One of my previous bosses was nicknamed “Crazy Einstein”. With his head in the clouds, he always came up with ideas others would never even dream of. Nine times out of ten those ideas lead to nowhere, but that tenth idea proved itself extremely beneficial, lucrative – and genius. True, sometimes it took us a while to bring to real life but when we did – oh boy, were we praised and celebrated. We saved money, got ahead of the competitors, acquired new customers, and got tapped on the shoulders by the shareholders…
True, in the beginning, many of my bosses’ peers wrinkled their noses and told him:
“Oh come on, why would you want to change THAT? We’ve been doing this for a while, and it’s working, why change it now?”
But he didn’t give up, and persistently went after them over and over again, laying new benefits, and new features – till his peers didn’t give in, and agreed to support the execution of the idea.
My boss, “The Crazy Einstein” was a natural visionary, and despite working for the corporate, he also had what I call now a “start-up” personality. He saw things others didn’t, ahead of time. He was also realistic enough to give up ideas he knew the world wasn’t ready for, but he fought for that “tenth” idea he was sure about. He didn’t fit into the corporate – with all his ideas, impatience, and ideals, but the corporate wanted to keep him nonetheless. The people on the top knew that he was an innovator, and despite all opposition he encountered, they were determined to support his ideas – if they made even the slightest sense.
Innovation, in short, is everything that brings added value to the consumers.
We all know that in life, we either grow or we die. In a business world that equals to”
We either innovate or we will be replaced.
Everyone in the business world knows that innovation is crucial for companies’ survival in the market, yet, far too many companies struggle not only with finding innovative ideas but more importantly, bringing them to fruition. Sometimes, even with the best intentions, the ideas crash, or worse – when they are brought to the light, it’s too late, they are already outdated, and somebody else already implemented what we are only testing…
Why is so hard to innovate?
Low risk appetite
Things have been working certain way for long, customers are happy, employees are happy, why to change anything? My ex-boss, Crazy Einstein had to knock on every door ten, if not twenty times to convince his peers to give him a chance. Accept it, it’s a human nature, we don’t like changes, we like certainty. Innovation is about embracing the unknown and taking the risk.
It is taking too long
If you’re working in one of those big corporations with bureaucratic approval processes, it’s not unusual that it takes up to two years to materialize the idea you came up with. By the time you are able to implement your improvements, it’s not the innovation anymore, but rather catching up with the trends on the market.
You are not asking the right people
I worked for a few international corporations where managers used to ask their employees: “How can we innovate this for our customers?” only to get blank stares back – or even worse, some far-fetched suggestions. Mostly, because those people were engineers or developers working at the back-office, who didn’t have a slightest clue about what the customers would want, plus they didn’t have the single innovative bone in their body. They could easily develop, program, manufacture what you asked them, but they were not the front-end workers, and they were innovative.
The company’s culture is not supporting the new ideas
Once, I witnessed a big CEO encouraging his employees (during the all-staff meeting) to present the new ideas and suggestions for how “How to get the new ideas and suggestions.” One of my then-colleagues stood up, and suggested that the company should encourage the staff to come up with the new ideas, provide some generic email address for that, and maybe reward those whose ideas would be brought to fruition. The CEO slashed him on the spot. It was embarrassing to watch. How did this guy dare to suggest that the employees should be rewarded for bringing the new ideas? They should do it as a part of their job! Yes, this is an exaggerated example (that really happened by the way), but unfortunately it is happening far too often. On one hand, the company management asking for the new ideas, on the other hand slashing them down immediately the moment they collide with their (personal) opinions.
You are afraid to fail
You flirt with an idea of this new functionality, of this new product… But what if the customers won’t like it? What if you lose the money and time, and nothing will come out of it? Here is the thing – behind every successful inventions lies at least a few dozens if not a few hundred failed attempts to get it correctly. You know that Edison failed 10.000 times throughout his life as an inventor?
You don’t know your customers
Do you know what your customers want? Are you listening to them? How easy are you making it for them to get to you? I know a company that was vigorously innovating one particular functionality of their product for about two years. When they got the sample of potential customers to test the beta version, they displayed no interest toward the functionality the company was trying to bring to the world. The product owner dismissed them, and asked for the another sample group that would be “the right demographic.” Only that it was the right demographic. Not knowing your customers can lead to very costly mistakes.
You are unwilling to let go…
You know what your customers want. You are so fixated on the new improvement, new functionality that you can’t hear that the world is not interested in it. You dismiss the beta testers who ignore your new functionality because you’re absolutely certain that this is what customers want. A mistake many make – they innovate the wrong thing. Do you remember my ex-boss from the beginning of this article and his nine out of ten ideas that had to be parked? That’s normal with innovations. Approximately 70% of innovative ideas will never happen (or will happen later) because the customers are not interested, or maybe the world is not ready for it.
You are asking the wrong question
“Let’s thing outside of the box.” I seriously, seriously hate this sentence. Mainly because it is vague and says absolutely nothing about what we’re trying to resolve, but also, whenever someone asked me to think outside of the box, I felt like being trapped in that box. This is just an example of many cliches that companies love to use, and are not working. It is scientifically proven that vague questions like the one above, brings vague answers.
You don’t have any Crazy Einstein in your team
Let’s face it, not everyone is innovative. There are people who – just like my ex-boss – live in the clouds, and have no practical bone in their body. Then, there are those who are practical, and grounded. And also, there are those who must “do the work” of bringing the geniuses’ ideas to the world. Everyone has its strengths and weaknesses, and the role of a good leaders is to utilize those. But if nobody in your team is disrupting the current status-quo, and asking “Why?”, then chances are you are lacking Crazy Einsteins, and without them – innovation is virtually impossible.
This was my personal list of why innovation can go wrong – based on on experiences working with the startups, but also international corporates. You might have different list based on your experiences – and if that is so, I would like if you can share it with me.
Meanwhile, stay tuned, and don’t forget to subscribe to getting the Newsletter where we always share our observations, facts, and experience that might help you to avoid certain mistakes, and grow faster. And the next topic? How to avoid those mistakes about innovation we just mentioned. Stay tuned.