Stop Blabbing About Innovation and Start Actually Doing It

Here is an excerpt from an excellent article written by Aaron Shapiro and featured online at the Fast Company magazine website. To read the complete article, check out other resources, and obtain deep-discount subscription information, please click here.

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These days, every established company is at risk of having its industry–and its own business–disrupted by a startup. Cognizant of this, companies devote a lot of time to talking about how important it is to innovate. But here’s the truth: most companies can’t innovate because everyone is paid to maintain the status quo.

This is the single biggest reason companies fail to do anything new or exciting. You and everyone else are maxed out making sure your company is doing what it’s supposed to do; innovation is what the weekends are for.

Despite the real risk involved, this actually makes sense. Companies are set up to do one thing very well. That’s the business they’re in. All of the roles in the company are defined and structured to create the best environment for doing that one thing as efficiently as possible. The number of people employed by the company fluctuates with the workload. More work, more people. Too many people and too little work means layoffs or mismanagement. Success is doing the same thing you’ve always done, just a little bit better, achieving just a few more sales or shaving a hair off of costs. Change is discouraged by time constraints and the stifling number of approvals needed. Failure is punishable by pink slip. Every day is the same.

Yet, today, your entire industry can change in the space of a headline. If your business can’t innovate, it won’t survive when the startup in the garage across town that doesn’t have to answer to your shareholders does all the things legal has been telling you that you can’t do, all the things that you don’t have time for. It’s never been more urgent to stop talking about innovation and actually start doing things differently. And, with digital, the opportunities have never been greater. Instead of innovating on your weekends, overcome the structural impediments and time constraints to real change by approaching innovation from two directions: outside-in and inside-out.

“Outside-in,” when not based on acquisition, often comes in the form of a skunkworks project. It’s colloquially defined as a startup funded by the parent company, but kept separate from the dysfunction and sluggishness of the whole, in order to incubate great technological advancements. I’ve referenced this tactic before, as the first step big businesses should take to evolve their organizational structures. Google, JetBlue, NBCUniversal, and News Corp. have all used the strategy.

[Here’s a portion of the recipe. To read the complete article, please click here.]

Set the right goals. A skunkworks project should be tasked with developing a new, specific tech product or service.

Give the team freedom to create. Bureaucracy, office politics, and the aforementioned requirement to keep the ship sailing straight ahead all slow down and inhibit big advancements. To succeed, the skunkworks team must be kept free from these deterrents.

Appoint separate senior management. Management by committee is not an option. The quickest route to failure is slow decision making. The skunkworks team should report directly to a senior-level executive who is authorized to green-light initiatives that are separate from the company’s main purpose and to implement these new solutions.

Choose a separate location. The team should not be housed in the corporate headquarters. Ideally, it should live nearby, but in some cases, it needs to be in a completely different location to be able to access the right talent. When Johnson & Johnson decided to build a unit oriented to design, creativity, and technology, the division planted a flag in an old industrial building in a trendy neighborhood in New York. Its corporate headquarters are in suburban New Jersey.

Mix up the staff. The staff should be a healthy hybrid of high-performing internal employees and newbies, so that some participants are familiar with the company’s core business while others have an open mind and fresh ideas.

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The risk involved in these changes is less than the risk of not making them. Innovation is outside the comfort zones of most businesses–but so is Chapter 11.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Aaron Shapiro is CEO of Huge, a global digital agency based in Brooklyn, and author of Users, Not Customers: Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business, published by Portfolio/Penguin Group (2011). To read the complete article, please click here.

Empathetic Marketing: A book review by Bob Morris

Empathetic Marketing: How to Satisfy the 6 Core Emotional Needs of Your Customers
Mark Ingwer
Palgrave Macmillan (2012)

How and why emotions and resulting behaviors are the foundation for satisfying complex psychological needs

I was curious to know when someone would combine insights from several quite different concepts and write a book such as this one. For example, from Robert Greenleaf’s essay, The Servant as Leader, the development of the concept of emotional intelligence (Charles Darwin, E.L. Thorndyke, David Wechsler, and most recently Daniel Goleman), and Howard Gardner’s research on multiple intelligences (notably his book, Frames of Mind). Well, without drawing upon these specific sources, Mark Ingwer has written that book and it is brilliant.

In essence, marketing creates or increases demand for whatever is offered. It could be a smart phone but it could also be a political platform or membership in a professional association or support of a non-profit, tax-exempt organization. Now we have a definitive guide to a unique marketing methodology. That is Ingwer’s singular achievement. As he explains, in order to satisfy “the 6 core emotional needs” of current prospective customers, one must understand those needs and be convinced that it is a privilege to serve them; also, one must possess emotional intelligence as well as highly developed reasoning skills because, as Ingwer explains, “emotions and ruling behaviors are the foundation for satisfying complex psychological needs. Our individual well-being – self-esteem, success, relationships, and happiness – is a result of our meeting emotional needs. An individual’s needs are satisfied when he or she is connected meaningfully to others, and through these connections comes to find his or her own unique value and identity. It is a ceaseless, evolving, lifelong endeavor.”

Ingwer devotes a separate chapter to each of the six “core emotional needs” (i.e. control, self-expression, growth, recognition, belonging, and care) and explains with rigor and clarity how and why needs-based marketing initiatives must accommodate, indeed nourish human emotions as well as deliver a convincing, indeed compelling “message.” Long ago in his poem Song of Myself, Walt Whitman asserted, I am large/I contain multitudes.” Marketers would be well-advised to keep Whitman’s comment in mind. According to Ingwer, “The motivation and emotion behind our quest for needs satisfaction and identify fulfillment all too often are not always consciously available to us.” True, but they are certainly available to empathic marketers such as Steve Jobs who realized long before anyone else did how appealing and personally (as well as functionally) fulfilling various iProducts would be.

Here are some of the most important subjects for which Ingwer provides information, insights, and counsel:

o The frequently hidden (or at least unrecognized) human needs that drive purchase decisions
o What the Needs Continuum is and why it should be coordinated with a psychological perspective
o How best to empathize with consumers’ core needs for control, self-expression, growth, recognition, belonging, and care
o A few core guidelines for how companies can take an empathetic approach to marketing

As indicated earlier, with all due respect to this brilliant book, all of the opportunities that await empathetic marketing initiatives as well as everything that Mark Ingwer recommends to take full advantage of those opportunities mean nothing unless and until an organization has people at all levels and in all areas who are – literally – servant leaders, who possess or are in the process of developing emotional intelligence, and who consider it a privilege to satisfy the core emotional needs of everyone with whom they are associated.

I presume to add a footnote: With only minor modifications, all of the principles that Mark Ingwer introduces would also be appropriate for improving the communication skills — especially persuasion — of those who interact with others within and beyond their workplace.

You Need a Monthly Book Club with your Top Leaders – Here’s How to Actually Make it Work

You need the rhythm of a monthly meeting of your leadership team for the purpose of learning.
Verne Harnish, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits

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You need a book club for your top leaders, and the rising leaders, in your company or organization.

But not like you think.

Okay – this is one of my Saturday posts, where I muse a bit.

America is filled with people who wish they read more books.  They think they should read more books.  They talk about the books they wish they had read.  And they occasionally claim to have read a book that they have not actually read.

They watch and listen to book programs (Oprah is bringing her book club back), and they love to hear author interviews on NPR  (Terry Gross on Fresh Air, Diane Rehm, and our local terrific Think with Krys Boyd all excel at these interview shows).

This is the closest I could find to a “business book club” image — this is a “bloggers book club”

So, book-reading leaders think:  “I’ve got a great idea.  I’ll have all my top people, and those people that I identify as the next top leaders, get together once a month and discuss a book that I have assigned them to read.”

It is a great idea.  And it really works great — for the first month.  Then it almost works okay for the second month.  But, then, it starts to fizzle, it starts to fade, it starts to be a second cousin to a sham.

Why does it fade?  Because not everybody wants to read books as much as the boss does.  So they learn pretty quickly how to “fake it” in the book club gatherings…and then, ultimately, it disbands, and goes into that list of initiatives, the “graveyard,” where people will say a year or two later, “whatever happened to that book club?”

And the boss gets mad.  And the participants feel guilty.  And instead of a great once-a-month session, it turns into a guilt-producing session the folks dread.

Why does it fade?  Because not that many people actually do read books.  Even the people who wish they read more books don’t actually read many books.  If you research “how many books do people actually read a year?,” you discover that at best it averages between 1 and 4.  And that comes from “self-reporting” surveys, which are utterly unreliable.  Because in such surveys, people always over-report desired behavior.

{This is a big problem with surveys, and especially with quoting survey results.  Far fewer people actually attend church than the number that tell Gallup they did attend church in the last seven days.  Same with voting – far fewer people actually voted in the last election than the number that said they voted in the last election.}

{And, by the way, even the ones who do like to read are plenty busy doing their current job.  So even the true book lovers might, at times, be tempted to “fake it.”}

Now, one of my beliefs is that you have to accept part of reality – and then only attempt to change the parts of reality that really are changeable.

I don’t think this one is changeable. 

People either like to read, and thus they do read – or, they don’t.  Think back to your school days.  There were the students that read every word of the books they reported on.  And then there were the others who may have read part of the CliffsNotes, or these days the Wikipedia article on the book.  That was how they were then.  And that is how they are now…  You could have predicted – “That person will be a book reader, 20 years from now.  That person, well I’m pretty sure he has picked up his last book for a decade.”

But…  there are some books that every company needs to expose its best people to.  The ideas, the challenges, the reminders are critical.  People do not become good leaders, and do not stay good leaders, without working at it.  A once-a-month session to discuss “how are we developing in our job; how are we doing in our job; what could we learn to improve our work here?” can be incredibly valuable.

In other words, you need a book club.  But your people won’t actually read the books.  Really – they just won’t.  What do you do?

So, here is my suggestion for your once-a-month book club gatherings.  Still have them.  It is a great idea! to get together to discuss the ideas in a good business book.  These discussions, these conversations, can be culture changing and culture shaping, and true leader-developing sessions.  And they can really help you develop as a leader.  So, have the book club.  But you provide the key content of the book in some other way than from the action of all the participants reading the book.  And, provide that content in the session, as part of the session — at the beginning of the session.  Do not expect the participants to:  read the book, listen to a summary of the book, read some kind of printed summary of the book in advance of the session, watch a video of the author (from TED, or some other source) or the audio of an author from an interview program.  Don’t expect them to because they won’t.  They will pretend that they did, but by the second or third session, they’ll be faking it.

So, spend the first 15-20 minutes providing the content of the book to act as the conversation starter for the session.

Here is a sample format, with a current useful book title inserted:

“Today, we are going to discuss the book What Matters Now by Gary Hamel.
First, let’s take a look at the key content of the book.
Here is the content.  (15-20 minutes).
Now, here are the questions that this book raises that I think we need to discuss at this time in our organization.  Let’s discuss.
What questions do you think I missed?  Let’s discuss these too.
Now, what will we do, and what will you do, based on the insights gained from this session?
See you again next month.”

I am completely convinced that this kind of once-a-month session can be incredibly valuable to your team.  I’ve seen it work.

{Companies hire me (and my colleague, Karl Krayer) to come to leadership sessions and deliver our book synopses to serve this very purpose.  Admitting my bias, I think this is great thing to do.  I love to read.  I love to share what I read with others.  And what I do can be a great, useful, organization-shaping conversation starter.}

So, now all you need is a delivery mechanism for the key content of the book.

You could prepare it yourself.  But reading a book is not the same as preparing a good usable delivery of that key content.  No offense, but you probably don’t have the time, or the skill and expertise, to pull this off.  You’re too busy running your business.

I believe we can help.

The “best way” would be to bring us in for your monthly learning sessions.  We can do a live book synopsis, and then be there to “add” to your conversation with your leadership team.   Click on the hire us tab to start that process.

But, there is another way, and probably more affordable than bringing us in for your monthly meetings.  We record our presentations at the First Friday Book Synopsis.  None of these are longer than about 17 minutes.  Each one comes with a comprehensive handout of the key content.  You can print these out, listen to the audio while each person follows along with their printed handout! (each person follows along on the handout — this is a critical piece of the puzzle!), and then you start your discussion.

This is a book club where the participants do not have to read the book.  Thus, no “pretense,” no “faking it,” no “guilt.”  But still, content-energized discussions. Would it be better if they all read the book?  Of course it would.  But they won’t.  Only a few will.  And you need a group that can successfully include more folks than that rare few.  This approach really can work.  I know of it working. I’ve seen it work.

Give it a try.  Start now.  You will get better leaders, and make more progress with those leaders, from these sessions.  This approach really can work.

But, however you do it, don’t forget the challenge from Verne Harnish at the top of this post:

You need the rhythm of a monthly meeting of your leadership team for the purpose of learning.  – a chance for the executive team to pass its DNA down to the next level.
Verne Harnish, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits

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So, how do you get the audio recordings of our presentations, and our comprehensive handouts?  Go to our companion web site, 15minutebusinessbooks.com.  You can download, and start immediately.  We have many terrific, useful, genuinely challenging books to choose from.  The most recently uploaded presentations are highlighted at the bottom of the home page.  A searchable catalogue is available in the catalogue tab.