The Innovation Roadmap

Innovation, being one of the favourite company strategy, was further boosted by Gary Hammel in his book, Leading the Revolution.  Innovation today is a loaded word and it covers a wide scope, and I foresee that the way innovation is going to be implemented in companies will remain highly fluid for some time.  While some have taken on the path of least resistance, which may not be a bad idea if the culture is already there, like Apple and Google, the rest may be better off to begin with some form of structured approach.

Looking at the pace of innovation happening in the world of business – the iPhone, iPad, iPod, it seems to tells us through the success of Apple, that implementation of innovative strategy is obviously on the path of growth.

This is the 2nd Apple store in China. People lining up for their iPad2, as if there is insufficient in stock.

 

Innovation can be defined simply as the dynamic value-adding transformation of something brought about by creative and flexible thinking.  Thus creation is but one result of creative thinking, but innovation is about the real thing – the essence or the final useful result of creativity.

 

Innovation Equation (CYH)

Perhaps only artists, but surely not business owners would take creativity literally.  As companies spend resources to help their employees learn creative thinking, idea generation, the employee knows that there is no compromise.

For companies, creations will only be recognised if they can add value to the company concerned.  If Apple cannot sell the iPad3 (which is in the works now) then all we can say is that iPad3 is not an innovation.

 

Boston Consulting Group (2009)

Once upon a time, during the era of the Industrial Engineers, Therbligs monitoring was taken as the seed to productive excellence.  Industrial Engineers concerned themselves with the ability to ‘atomise’ the entire production processs.  Like maping out the human genome, Industrial Engineers assume that by studying each ‘atomic size activity’, they can devise little tweeting to make each of these more efficient and (presto!) the sum total will produce a super efficient production process.

As Industrial Engineering continue to grip the smoke stack industries of the 1960s, experts on optimisation became to be known as Operation Managers. They can tell you exactly how fast the total process could be carried out if they have a chance to study and dissect your process into atomic size activities.  If you know the atomic structure of Diamond, it is possible to recreate Diamond from Carbon (coal) indeed – artificial Diamonds.

This is when : “Doing the Thing Right – Doing it right the first time” became the priority

Quality Control comes centre stage.   Suboptimisation and consolidated optimisation became the focus.  Sleepless nights were spent to ensure that things are done according to procedures.  Even more sleepless nights were spent trying to explain why some wayward activity falls out of line.  Error should not be tolerated.  Data are facts, and conclusions from statistical data is pure, and graphs showed the ‘simple truth’.  Technically, how can statistics lie…Paterns that present itself using statistics predicts the likelihood of future occurances.

Of course, today, we know that such a rule will only hold true for steady state….In steady states …… EFFICIENCY  rules.

 

Then came the MBO (Management By Objective) - Peter Drucker asked the question that shifted the paradigm, “What is your Business all about?”

Are your people strategically align? Are your people efficiently following the rules, abiding, obeying and keeping in step with the goals of the organisation?  Do not go too fast, not too slow, not too fat, not too thin, JIT (Just In Time), JIL (Just In Line), Zero Defects,

Everything has a place and everything in its place!

Everythingy has a place and every thingy in its place.

Don’t everybody need to be doing the thing right?  Isn’t it crucial that everyone is doing the thing according to SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) because then we can be counted, our output can be counted.

Then something else happened.  In the Mid-1980s, those efficient factories in Singapore and Malaysia were losing out.  The problem with ’efficiency’ is that it is really something that can copied.  Efficiently producing a product depends on the ability to organise and produce deviations free items.

Something had changed in the 1980s.  Is efficiency a strategy that will give us the edge? Hardly enough.  One cannot, just, do the thing right, we also need to do the right thing.   Gurus of change theories like  Tom Peters, and Ross Kanter reinterpreted the needs of companies.  They make us realised that before being efficiency we must look at the effectiveness issue.

 

It pays to choose well before you start

“Are We Doing the Right Thing? <=> Are we in the right business?”

An even bolder step - forecasting, thinking in scenarios, and marketing, branding all became important activities to engage management before improving and finetuning the systems and operations.   At the top of the heap means being able to delight your customers, not just meeting customer requirements.  Going beyond is as important as filling the gap.  The turnpike concept: sometimes we have to build the turnpike before the traffic flow changes pattern.  The issue is really, where should the next turnpike be?

 

The move from a photocopier supplier to a document company, Fuji-Xerox, is a fine example to illustrate the power of this principle.  Statistical Control methodology cannot fulfil this new business requirement.  Standard training plans for staff development must include be part of the succession planning, and climate surveys must be done with change in mind, even the evaluation criteria of the QCC was changed in the early 1990s to incoporate more flexibility, and subsequently, the PDCA became not just a fixed 12-step methodolgy.

 

The corporate scene never stop changing (as if we need to be told!).  Change will happen and it must be managed – this we need to learn.  Managing yet facilitating change is the bellow of the 1990s.

 

Innovation – getting value out of change.

 

Although important to be efficient, it alone is not sufficient. Everyone need to support what the business goals meant, what direction we are going towards; and be ready for lane switches.

Although important to be in the right business and right direction, it alone is not enough for the future.  The future is dynamic.  It changes, even the banks are partly deregulated today, and will not be as solid as they once were.

Even a seemingly paralytic company like Apple in the 1980s can revive and be the best performing company.  Google rises to the top of the heap took less time than anyone can imagine, yet both these companies know their own vulnerbilities.  Efficiency, Effectiveness and Innovation are self-strengthening when taken together, yet they are team-destroying factors when taken alone, but when in harmony, they form the strongest triangle.  When many of these triangles are put together in 3D, the Diamond structure, is created – the strongest substance emerge.

To prevent the paradox of control and innovation, a simple structure for bringing employees into the fold of things is necessary.  First innovation should not narrowly focus on developing product enhancement and service refinement ideas. 

Rather everyone in the company should understand that they can be innovative in whatever they do.  This means that even management can also be innovative. 

It does not mean that only the PR departments needed to be able up with catchy slogans and beautiful expressions, a wonderful phrase can actually come from the shopfloor.  Our mission is: “To get them out of prisons” Changi Prison. 

Ideas can be gotten from many combination of resources, yet, it is not the end of the road; for the innovation requires the creation of additional value.

Is it possible that we can get into the knack of creativity!  Can creativity be an integral part of all the things we do?? How can we be habitually innovative?  If innovative ideas are the seeds from creative thinking, then what is the ‘flower bed’ for innovation grow? Real seeds need water or moisture (some a bit of fire to break their hard outer covering), so what about growing innovative ideas?