Steve Denning on Lean Startups – Part 1 and Part 2
Quantity vs. Quality in Collaborations – HBR
State of the Art Innovation Management – MIT Sloan Management Review – via @ralph_ohr
Would You Rather be Revolutionary or Evolutionary? – HBR
How consumerization drives innovation – ZDNet
Copy. Transform. Combine. Secret to innovation is imitation – by @drawar
The Customer isn’t always right – Businessweek
in Innovation
Want to thank Karin Wall for my interview with InnovationManagement. Much appreciated!
Whether it’s satisfying customer’s existing needs in a new way or completely surprising them with something they’d never imagine they needed, to me innovation management is simply a systematic process of creating new products and services that deliver superior value to a market.
And to better meet these challenges, this process takes into account the external changes in world and marketplace as well as the internal changes the organization has to make to be able to adapt to change.
There are a few things that I enjoy and that is constant learning, collaboration, risk and surprise. Innovation and constant learning go hand in hand so the learning part comes easy for me as I’m constantly ingesting knowledge from different domains and this helps keep me on the edge.
I also get a lot of pleasure when I help a client by simply helping them do something that to them seems impossible. I see this as a small step to convincing them that doing things differently isn’t that difficult because most of the time the smallest details added up make the difference.
Another thing I like about my job is collaborating with people with different backgrounds and interests. To learn from and to be a part of a group of people that come together, connect their collective minds and work for the same purpose is exciting for me. It’s beautiful to experience and to watch.
And the last thing I like is that if all of the above happens, if you innovate, you might just change the world. I love risk and to innovate is to work in uncertainty. It’s less about predicting the future and more about creating it. And this is fun for me.
Human nature because we humans don’t like change and so we tend to become defenders of the status quo. And that’s the frustrating part because it’s human to conform to how things are and not challenge them and believe that there’s a better way.
In the world of business this is even more pronounced because the job people have is a stake in their futures, and risking that is not something they get enthusiastic about.
This takes patience and understanding, luckily I’m very passionate about change and so very much welcome the challenge.
My big challenge is changing the perception that innovation can be done by only a few people with special skills. It’s also important to me to shift the belief that innovation is entirely a business process because it’s really a human process to a better tomorrow, we just have to realize that we’ve been doing it since the day we discovered fire.
It is my belief that the more we talk about innovation in the context of everyday life and not just business, the better off we’ll be in the long run because people will become familiar with it before they join the workforce or set out to create their own business.
Now it’s your turn to answer, let’s get to know each other in the comments 
in Innovation
I found this question at the bottom of an article that states that in order to get promoted you need to put your creativity to rest and embrace the status quo. See below:
The research clearly shows that “when people voice creative ideas, they are viewed by others as having less leadership potential,” says Jack Goncalo, who teaches organizational behavior at Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
That may come as a surprise, since many companies claim to prize innovative thinking.
But Goncalo, who led the studies, points out that our deeply ingrained expectations of “creative people” and “effective leaders” are often at loggerheads: Creative types may be seen as mercurial and unpredictable, while leaders “are expected to reduce uncertainty and uphold the norms of the group,” he says.
That’s particularly true in times of economic uncertainty. The data suggest that, when the going gets tough, people crave the security that comes from having leaders who preserve the status quo.
This study further reinforces what we already know about instituting innovation within established organizations, that the forces of human nature are the biggest impediments to innovation.
Naturally, this is the way it’s always been. Human tendency is to prefer the familiar, so naturally people who maintain the status quo will be seen as ‘better’ than creatives. Again, this is a matter of perception. The problem is, as is often the case, in times of uncertainty there are gaps that can be exploited. Opportunities open up because there is a restructuring of the fundamental ideas of the past. Everyone is looking for a light to follow and that light is NOT ‘the same it’s always been’. This is all counter intuitive, but most things that are uncertain are.
But this doesn’t answer the question of this post: Are you more credible as an innovator?
Before answering let me point out that being creative doesn’t mean you’re innovative, although the probability of that happening is much higher than if you’re not creative. Again, this is a matter of definition. What is innovative can be different things to everybody.
So the first thing that needs to happen is the organization has to come to a collective understanding of what ‘innovation’ is to them. That can then help inform how problems are framed and ideas are presented, because if the ideas presented are not aiming at something then most likely they’re going to be shot down and you along with it. I think this is where the fundamental problem is.
Are you more credible as an innovator? If you’ve done it before and it improved/solved a problem then yes. If the ideas are just thrown out there to see what happens then you’re staying right where you are.
We all know we need to innovate continuously to stay relevant, key is making it happen and then all these issues will be kept at bay.
Thoughts?
in Innovation, Leadership
After seeing Scott Berkun’s post on innovation vs usability in numbers, I decided to do my own search on Google’s Ngram Viewer and compared four words: innovation, creativity, management and leadership. Graph below or click through to page:
As you can see, in the last decade ‘management’ (green) is becoming less relevant in books. Incredibly so is ‘leadership’ (blue). What’s more interesting still now with hindsight is how from 1960 – 2000, mentions of management went to the stratosphere while leadership stayed more or less the same.
Why such discrepancy?
My take is that part of our education system (as well as workplace) is focused on creating managers. The whole industrial revolution was the major cause in this shift. My parents drilled this into my head also and I know a lot of my former classmates desired to become managers and still do. Managers are ‘the boss’ they say. That’s a flawed logic (fixed mindset) in the context of innovation because managers are like the nuts that keep the tires from spinning off the car while it’s moving, they keep the wheels moving. Steady as she goes. Whereas in the creative pursuit the tires will change a lot more than planned for. Hell, the nuts, bolts and structures will change too.
This is what’s taught in most schools: strive to become a manager because you’ll be the one to tell others what to do. Get an MBA from a reputable business school of mba in canada and be the boss.
I guess the economic reset put that notion into submission.
Have you ever counted how many leaders vs managers are in organizations? Lots. That needs to change to a healthy balance. My argument is not that management shouldn’t exist, it’s just how it’s perceived that is the problem. By creating more management (structure) we’re alienating others and our own freedom to create. We need more leaders not more managers.
Thoughts?
P.S. Just noticed that since I’ve been writing this blog I’ve never created a ‘management’ category for posts. Will keep it that way. That tells you something 
in Innovation
All of us know that if you we want to make sweeping changes, we need to innovate. If done incrementally (in small improvements), it won’t attract much attention. FedEx became a success story as they changed people’s expectations (absolutely, positively overnight) of delivery services, delivered on their promise and charged a premium for it. However, innovation projects are never “complete”.
Since then, FedEx has embarked on continuous improvement of their “absolutely, positively overnight” service. One such improvement is information sharing. Every shipper and receiver (or anyone with the tracking #) can find out exactly where the shipment is at a particular point in time. FedEx customers may not need all the information that they provide but making the information available will only enhance the credibility of the
company.
One more point to note is that radical innovations are risky, too. Not all of them will succeed. So, you should ensure that there is a “tolerance” for failure at your workplace. Second, you should be willing to emotionally detach from this failure and embark on the next innovation project. Whenever an capm test succeeds, the next immediate step would be to put that project on a “continuous improvement” roadmap. Because no project is really “complete”.
In summary take a look at all the projects that are taking place in your life and it’s easy to categorize each one of them under “Innovation” or “Continuous Improvement”. If there are no innovation projects, there is a serious problem. If there are past innovation projects that are not under a “Continuous improvement” plan, there is an issue too. The beauty is in balancing the Innovation and Continuous Improvement initiatives.
Thoughts?