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 Adapted
from THE TRUTH ABOUT BEING A LEADER...AND NOTHING BUT THE
TRUTH
published on Strategy and Business
A century ago,
Thomas Edison thought deeply about what drives invention or,
as we call it today, innovation. One of his famous sayings,
“Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent
perspiration,” stresses that innovation involves more than
just great ideas. Edison knew from his own experience that
the systematic hard work of trial-and-error experimentation
paid off. His inventions, like the lightbulb and the
phonograph, emerged through thousands of attempts as he
refined the process step by step.
Like Edison, leaders need to build innovation systematically
into their leadership
http://www.strategy-business.com/article/04205?gko=d0ac6-1876-3409598
style in order to foster it in their organizations. As with
many apparently spontaneous workplace triumphs, good
innovation is the result of well-planned project management,
or, more specifically, “process management.” It’s not always
clear where the process will end up, so it’s best to lead
from behind, giving the team frequent feedback and building
in feedback loops, encouraging them to stay positive and
keep moving, and testing and refining their ideas as they
gradually develop an outcome.
Modifying Leadership Style
Nico, the marketing leader at an international food company
and a natural innovator himself, found engendering
innovation in others more difficult. A forthright character
who could smell consumer trends, he found it natural to
critique his team’s dead-end ideas and praise their good
ones. But the more he pushed his staff for new ideas and
products, the less they produced and the less happy he was
with the quality of their work. Nico gradually learned that
his swings between great enthusiasm and great negativity
weren’t working.
Nico realized that the creative freedom and fast prototyping
he delighted in could be daunting, even paralyzing, to
others who didn’t think or work like he did. Now when a team
member presents an idea he likes, he restrains his impulse
to say, “Great, let’s launch that right away.” He has
learned that although he had believed this to be
encouraging, his team felt pressured to finalize their
projects too quickly, before they had finished “perspiring”
over them.
A more structured approach
http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/06405?gko=c3340-1876-20606671
to developing creative thinking works better for Nico’s
team. In advance of a new project, he now sits down with
them and thinks through the aims of the project, as well as
the challenges or problems that might be encountered along
the way. By adjusting his leadership style to keep the
excitement up but the anxiety down, he has helped his team
to stay grounded. He meets with team members personally on a
regular basis to gently encourage their best ideas.
Connecting with Consumers in a New Way
Once Nico started to modify his leadership style, he
realized that an important part of the “perspiration
process” for his team is staying up-to-date with consumers.
In keeping with the new, more structured approach, they now
spend a portion of each day trend-spotting, using the
Internet to keep tabs on new ideas in the marketplace and
looking for ways to adapt novel concepts. They turned to
such sites as OpenAd.net, Ziki, Sense Worldwide, and Brand
Republic to spot trends, buy ideas, elicit pitches, and
more.
Combing these Web sites led Nico’s team to the Oishi Group
in Bangkok
http://www.oishigroup.com/profile_en.html , a model of
innovation through hard work and close contact with
customers
http://www.strategy-business.com/press/sbkw2/sbkwarticle/sbkw050112?pg=0
. Oishi was founded by an entrepreneur who paid attention to
consumers’ need for affordable, tasty food in locations such
as department stores and shopping malls. Tan Passakornnatee
started a Japanese buffet system in which customers had to
pay a surcharge for uneaten food left on their plates (the
source of wastage in buffets) or for spending more than an
hour and 45 minutes at the buffet.
But the aspect of Oishi that caught the attention of Nico’s
staff was its customer-centric strategy. The company’s
executives and staff are directed to pay attention to
customer conversations, as well as requests, commentary, and
suggestions. They also conduct internal studies and visits
by mystery shoppers. Such perspiring led Oishi to boost its
revenue by offering customers a greater variety of options
at its buffets and to successfully market the restaurant’s
green tea for home use. Nico’s team, in turn, drew valuable
insights from Oishi’s success. They hung out at Oishi
buffets, observed beverage choices, and listened to what
customers had to say about their drinks. Based on what they
heard and saw, Nico’s team decided to reposition a line of
sports drinks to focus on its health benefits — with
excellent results.
For the Oishi Group and for Nico’s team, who learned from
Oishi’s example, innovation came through careful and
systematic observation of customer needs and reactions. It
came through trial and error and through a willingness to
thoroughly explore a wide variety of possibilities. In
short, it came through a lot of perspiration that ultimately
made inspiration “no sweat.”
Resources
“How Companies Turn Customers’ Big Ideas into Innovations,”
strategy+business/Knowledge@Wharton, January 12, 2005: The
most effective product development and commercialization
processes encourage dynamic communication and idea sharing
among engineers, marketers, and customers. Click here.
http://www.strategy-business.com/press/sbkw2/sbkwarticle/sbkw050112?pg=0.
Barry Jaruzelski, Kevin Dehoff, and Rakesh Bordia, “Smart
Spenders: The Global Innovation 1000,” s+b, Winter 2006:
Booz Allen Hamilton’s annual study of the world’s 1,000
largest corporate R&D budgets uncovers a small group of
high-leverage innovators who outperform their industries.
Click here.
http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/06405?gko=c3340-1876-20606671
Alexander Kandybin and Martin Kihn, “The Innovator’s
Prescription: Raising Your Return on Innovation Investment,”
s+b, Summer 2004: Each company has an intrinsic innovation
effectiveness curve. Here are three ways to lift it. Click
here.
http://www.strategy-business.com/article/04205?gko=d0ac6-1876-3409598
The Oishi Group Web site: Innovative operator of Japanese
buffet restaurants. Click here.
http://www.oishigroup.com/profile_en.html
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