here] from the NFL broadcast booth. With an analyst’s eye for detail but a storyteller’s ear for story, Madden brought the pro game to life, and in the process, helped make the NFL an enduring staple of sports entertainment.
Madden not only excelled in the broadcast booth; he was a successful NFL football coach, guiding the Oakland Raiders to their Super Bowl victory in January 1977. Madden’s outsized but affable personality made him a natural as a TV pitch man. He also embraced the video game business, helping to develop and upgrade annually the EA Sports NFL game that bears his name.

So what can you learn about leadership from John Madden? Let me itemize [three of five] lessons.

Commit to what you do. Football coaches immerse themselves in their craft. From recruiting talent to coaching it, along with developing game plans and spending hours studying film, football coaches spend their lives molding players and analyzing those actions. Madden took the same work ethic to the broadcast booth; he continued to study film, meet with coaches, and interview players. Broadcast partner, Al Michaels, noted that Madden never regarded himself as an “ex-coach” moonlighting as an analyst. Madden thought of himself a broadcaster and worked hard at this craft. Like Madden, leaders need to commit to their jobs and do what it necessary to push the team forward.

Innovate as you go. Madden turned the clunky Telestrator, a video graphics tool, into an artist’s pallet for illustrating games from a coach’s perspective. Broadcast professionals respected Madden for his football smarts as well as for his gift to communicate simply and colorfully. Madden also advised on broadcast coverage telling producers and crew about team and player tendencies. All leaders may innovate personally but they need to be open to new ideas and encourage others to think freely and without boundaries.

Tell stories. Madden imbued his broadcast narratives with heart. Digressing momentarily from the action, Madden would spin picaresque anecdotes of players and coaches that gave viewers insight into players as characters who were sometimes funny, odd, even tragic but always very human. He also punctuated his calls with old fashioned expressions like “boom” and “pow,” a style that annoyed some but also heightened his everyman aura. Bosses who tell stories are those who can communicate a sense of humanity to the job that encourages followership.

The NFL game will go on without Madden but it will do so enhanced by his legacy as coach, broadcaster, and innovator. Boom, indeed!

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John Baldoni is a leadership consultant, coach, and speaker. He is the author of nine books, including 12 Steps to Power Presence: How to Assert Your Authority to Lead. His most recet book is Lead Your Boss: The Subtle Art of Managing Up, published by AMACOM (2009). See his archived blog for hbr.org here.

Smarts: A Book Review by Bob Morris

Smarts: Are We Hardwired for Success?
Chuck Martin , Peg Dawson  and Richard Guare
AMACOM (2007)

In one of Chuck Martin’s previous works, Tough Management, he recommends “seven winning ways to make tough decisions easier, deliver the numbers, and grow the business in good times and bad.” None of the “ways” is a head-snapper, nor does Martin make any such claim. The substantial value of that book is derived, rather, from responses by more than 2,000 senior executives and managers in 50 countries who participated in a survey conducted by NFI Research, Martin’s firm. They completed a brief survey segment every two weeks over a period of 24 months. That is a key point because, over time both circumstances and respondents’ reactions to them change. The final survey results thus have much greater credibility. Martin operates a global idea exchange and research engine with a network base of more than 2,000 senior executives and managers from more than 1,000 companies in more than 50 countries, including half of the Fortune 500. His observations and recommendations are thus based on an abundance of real-world data that he and his NFI associates continue to accumulate and then evaluate with meticulous care.

In this volume, which he co-authored with Peg Dawson and Richard Guare, Martin develops in much greater depth many of the core concepts introduced in his previous books. For example, insights concerning how both individuals and collaborative teams can achieve and then sustain superior performance by leveraging their strengths (i.e. talents, skills, temperament, and experience) when completing tasks for which those strengths are most appropriate. In this volume, the authors assert that there are certain brain functions starting at birth “and they are “`hardwired’” into every individual. Brain researchers have found that these skills are fully developed by the time you become an adult. These skills are called `Executive Skills’ because they help you execute tasks.” OK but so what?

As the authors then explain, our strongest skills will continue to be our strongest skills and our weakest will continue to be our weakest — and are not significantly changeable – as we become adults. “The opportunity is how to deal with [strengths and weaknesses], and this book provides a framework for you to do that.” They identify and then rigorously examines twelve executive skills that range from self-restraint to stress tolerance. Mastery of these skills by those who comprise the workforce within a given organization (regardless of its size or nature) will enable it to derive substantial improvement of its productivity, quality, employee recruitment, employee retention, training, teamwork, competitive edge, reduction of stress, meetings, operational execution, and information management.

Martin, Dawson, and Guare agree with countless others that organizations should measure only what is most important, and they should do so with consistency. Hence the value of diagnostic tools such as the “Executive Skills Profile” provided in Appendix B. It enables each of those who read this book to tap into their greatest Executive Skills strengths and then leverage them when completing whatever tasks to which they have been assigned. At this point, it is important to keep in mind that one of the greatest challenges for supervisors is to make certain that they are locating those for whom they are directly responsible in proper alignment with tasks appropriate to their given strengths. Organizations that sustain such alignment are “hardwired for success” because their people – as individuals and as members of a team – are themselves “hardwired for success.”

In my opinion, this is Chuck Martin’s most valuable book, thus far [as of, 2007] and another brilliant achievement. He and his co-authors, Peg Dawson and Richard Guare, invite those who wish to obtain updates and/or share their own comments to visit www.smartsthebook.com.

Martin’s most recent book is Work Your Strengths: A Scientific Process to Identify Your Skills and Match Them to the Best Career for You, also co-authored with Richard Guare and Peg Dawson, and published by AMACOM (2010).

I also highly recommend a visit to http://www.nfiresearch.com/blog/.