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De-risking Innovation the Smart Way
4 Jan
If there’s one thing guaranteed to lighten the pallor of an executive’s face, it’s the suggestion of taking more risk.
Need more breakthrough innovation? Sure. What’s the catch? The clue is in the adjective: breakthrough innovation requires a degree of breakage en-route. That means taking risks that don’t always pay off.
It stands to reason: in a turbulent, uncertain and complex economic climate there are few ‘knowns’. New product development in particular has become a voyage into the unknown with companies using intelligent trial and error techniques such as Lean Start Up.
But in most cases, the perceived negative implications of a risk-gone-wrong stifles the very innovation that organisations so desperately need.
That makes Doug Sundheim’s Taking Smart Risks: How Sharp Leaders Win When Stakes Are High a timely and welcome guide for organisations that want to do just what the title says.
Five steps to smarter risk-taking
Doug gave me a sneak preview of the book before Christmas and I found it to be a rare and accessible blend of research, insight, wisdom and practical tools that deserves a place in every executive briefcase.
Taking Smart Risks offers readers five smooth stones to slay the ‘fear-giants’ that crush smart risk-taking in their organisations:
1. Find Something Worth Fighting For
- Something Worth Fighting For (SWFF) is what all smart risks have in common.
- It must be simple, stir emotion, lend itself to a story or narrative and inspire action.
2. See the Future Now
- Ask questions, understand concerns, test the concept behind your ideas, and predict as many fail points in advance as you can.
- Have an open, honest conversation with trusted people around you to determine what is the worst that could really happen.
Doug Sundheim
3. Act Fast, Learn Fast
- Start before you know where to start, fail early, often, and smart – build learning into everything and stay humble.
- Accept that you have to live with failure – since it is an inevitable by-product of taking risks, even smart risks. Failing smart is the best way to learn.
4. Communicate Powerfully
- Expect communication to breakdown and plan accordingly.
- Share thought processes, meet regularly, and don’t avoid difficult conversations.
5. Create a Smart Risk Culture
- Define a smart failure – the acceptable boundaries within which it is okay to fail.
- Reward both the successes and these smart failures.
Every chapter ends with a clutch of useful tools to help readers de-risk risk-taking. If you’re short on time, just read the handy chapter summaries and start playing with the techniques that Sundheim suggests.
If you’re serious about innovation, growth or even plain survival, risk-taking is non-negotiable. Sundheim’s book doesn’t guarantee a failure-free future (what a relief as so much crucial learning happens when we fail!), but it will help leaders and managers in every organisation improve the quality of their risk taking.
The hardcover and Kindle versions of Taking Smart Risks: How Sharp Leaders Win When Stakes Are High are out now.
How to Build Innovation Super Teams
13 Jun
“How can we become more like Apple? Or Google?”
I get asked that question a lot. Five years of economic turmoil have created a huge appetite among CEOs for creativity and innovation.
Yet that appetite often comes with the indigestion of previous, failed attempts to increase innovation. Despite the thousands of how-to books and seminars, and armies of consultants, few organisations make the leap to innovation rock stardom.
So what are the secrets of the world’s greatest innovators? And why do I believe that the learning and development function holds the keys to innovation performance inside most organisations?
Read more in the latest issue of Training Journal…http://bit.ly/KTUGdb
The "random collision" theory of innovation
10 May
Leaders tend to surround themselves with people who are like them. Creating environments where "unusual suspects" can meet is the key to generating new business ideas.
FORTUNE -- Collaborators are everywhere. You will find them in the gray areas between silos. Just look up from your current business model. Seek out difference and gather often across boundaries, disciplines, and sectors. Be open and be curious.
When Steve Jobs designed the Pixar campus he insisted on forcing people to 'run into each other' - helping them to have what he thought would be 'the best meetings they would ever have.'
Every company should consider the ability of its environment to create moments of innovation serendipity...
VIDEO: What happened when Sony and Telefonica drank Innovation Juice…
4 May1 minute overview of a 48-hour innovation leadership programme: http://bit.ly/ILU5FY
Do you have the No.1 skillset that every CEO is looking for?
23 AprThe ability to spark, lead and embed innovation is the No.1 skill-set that CEOs want from senior managers, according to IBM’s 2010 Global CEO survey.
On 27th June 2012, DPA is hosting a unique leadership development experience designed to equip senior managers with the mindset, skills and tools needed to lead a culture of sustainable innovation.
Drawing on our experience of running similar programmes for companies including Sony, eBay and Telefonica, we’ve created a powerful blend of masterclasses and hands-on experience inside some of the world’s hottest start-up companies. What’s more, delegates walk away with an innovation leadership toolkit worth £10,000.
If you’re looking for a gear-shifting career experience with some powerful organisational outcomes, read on… http://bit.ly/IapaB1
The Best Business Books of 2011
22 Dec
OK, so you’ve missed Amazon’s last shipping date for Christmas but if you’re still looking for something to read on your Kindle, here’s some food for thought: http://bit.ly/tQNyMw
Happy Christmas!
