Changing the Sports Metaphors
Those players who best improvise are universally considered to be the most talented and exciting to watch. The same holds true in business.
Looking Down, Looking Up
The hard truth is—ahem—maybe your company isn’t getting enough good ideas because you’re not as good as you think you are at recognizing a good idea when you get one.
It’s About the Environment, Not the System
Tested systems work great when the technology is well established, when the market is stable, when the business environment doesn’t change. But for many businesses today none of those things are true. Technology is advancing. Markets fluctuate. Customer expectations are constantly evolving. In such a dynamic environment, a tested system may not only fail, it may even be counterproductive. The path to success in a fast changing environment is to become more flexible and adaptable, finding fresh insights and approaches, not clinging to what used to work.
Media-vation?
In your business, are you trusting people to make good independent decisions—and providing the requisite resources to support those decisions? Are you willing to loosen up on command and control in order to foster collaboration and flexibility? Do you encourage an ongoing dialogue over how to best achieve your objectives? The degree to which you do those things will to a great degree determine your ability to innovate.
Solution Selling
Here’s an interesting question: If your company is really responding to customer needs and not merely pushing product, what has changed upstream from your sales force to enable that to happen? If you’re not making substantive changes in your products or services, can you honestly say that you’re responding to your customers?
The Innovacians
As we go forward, we will increasingly view innovation as a set of behaviors...our ability to adapt, improvise and solve novel problems will increasingly define how effective we all are in all aspects of our lives.