Monthly Archives: March 2011
Leadership is the Key to Innovation by Roy Luebke Innovation exists on a spectrum from incremental to transformational. Ultimately it is the CEO who must decide where the organization is going to focus its efforts along this spectrum. A recent article in the journal Academy of Management Perspectives titled, “Leadership and Neuroscience: Can We Revolutionize the Way That Inspirational Leaders Are Identified and Developed?” discussed research into different leadership types. This literature provides insight into senior leadership traits that are necessary to inspire the people in a business and support a creativity and growth-oriented culture, key ingredients for expanding a firm’s innovation capabilities. Businesses are organized to operate, not to create. Most of the people inside a business are employed to make the organization operate as efficiently as possible. A small number of people are selected to lead the people who are operators. An even smaller …
I spoke with innovation people from a big automotive manufacturer last week. We talked about the automotive industry and open innovation. They said that there is already lots of collaboration going on in their industry and that it resembles open innovation in same ways. It was interesting to hear their views and having some understanding of their industry, I agreed with them. However, I also asked why we do not really hear about automotive companies in the open innovation community. Perhaps they are not really doing open innovation? Could it be more about alliance management and open source than open innovation? Or is it just an industry that does not want to share their open innovation insights and experiences? It is most likely the latter. I think this is a good example of what is going on in several industries. Many companies already have some experience that looks like open … Continue reading
Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan are the authors of one of the best books on execution written over the past twenty-five years – Execution, The discipline of getting things done. One of the major takeaways of the book is that while tactics are central to execution, execution is not tactics – it much more strategic. The authors describe execution as a discipline (hence the title) that is integral to strategy. “People think of execution as the tactical side of business. That’s the first big mistake. Tactics are central to execution, but execution is not tactics. Execution is fundamental to strategy and has to shape it. No worthwhile strategy can be planned without taking into account the organization’s ability to execute it. If you’re talking about the smaller specifics of getting things done, call the process implementation, or sweating the details, or whatever you want to. But don’t confuse execution with … Continue reading
It struck me recently that a lot of firms treat their customers as nameless, faceless objects all of whom share the same needs and have the same reactions to products. Of course marketing has taught us over the years to segment our markets and attack the needs of the customers within specific segments. If the segmentation is done well, segments should be relatively distinct from one another, with homogeneous needs within the segment and heterogeneous needs across segments. This neglects one really interesting aspect of life that innovation often solves: innovation around “moments” or “movements”. We as innovators spend far too much time trying to disrupt markets when we should find solutions for the frequently occurring disruptions that happen in a customer’s life. We assume that everyone in a segment has relatively the same expectations and needs, so therefore a product or service that addresses some …
Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) provide a shoddy foundation for an effective innovation strategy. Blogger Jeffrey Phillips, in a recent post, argues that FUD-based marketing campaigns value “what’s known and experienced … in a decision process [more] than what’s new or unknown. [FUD marketing] argues that consistency in decision making and loyalty to the status quo are more valuable and more defensible than change.” Here’s an example of marketing based on fear, uncertainty and doubt: FUD-utilizing company X says “if you buy competitor’s , though you will pay less for their product at first, you will pay far more down the road in support fees, poor product security and poor compatibility with existing industry standards.” FUD is a great technique for incumbent companies that have a strong incentive to want things to stay the same. However, a company too fluent in FUD marketing puts …
In previous posts I’ve highlighted key reasons why mergers are often ill-advised. Now comes news that last year’s much talked-about marriage of Kraft and Cadbury is turning out to be less fulfilling than expected. When the merger was announced 14 months ago, I wrote a post entitled Will Cadbury give Kraft indigestion? Among other things, I said, “Most mergers do make sense on paper, yet many become spectacular failures. The reason? A lack of appreciation for just how difficult it is to integrate not only global operations, but two proud and independent workforces…I don’t know how anybody could forecast the costs associated with the fear, resentment and internal jockeying with which Kraft and Cadbury managers and employees are now having to deal. The fact that Britons consider Cadbury a national treasure that has been overrun by ugly Americans sure won’t help.” I wish I could claim prescience on that one, … Continue reading
