First a story to set the mood. As a kid I lived near a farm a few miles from the University of Notre Dame. I could see the Golden Dome from our backyard. I spent hours playing hide and seek in the fields behind my home. Recently I went back to visit and ran across the farmer standing in the plowed but empty field behind my old home.
Chatting with him for a bit, I asked if he would be planting corn this year. "No", he said, "We had a drought a couple of years back and it wiped out the crop..." Ah, I said, soybeans then. "Nah, can't do those either. Did 'em last year and got hit with leaf blight. No. This year I'm gonna play it safe and not plant anything."
(I did mention that it was a short story right? No matter)
This is really no different than the company that fails to farm new ideas. Google, Amazon, Tesla - all these companies are large and still find a way to function like startups. They Innovate, they grow, they dominate. On the flip side, think of Western Union and the 'wiring money' commercials of the last century. There is absolutely no reason they shouldn't have invented the space that PayPal now dominates. They played it safe. The world passed them by.
So what is Innovation and why are so many leaders confused about it?
What most people THINK innovation is:
If we live in a world of Red and Blue colors, we see a spectrum of purples and violets. If we then invent Green, most folks will call that the innovation but won't understand the value. There's no profit or commercial benefit to Green.
What Innovation REALLY is:
Green isn't the innovation. The innovation is the blending of the invention with the existing world. In this case, the innovation is the explosion of new colors - browns, teals, oranges, et cetera that are possible with the new color. In other words, Innovation is about expanding your product range and even creating new product domains by blending something new with existing stuff. If you spend a little effort inventing Green, don't look for Green to pay for that development. Look to the spectrum of new synergies made possible by the invention.
Communication:
Innovators need to clarify with their management leaders the value of invention in terms of the Innovation potential. Most business leaders won't care about the invention. Honestly, most won't care about the Innovation potential either; but you still need to explain the value to them. They may not fully buy into what you are selling; but they'll listen to you if you can show them a way to minimize the risk and generate some revenue. They need proof of ROI at a rate that justifies the expense of the R&D effort. They are the farmer in the story above. Their fear is natural. They are responsible to the board and shareholders to be good stewards of the company's assets. It's easy to justify not risking seed on a field that has disappointed in the past. But short term thrift is long term madness. Better to go for a little madness up front. After all to borrow a line from a recent musical - "A little Madness is key to give us new colors to see!".
Sometimes, the factors arguing against innovation are just too strong. So you need to be smart and find a new path forward that includes the minimal necessary core invention required to demonstrate the Innovation potential in terms of a product that generates actual revenue. Make that your message. Bring your Innovation along for the ride. If you build a product and in the process create your Innovation, you can leverage that to make additional products. Reformulate your message and development path to minimize the Risk while still creating Value. Don't try to maximize the Value / Risk equation if it means taking on more risk than your boss can tolerate.
Good luck Mr. Edison!
(p.s. Thomas Edison famously claimed to have never failed... He just discovered thousands of ways that didn't work)
Originally published on LinkedIn.
