Andrea Kates: Part Two of an interview by Bob Morris
Andrea Kates
Andrea Kates (akates@BusinessGenome.com) is the founder of the Business Genome® project and author of the visionary bestselling business innovation book, Find Your Next (McGraw-Hill, November 2011). As a business strategist, facilitator, and speaker, Andrea has led more than 250 business innovation initiatives for global corporations, entrepreneurs, and organizations including Royal Dutch Shell (Asia-Pacific), Audi, Allstate, Continental Airlines, GM/OnStar, Hewlett-Packard, JP Morgan Chase, KPMG, the Houston Texans (NFL), and P.F. Chang’s. Find Your Next was based on her original research with top leaders of rapidly growing companies including GE ecomagination, IndieGoGo, LunaTik, Autodesk, Cisco, Sharp Healthcare, and Autodesk. Find Your Next reveals the keys to a revolutionary model of business innovation that has the capacity to change business as we know it.
Known to many as the next generation’s “brand whisperer,” Andrea created the Business Genome project to help companies adapt to a rapidly-changing global business environment and to gain a competitive advantage by discovering cross-industry opportunities for innovation. Her hallmark CoLabs immerses organizations in the hands-on application of cross-industry insights.
Andrea is a member of the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) community and featured 2012 TED speaker (short talk).
Here is an excerpt from the first of a two-part interview of her. To read the complete interview, please click here.
To read Part One of my interview of her, please click here.
* * *
Morris: When and why did you decide to write Find Your Next?
Kates: I decided to write it because it needed to be written. Because it didn’t exist. Because I couldn’t find a book to recommend to clients and colleagues that explained how companies were actually finding their way out of feeling stuck—that could actually delineate a process for moving forward and deliver on what everyone was looking for—a path to sustainable revenue growth.
On the one hand, we have classic literature like Michael Porter’s work, but it didn’t focus on discovery and wasn’t written for a world as unpredictable and fast as ours, today
On the other hand, we have books on innovation—by people like Clayton Christensen and Tom Kelley. When you read those books, it’s as if a pure innovation approach is for a particular type of person. An innovator. Born, not made. We can’t all be Steve Jobs (and we shouldn’t try to be).
We needed a book that everyone could relate to, that would help us realize our own innate ability to observe changes in our markets and do something about them. That would help us translate insights into growth.
Morris: Were there any head-snapping revelations while writing it? Please explain.
Kates: I love that phrase, “head-snapping revelations.” Yes. I discovered three about today’s companies that make traditional MBA thinking obsolete: 1.The speed of the market 2. The transparency of today’s business dynamic—we’re connected and social media introduces many new voices into the purchase decision and 3. The globalization of commerce.
With all three revelations in mind, I literally hit myself on the side of my head and realized why we were all so stuck. No process existed for dealing with them. And the book changed as I was writing it.
Morris: To what extent (if any) does the book in final form differ significantly from the one you originally envisioned?
Kates: I was recently on a panel with Sean Moffitt, author of Wikibrands, and he asked me a similar question. He asked me why I hadn’t written the book earlier. I told him I thought I had to crack the code on all of business genomics before I could even get started.
Well, that was never going to happen—I was paralyzed and overwhelmed thinking that I couldn’t write the book until I had all of the answers. I’m sure all authors feel that way when they start out. And we all have to learn when to sit down and just write.
I took a dose of my own medicine. I always tell clients that asking better questions can be the key to unlocking new answers, new opportunities. So, I decided that instead of waiting for the perfect answers to be ready, I would ask the questions with my readers. The power of the book would be the interviews themselves. My asking questions and my readers, or people that represented my readers, answering them. It was the honest telling of the messy stories that didn’t fit neatly into a 7 habits type of list. Conversations with business executives from P.F. Chang’s, GE ecomagination, Placecast, IndieGoGo, EMC Corporation, J&J Global, Korn/Ferry International, GM/OnStar told the real story of how people found their “nexts”—whether it was a multi-billion dollar “next,” like GE, or an entrepreneurial “next,” like Cooper’s Hawk Winery and Restaurant.
Find Your Next went from being yet another academic model or collection of case studies to a very down-to-earth, approachable collection of stories—and the four steps that everyone’s process has in common—whether large or small, business or nonprofit, local or global.
Morris: For those who have not as yet read Find Your Next, to what does the title refer?
Kates: It’s all about taking our organizations from point A to point B. Finding your “next” means just that—how we move toward tomorrow. How we figure out what to do next. When can we see right now? What does it mean about what might happen tomorrow? It’s not as farfetched as it sounds. It isn’t predicting the future, but really looking at the present…and looking at it differently.
How did Nikon see photos changing once mobile phones added cameras, and Flickr and Picasa added photo sharing? Easy.
Morris: What are the core components and major benefits of the business genome?
Kates: You get ahead of the shifts in customer preferences. You evaluate your current performance with creativity, like “trendability”—how well you’re adapting to changes that will affect your company. And your industry.
Morris: Briefly, how can the Business Genome approach help to achieve various organizational transformations? First, of innovation?
Kates: Don’t get seduced into the “let’s create purple tacos” side of innovation. There’s a balance to be achieved between stagnation and pure creativity. The insight here is that innovation can mean recombining things that are in plain sight and accessible, even in another industry—like Zappos customer service.
Morris: Of marketing into a world where customers can be inside?
Kates: Think of your company as an open book or a “glass house” where authenticity rules. We have to observe and listen to our customers—they’re part of our brands now.
Morris: Of talent, culture, and leadership?
Kates: Engagement comes from real buy-in-to ideas. You don’t get buy-in from employee manuals and policies. You get buy-in from real communication with the people you work with.
Morris: Of process by collaboration?
Kates: You need to get all of the players in the room at the same time when you’re designing any new process. The analogy I like is airport design—you can design an airport to streamline baggage handling or make the distance from security to gate the shortest for flyers, but one size doesn’t necessarily fit all.
Morris: Next, the transformation – and proliferation and distribution – of what you call “the secret sauce”?
Kates: Brand is a contact sport these days—everyone (management, front line, customers, competition) has a hand in the molding of your product’s market perception.
Morris: Of the emergence of trendability?
Kates: Business moves at warp speed today. We don’t have to be intimidated by forecast models or wait for the perfect strategy to hit us between the eyes. We can all put “trendability”—the ability to see signs of change before it happens—on our radar screens and build our cultures to respond fast.
* * *
To read all of Part Two, please click here.
To read Part One of my interview of Andrea, please click here.
She cordially invites you to check out the resources at these websites:
http://www.businessgenome.com/
http://www.youtube.com/businessgenome
http://www.facebook.com/BusinessGenome
Andrea Kates: Part One of an interview by Bob Morris
Andrea Kates
Andrea Kates (akates@BusinessGenome.com) is the founder of the Business Genome® project and author of the visionary bestselling business innovation book, Find Your Next (McGraw-Hill, November 2011). As a business strategist, facilitator, and speaker, Andrea has led more than 250 business innovation initiatives for global corporations, entrepreneurs, and organizations including Royal Dutch Shell (Asia-Pacific), Audi, Allstate, Continental Airlines, GM/OnStar, Hewlett-Packard, JP Morgan Chase, KPMG, the Houston Texans (NFL), and P.F. Chang’s. Find Your Next was based on her original research with top leaders of rapidly growing companies including GE ecomagination, IndieGoGo, LunaTik, Autodesk, Cisco, and Sharp Healthcare. Find Your Next reveals the keys to a revolutionary model of business innovation that has the capacity to change business as we know it.
Known to many as the next generation’s “brand whisperer,” Andrea created the Business Genome project to help companies adapt to a rapidly-changing global business environment and to gain a competitive advantage by discovering cross-industry opportunities for innovation. Her hallmark CoLabs immerses organizations in the hands-on application of cross-industry insights.
Andrea is a member of the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) community and featured 2012 TED speaker (short talk).
This is an excerpt from the first part of a two-part interview of her. To read the complete Part One interview, please click here.
To read Part Two, please click here.
* * *
Morris: Before discussing Find Your Next, a few general questions. First, which person has had the greatest influence on your personal growth? How so?
Kates: No one has ever asked me that question before–it’s not something I generally share with clients. But now that you’ve asked, I’d have to say Twyla Tharp, a choreographer I studied with when I was a teenager. She was trained in both classical ballet and contemporary dance and was one of the first crossover choreographers—she incorporated nontraditional music like Billy Joel’s and David Byrne’s into her works and blended ballet moves with modern and even pop culture dance moves. That’s right, dancing. I may be a business analyst now, but I’ve lived a lot of lives, and one was as a dancer. What does dancing have to do with business? What could a dancer teach a business strategist? She taught me to have tenacity and fierceness, and her influence didn’t stop there. She actually taught me—through dance—three skills that would impact my career and success in amazing ways:
1. BUILD ON A CLASSICAL, TRADITIONAL DISCIPLINE (ballet) to CREATE A NEW GENRE (modern choreography). Twyla Tharp was never afraid to challenge conventional thinking about classical disciplines (in her case, ballet). That’s what she was known for. That’s what made her something singular. She built on what she knew about classical ballet—which was a lot—and transformed it through works like Movin’ Out—a piece set to Billy Joel music—and Deuce Coupe—a dance set to Beach Boys songs—into something that had popular appeal. She pioneered an entirely new form of creative expression that was much more dynamic and innovative. Her dance transformed the discipline of classical ballet into something that modern audiences could relate to—it fit modern times and modern themes.
2. BRING A TIRELESS WORK ETHIC TO THE JOB, EVERY DAY. Her dedication to her work combined with that radical vision inspired me to look at business—and, really, everything—with the same spirit. She worked hard, and set the bar high. You knew better than to ever come to rehearsal unprepared. Ever. You’d never whine. You’d be thrown out. There were hundreds of people who wanted your spot, so the competition was fierce. And she knew it.
3. WORK WITH ONLY “A” TEAM PLAYERS. Twyla worked only with the best—“A” Team players—dancing greats like Mikhail Baryshnikov, who was a super star in the world of ballet. Twyla was an “A” team player, so that meant I needed to do more than just work with them, with great people. I had to be great. I didn’t make the cut the first time I auditioned for her. I didn’t give up, either. I looked around, I analyzed what the dancers who’d gotten in had that I didn’t, and I trained myself for months to have it by the next round. That process of goal-oriented self-examination forced me to get where I needed to go. It made me disciplined. It taught me, again and again, how to take principles and ideas applied to one pursuit and reconfigure them on to another. It was about talent and dedication and people and creativity.
Wouldn’t you know it, Twyla Tharp went on to write two books on creativity for business leaders: The Creative Habit and The Collaborative Habit.
Morris: The greatest impact on your professional development?
Kates: My dad, Phil. He was a psychiatrist who became a stand-up comic when he retired. Of course, as you can guess, that combination made him a great role model because he taught me the power of translating insights into universal stories. It’s what all comics do, really, the really good ones. If you can take an insight and distill it down to something that gets a response from a large audience, you’re onto something powerful.
Dad had an incredible track record for understanding what makes relationships work and what makes people happy. My world is the world of commerce, but I ascribe to the same mindset in what I do—I understand what makes businesses thrive and the people within those businesses successful. I try to help people in a similar way by attempting to translate what makes businesses work into elements that can work for every kind of business person or organization, from entrepreneurs, to large companies, to nonprofit organizations, to government groups, or even think tanks. Anything that works should work for everyone, no matter how large or small they are. How famous or how underrated. If I can take a complicated set of decisions and boil them down into simple questions like “Do you want to buy low and sell high or buy high and sell low?”, then I—with them—can cut to the heart of the issue and formulate a game plan for their “next”—that non-obvious opportunity for growth.
In essence, something I’ve only just realized, I’m doing just what Dad did when he refined a joke until it hit just the right note. You can do the exact same thing with business strategy. With everything.
Morris: Years ago, was there a turning point (if not an epiphany) that set you on the career course you continue to follow? Please elaborate.
Kates: Yes, there was. Isn’t there always? To explain, let me first talk about how I got to where I am in my business thinking. I’ve been doing market research a long time, and when I first started, I focused on how to get businesses somewhere new and different, how to uncover untapped opportunities. I didn’t want to be one of those tired consultants that told their clients what was obvious to anyone who was paying any attention. I worked with so many different kinds of companies—in industries as diverse as telecom, energy, consumer goods, manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, technology, and even nonprofit. No matter what the assignment was, I always had a knack for asking a slightly different set of questions than I was assigned to ask, because I always believed that the really powerful answers couldn’t result from asking obvious, either/or types of questions. Perhaps that came from my dad, too.
As an example, when I first got involved in focus groups years ago, I didn’t like the kinds of questions we were asking. The questions were simple multiple choice questions like, “Which do you prefer, Cheer or Tide?”, instead of what I ended up asking and I thought would tell us a lot more, “What do you wish you could change about how you do laundry today?” What if they didn’t want Cheer or Tide at all?
Back then, we were somewhat limited to that kind of yes/no, binary thinking. We were driving our questions towards our solutions. It makes sense to do that, and it’s way easier. Analysis is always easier when you can fit answers into neat categories. Life is easier that way, but it doesn’t reflect the real world. Easier wasn’t better, or more insightful. All Cheer and Tide tells you is that the big nut to crack has to do with things like chemical formulations, fragrance, and price. It’s based on an assumption that customers worry about the same things that companies do: the product’s formula.
It wasn’t until later, when we learned how to evaluate “fuzzy data” and answers to open-ended questions came along, that we could finally start to do something with answers that were less black and white. And more informative.
It turns out that my early intuition was spot on, but it took almost ten years for everything else to catch up. So, the turning point was all about asking the right questions—the ones that told you what you actually wanted to know, not just the ones that were problems you could solve right then with whatever you had. Plus, for someone like me—and I suspect for my clients, too—it’s a lot more fun, and a more interesting way of looking at business.
The most significant business growth doesn’t come from incremental thinking. The most significant business growth comes from reading between the lines. That’s what I learned. If customers are honest and say that they don’t want either Cheer OR Tide, but instead don’t want to deal with laundry at all and would rather hire someone to do it for them, we need to be able to listen, understand, and act on that actual preference. P&G did just that recently when it launched Tide’s Pop-Up laundry services—companies are finally finding out what people want and crafting their product and service lines to give it to them. I love it when that happens. When companies listen with new perceptions to what will appeal to customers or when they uncover an unmet need and figure out a way to meet the need. That’s what I mean by reading between the lines.
* * *
To read the complete Part One interview, please click here.
To read the second part, please click here.
Andrea cordially invites you to check out the resources at these websites:
http://www.businessgenome.com/
http://www.youtube.com/businessgenome
http://www.facebook.com/BusinessGenome
http://twitter.com/#!/businessgenome
How Companies Win: A book review by Bob Morris
How Companies Win: Profiting from the Demand-Driven Business Models No Matter What Business You’re In
Rick Kash and David Calhoun
Harper Business (2010)
In today’s global business world, companies “win” if everyone associated with them throughout their value chain also “win.” The title of this review refers to a question that Rick Kash and David Calhoun ask their reader: “Do you have a proprietary understanding of unsatisfied demand in your marketplace?” Those who gain that understanding have a significant, perhaps decisive competitive advantage. They will thrive but only to the extent that they can sustain that advantage. I agree with Kash and Calhoun that there are valuable lessons to be learned from the exemplar companies they discuss such as Allstate, Anheuser-Busch, Apple, Ball Park Franks, Best Buy, Hershey’s, and Hewlett-Packard, to name but seven and listed in alpha order.
For example, Kash and Calhoun assert that what the leaders at Hershey’s learned is what leaders in any other company must also learn, whatever the size and nature of their company may be:
• Know who your customers are (e.g. their demographics and motivations)
• Why they buy (i.e. their demand by profit pool and the need states they experience)
• What they buy (i.e. a detailed understanding of the brands, packs, tastes, and textures most customers prefer)
• Where and how they buy (i.e. shopper missions and channel preferences)
• When customers consume (i.e. the key usage occasions and locations)
Credit Kash and Calhoun with providing a cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective game plan and operations manual to design, introduce, implement, and then strengthen an appropriate demand chain; that is, “a collaborative network composed of manufacturer, retailers, and media companies [or their equivalent entities] that enable each participant to better understand – and more completely and precisely fulfill – customer demand.”
The Other Side of Innovation: A book review by Bob Morris
The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge
Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble
Harvard Business Press (2010)
As I began to read this book, I was reminded of Thomas Edison’s observation, “Vision without execution is hallucination.” Also of a statement by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: “I don’t care a fig about simplicity on this side of complexity but I would give my life for simplicity on the other side of complexity.” Now consider what Govindarajan and Trimble observe in their Introduction: “There is a Rainier-like summit in the innovation journey. It is the moment a company says yes! That’s a great idea! Let’s take it to the market! Let’s make it happen!…Getting to the summit can seem like the fulfillment of a dream, but it is not enough. After the summit comes the other side of innovation – the challenges beyond the idea. Execution. Like Rainier, it is the other side of the adventure that is actually more difficult. It is the other side that holds hidden dangers. But because the summit itself has such strong appeal, the other side is usually an afterthought. It is humdrum. It is behind the scenes. It is dirty work.”
The “journey” metaphor is appropriate because Govindarajan and Trimble embarked (like Odysseus) on a ten-year journey during which they completed research on a number of well-known and well-respected companies (e.g. Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, The New York Times, and Unilever) and interviewed dozens of senior-level executives at dozens of other companies that include Aetna, Allstate, Ben & Jerry’s, BMW, Citigroup, GE, Harley-Davidson, Mattel, Procter & Gamble, Sony, and Timberland. What they learned about what works, what doesn’t, and why during efforts to reach “the other side of innovation” is shared in abundance in this book.
The challenge for leaders of innovation initiatives (whatever the scope and nature of those initiatives may be) must help their organization to achieve and then sustain an appropriate balance between “foundational” operations that are on-going and repeatable, and, experimental operations that non-routine and often disruptive. To help prepare leaders to meet this challenge, Govindarajan and Trimble explain how to
• Build a dedicated team
• Define a partnership of the team with the “Performance Engine”
• Obtain support from senior-level executives
• Anticipate and prepare for resistance and conflict
• Achieve buy-in
• Devise and conduct a “disciplined” experiment
• o Focus on learning when evaluating results
• Achieve transparency through effective communication
• Create a framework for accountability
These are worthy objectives, to be sure, but by no means easy to achieve. It is important to keep in mind that all organizations are works in progress and the same is true of those who are involved with them. Credit Govindarajan and Trimble with providing a wealth of valuable information, accompanied by rock-solid advice that isanchored in real-world situations. It is not necessary but, in my opinion, highly desirable to read their earlier book, Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators: From Idea to Execution, first before reading this one.
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