If your organization is like most, there are many processes in place that ensure no one can make a mistake that could cost the company vast sums of money, damage its reputation, or do other terrible damage.  While many of these processes are in place for a good reason, has anyone ever looked at the trade-offs that have been made as a result?

The reason I point this out is that I find it interesting that these processes are never, ever questioned.  Even though I've watched companies miss out on very lucrative opportunities as a result of blindly following existing processes, I have been left wondering why no one questioned what else could have been done to have avoided missing out on the opportunity.  A lot of effort goes into protecting the company from harm, which makes it all the more interesting that missed opportunities are seldom viewed as harmful.

I highly value thoughtfulness, and due diligence, and I am not advocating that companies abandon all existing processes to encourage people to chase after anything they want.  Far from it.  I just wanted to point out that it does seem a bit odd that questions about the value of missed opportunities are seldom, if ever, raised.  It would be interesting to see if there are some processes that are costing more than they save.

Do you know why all the processes at your company exist?  Would you know when their use should be questioned and/or challenged?

Most consumer research focuses on learning about what people do, and most innovation projects focus on developing new technologies into things people will buy. Notice the disconnect?

Too little research is focused on how people make decisions, and too few innovation projects focus on developing something that fits better with people's decision processes.

Learning to do this type of research is difficult.  Learning to connect this research to the development process is even more difficult - and rare.  No one would argue that it is important to learn about how consumers make decisions, nor would they argue with the importance of connecting this knowledge to the development process is important.  In fact, many would say they are already doing it.

I have not seen a product or service fail when this is done well, and yet according to Stevens and Burley, at least 1 of 3 products fail  at launch despite research and planning.  Clearly, we can see that doing these activities does not mean we are succeeding at connecting them.

My last post was about the success of Monocle, and how founder Tyler Brule's incessant, immersive research plays a large role in this success.  But it's not the only reason Monocle is successful.  JD asked the question, "Is Brule able to do this because he is part of his target market, and he is providing products and services that he, himself, would want?"  This is a great question, and my answer is that while this may very well be true, it's not enough.  If it were, he could just sit behind his desk all day and dictate what he likes rather than spend time in the market.

Immersive research to get to the heart of what drives the consumer's decision-making process is half the battle.  The other half is the ability to translate what we learn about the market into products and services that actually connect with these drivers.  In my experience, this is where most companies fall down.  The inability to translate these intangible needs into tangible products actually encourages superficial research.  It's easy to make a direct link from what a consumer says they want, to delivering on what was described.  This is great for incremental improvements, but consumers cannot tell you how to disrupt a market.  Tom Martin said it well today in AdAge, "The customer is paying you to solve his problems before he even realizes he has them."

The translation from consumer understanding to the creation of the right products and services is the other area where Brule's team seems to be executing flawlessly.  The fact that he is part of his target market may help him, but being part of his market does not automatically give him the ability to translate.  We are all members of various target markets and may work for companies that make products for people like us, but the vast majority of us do not have this ability.  So, Brule is good at translating in this market.  For him it doesn't matter whether or not he's good at translation in general.  For other companies, this matters a lot.

The ability to translate is equally important for all functions in an organization, yet it is a skill that is difficult to recognize.  Traditional market research techniques often fail to uncover the depth of insight that will guide the development of disruptive products and services, and traditional evaluation techniques often fail to discern whether or not a disruptive idea will connect well enough to succeed.  Brule clearly does this well, and I don't even need to say more than the words "Apple vs Dell" to further illustrate the point.

I fully believe that you do not need to be in a target market to derive the right insights and translate them into the right disruptive products and services. Right now we're seeing success with CEO's who are good translators, but the CEO doesn't have to be the translator.  Is your company recognizing and supporting this role?

Walk into almost any company and ask a random employee what they do.  You'll likely get very specific answers.  "I'm in marketing", or "I'm a manufacturing supervisor", or "I'm a software developer."  They are all very clean, neat, and tidy, with little to no overlap.

Does this make sense?  I would say that when there is a problem in the product development process, it is usually because there is a problem with translation. By this I mean, how does someone within the company translate what they are doing to success in the market?  Companies spend a lot of time and money trying to integrate the disparate functions within the organization.  They focus on smoother hand-offs from one group to the next.  They focus on more integrated processes to bring everyone's interests to bear on the task at hand.

My question is, how often is the task at hand defined as a real market issue that needs to be solved?  Sales people are rewarded for pushing more stuff into the market, and some marketing people are rewarded to the extent that they contribute to this effort.  But how often are the engineers, software developers, and finance people rewarded based on an external measure?  How completely did the marketing person uncover and define a true underlying need in the market?  How well did an engineer or software developer do in coming up with a unique solution for that need?

Rather than focusing on pushing people together to try to integrate their competing interests, it may be better to pose a common challenge for the group to solve.  If this common challenge focused on an external issue, then focusing on the competing interests of different internal functions would be less relevant.  The group would naturally be pulled together, and the overlaps between their disciplines would be covered.

Now, how many companies actually reward their people for meeting these types of challenges?  My guess is that there is a lot of talking about cross-disciplinary functions, but the rewards focus on single discipline metrics. This even plays out in recruiting.  There is a time and place when you need strong functional expertise, and an equally important time and place when you need cross functional ability.  The right people for these challenges may not be one and the same.  Remember, there are people who live in the overlaps.  The challenge lies presenting the right challenges to the right people at the right time.  Easier said than done, but that's no excuse not to try. How are the overlaps covered in your company?

A friend was recently discussing her experiences in having to exercise her Power of Attorney authority over her mother's affairs. In the US, Power of Attorney "is an authorization to act on someone else's behalf in a legal or business matter." Many parents grant this authority to their adult children, to be exercised in the event that they are unable to mentally or physically act on their own behalf.

When she first took on this role, my friend imagined she would be merely assisting her mother to execute the plans that had originally been set forth. She soon realized that financial and legal guidelines and associated paperwork changed much too quickly for her mother to keep up with. For example, a simple request for assistance with an investment account would result in a discussion with the accountant to understand new tax implications of what her mother was trying to do, adjusting the initial request as necessary.

My friend described how the experience was changing the way she interpreted her mother's requests. In order to give her mother what she needed, she had to learn to look beyond what her mother asked for. And in order to preserve her mother's dignity, my friend needed to learn to discuss issues with her mother, listen to her direct requests, understand what she was trying to achieve with each request, and then translate those requests into the current procedures required today.

Sound familiar? All companies act on behalf of their consumers as they strive to produce products and services that are of value to them. In essence, they exercize Power of Attorney authority in every product development decision they make. How many people involved in the development process take their roles as seriously as my friend does when they are making those decisions? Hopefully, the answer is that they all do.

I was reading a discussion yesterday on a closed site I get to use where it was mentioned that perfectionism is what often holds people back from achieving their goals.  When I think about this in terms of the Active Thinking concepts we've been discussing, I think perfectionism is a contributing factor when there is difficulty with this activity.

This doesn't mean that individuals are necessarily perfectionists, but most organizations reward getting right answers.  The very nature of Active Thinking requires that the team discuss many potential answers that end up being wrong.  By the end of the project, more wrong answers have been discussed than right answers.  This goes against the grain of most organizations, which in most cases is a good thing.  We want to ensure that a company is good at producing reliable products.  But when used at the wrong time it can kill innovative solutions before they have time to mature.

I was managing a team once that was having a very difficult time getting started.  We did a lot of consumer research, and the discussions were swirling around which frameworks would lead us to the answer.  The team was very reluctant to just try a few and discard what wasn't working.  No one wanted to be wrong.  So one day I asked everyone to bring their worst idea to the meeting.  Each team member was asked to present this idea and why it would be the worst thing we could possibly do.  We then guided the discussion toward what it would take to make each idea "less wrong."  This process required us to state our assumptions, question them, and build new constructs.  We were finally on our way.

What I learned is that sometimes the best way to change direction is to exaggerate the direction in which we're already going.  Since everyone was afraid to be wrong, we made being wrong the only way to complete the assignment correctly.  Sometimes being wrong is the only way to be right.

I have to clarify a point made in my last post about taking time to think.  I mentioned that clients tend to get nervous during the point in the project when they don't perceive that anything is happening, and that in fact, this thinking time is the most important part of the project. 

What clients fear is that this time is spent truly doing nothing while waiting for inspiration to strike.  I agree that this seldom works.  What I'm talking about is what I will call Active Thinking.  Louis Pasteur's quote "Chance favors the prepared mind" is relevant here.  Inspiration may in fact strike, but the only way to know if the inspiration is useful is to have done all the active thinking work necessary to prepare the mind to recognize its value.

When I refer to the active thinking part of the process, what is happening is that the team is creating the conditions necessary to prepare their minds for the solution.  They make models, try out analogies, and create frameworks, stories and scenarios.  They discuss these models, test them against their research, and keep going until they have something robust.  By this point, they are able to discern what will work, and what won't work quite easily.  When an idea strikes them, they are able to discern its value quickly, and either embrace it or move on.

I'm going to start using the term Active Thinking.  It's clear that there is a need to define this most important part of the process so that it's not confused with goofing off.

Who is responsible for innovation in your organization, and how do they ensure that it happens in the right way for your company?  Not surprisingly, the answers to these questions vary greatly.  Here are some of the most common answers I've encountered:

• Everyone is responsible for innovation, because good ideas can come from anywhere, and people need to be empowered to bring them forward.
• The Head of R&D, because we need to be developing new technologies that can drive our success in the future.
• The Chief Innovation Officer, who is responsible for forging relationships with technology partners and developing new processes for the organization to integrate them.
• The Head of New Product Development, because innovative ideas are embodied in new products and services.

Of course, there is no single right or wrong answer, as every company is different.  What is striking is that the main focus of these roles is on collecting new ideas and technologies.  I seldom hear of roles that are focused on determining the success criteria for new ideas and technologies beyond internal metrics.

Today I will leave you with a few questions that I'd like to explore further.  How many organizations drive innovation efforts based on success criteria that satisfies consumer goals?  By consumer goals, I mean understanding the motivations behind what your consumers do.  What needs does your product or service really satisfy?  What would provide a better solution and fit more consistently into the consumer's life? 

Finally, who is responsible for ensuring that your organization has the right answers to these questions?

As consultants we are often faced with a dilemma.  Our clients hire us because they need a fresh perspective that is unencumbered by the internal constraints, politics, and metrics that guide the day to day activities.  We know, however, that our recommendations cannot be implemented unless the organization adopts them.  If the recommendations are perceived to be too (scary, out there, different, impossible, etc) the likelihood of adoption is diminished.

This is a tricky balance to strike.  Some consultants solve it by presenting a fully implementable, turnkey solution to the organization.  Success usually requires a mandate from the most senior members of the organization for any type of adoption to occur.  We can see the organizational problems this could cause, but there are times (such as extreme organizational crisis) that it is the best way to proceed. 

Others involve client teams through the entire, messy process.  Success requires that all the client team members are able to suspend judgment while exploring new business realities.  They also need to be able to keep one foot in the comfort zone of the current business, while the other foot is outside their comfort zone.  This is a lot to expect of anyone, and can only work if enough time is invested in selecting these people and setting the right expectations for them to succeed.

It occurred to me the other day that the best results happen with a combination of these methods.  Sean Howard had a post about the role of serious play in the boardroom.  In it, he discussed a frightening experience where he brought crayons and blank paper to a final presentation meeting.  As I was reading the post and related comments, I started thinking about how the level of finish in a prototype can help to facilitate an environment conducive to mutual creation of the final solution.  As I thought about it more, I think the element of timing also played a crucial role.  Sean's team had already done 2 months of work.  While the elements for success existed, there was a need to simplify this complex information in order to communicate it to a diverse group.  Having the group join the process in how to communicate to each other was an excellent way to acheive that goal.

Clients often choose consultants for their proposals of "delivering a turnkey solution", or "involving us every step of the way".  These messages are easy to understand, and can only work under ideal conditions.  For the rest of us, accept the fact that some things are best left to the outsider, and spend time figuring out the best time for mutual creation.  It will be different for each client, consultant, and type of problem.   

In my opinion, one behavior with perhaps the greatest potential to kill to innovation is the aversion to using the phrase "I don't know." 

Let's say you are leading a new project to develop a completely new offering for your company, the outcome is highly uncertain, and someone asks you a question like what you think the selling price of the new offering should be.  Of course you want to give an answer that sounds like you are in control of the process; that you are capable, and confident, and you know what you are doing.  But let's face it.  If you are doing something truly new, you shouldn't have any idea of what the final selling price should be. At least not at the beginning stage of the process designed to figure out what type of offering you should be developing in the first place. 

Would you be empowered at your company to say "I don't know what the selling price should be?", and would you be empowered to follow up that answer with "and at this point in this type of project we shouldn't know the answer to that question?"  If you gave that type of answer, would you be removed as the project leader because you "don't know what you are doing?"  And if you gave an answer that would assure everyone of a certain outcome, would you be sabotaging your ability to truly innovate?

As discussed in an earlier post, companies reward certainty.  Unfortunately, this reward is often employed at every stage of every process.  Would I ever advocate launching a new offering without thoroughly evaluating what the correct price will be?  Absolutely not.  And of course, "I don't know", may really mean that the person doesn't know what they are doing.  What I am advocating is that we consider the context of the rewards we employ.  Rewards should be consistent with the type and scope of the work we are doing.  We should be clear about the expected outcomes of a project, and what types of decisions should be able to be made at each step. 

There is a time and place for every question. If we're not careful, the "right" answer will be given at the wrong time.  At that point, it may as well be the wrong answer.