THE IMPROVE SKILLS

SKILL ONE – Being able to analyse what has contributed to making something work or fail

Think of yourself looking into a mirror for a few seconds and seeing your face reflecting back, or gazing into a pool of water and seeing the scenery behind you shimmering on the surface edge. You are able to see things that maybe you had not noticed before. You gain a different perspective. Yet, many working cultures only reward activity and action. We are taught from a young age to be busy and productive, to move on to the next set of actions that need to be accomplished. We are not taught or encouraged to review our actions and, less so, our behaviour. Yet, in this reflection and review lies a wealth of wisdom and learning. To reflect is an activity in itself, even if it requires us to stop. This has to be actively pursued. It also requires a degree of maturity and honesty. If you are going to review, with the intention of learning, you have to be brutally honest with yourself and with others as to why something has worked or not. There also has to be responsibility and accountability rather than an excuse or blame culture. When we are trying to bring new ideas into the world, a lot of what we try may fail, or may not go as we originally planned, other times things may go a lot better than we could have anticipated or expected. We need to be able to learn from it all, whether we consider it a success or not.

SKILL TWO – Being able to analyse what has contributed to making something work or fail

Many of the tools and tips outlined in this book can be used at different phases of the innovation journey. This particular skill – being able to seek opportunities to improve on an idea with a variety of people, customers and stakeholders – can deploy approaches that we outlined in the investigate phase. The people that are engaging with your products and services are often the ones that can help you to improve what you are doing. They know if things work or not, as they are closer to the user experience. Gathering feedback is one thing, but companies that are doing this really well are deploying a range of activities to involve their customers in the improve phase of innovation and, in so doing, are starting to identify completely new opportunities for igniting new ideas. It is not just companies that create consumer products either, but business-to-business providers such as DHL, the world’s largest mail and logistics services company and DeWalt, a leading manufacturer of high-quality power tools, that actively engage their customers in product and service innovation. Over 6,000 customer engagements have been conducted with loyal DHL customers, resulting, according to Forbes, in customer satisfaction scores rising to over 80 per cent, on-time delivery performance increasing to 97 per cent and a decrease in customer churn. DeWalt has an award-winning insight community of more than 10,000 users where they gather customer product, packaging and marketing feedback. They also invite professional tradesmen and loyal customers to submit ideas for entirely new product lines.

SKILL THREE – Being able to scale an idea into other areas of opportunity

Back in 2004, a book was written called The Wisdom of the Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations by James Surowiecki. The main premise of the book is that the collective judgement of a group of people may be preferable to the view of a much smaller, albeit brighter, less diverse group of experts. This idea of collective intelligence – amidst the rise of user-generated media such as blogs, Wikipedia and YouTube – has spurred a plethora of business models that enable organisations to collaborate online. The traditional distinction between producers and consumers is being eroded, which is giving rise to new ways of engaging people in the innovation process.

One such practice is crowdsourcing – the ability to tap into the creative intelligence of customers or potential customers through online platforms. Crowdsourcing has additional benefits in addition to soliciting feedback for improvement; it can also improve productivity by minimising labour and research expenses, reducing the amount of time spent collecting data through formal focus groups or trend research. Crowdsourcing is also an excellent approach for gathering input into the development of new ideas for the ignite phase. For example, Netflix, the online video rental service, deploys crowdsourcing techniques to improve the software algorithms used to offer customer video recommendations. The team or individual that achieves key software goals receives $1 million. Procter & Gamble taps 90,000 chemists on Innocentive.com, a forum where scientists collaborate with companies to solve R&D problems in return for cash prizes.

SKILL FOUR – Being able to help others learn from things that didn’t work out

You may well hire or work with people that have a propensity to experiment and learn but, if the culture of your organisation or team does not support experimentation, even in a measured way, it really does not matter what attitude or mindset individual employees may well have. If culture is made up of the underlying attitudes and values intrinsic to how things get done, then creating a culture where people can learn from failure means we need to understand these underlying aspects that shape how an organisation thinks. No easy task. I often get asked how organisations can build a more innovative culture. It is a valid but difficult question to answer, as culture is something that is multi-faceted, involves history and legacy, and includes a set of deeply held beliefs. It is one thing to have a list of values that may incorporate the word innovation, on the wall or published in a corporate annual report. It is yet another to live and breathe innovation in daily activities – what I would call ‘day-to-day innovation’, challenging assumptions and doing things differently. So how can it be done? At the top, leaders have to ensure that innovation, the creation and implementation of new ideas, is intertwined and integrated into the very fabric of the company’s strategic direction and that the permission to fail is built into, even expected, when it comes to trying out new things. It is also reframing what we mean by failure, within the context of innovation. If people know that there is a process to innovation, a journey that an idea goes through, they will be more likely to know and understand that trying out new ideas involves experimentation.

SKILL FIVE – Being able to create a culture of continuous learning

Societies and economies are less and less dependent on the manufacturing of physical goods as intangible products and services take more and more of the share of global trade. This makes the creation and application of knowledge increasingly important, whether it can be codified or stored (explicit) or whether it is difficult to transfer to others by writing it down (tacit). The average amount of time someone stays within a job is reducing, particularly amongst younger people, and, when they walk out of the door – their knowledge, networks and other forms of social capital – walk out with them. We also do not know what we do not know. If you work in a large organisation, you do not know what is happening in another part of the company. With the rate and pace of change as it is, certain types of knowledge can become redundant quickly, outdated or of little use. This makes the active capture and sharing of learning all the more necessary, in the moment, particularly when you are trying to do something new.

The goal is to create a culture where an attitude of continuous improvement is the norm, throughout the whole of the innovation journey, not just at the end. What we need to nurture and develop, in ourselves and others, is the skill of learning and unlearning – of having an agile mind that is willing to shift direction when new understanding and knowledge becomes available.

SKILL SIX – Being able to share positive outcomes and lessons learnt

I often ask clients if they spend time celebrating or acknowledging successes and lessons they have learned. Many do not. Task-orientated and busy, they have moved on to the next project or initiative without looking back at what has been accomplished, whether good or bad. Yet, here lies a great opportunity for improvement, not just improvement of what has been done, but an opportunity for people to think consciously about what they have achieved and to celebrate it together. This is about culture building. It is about actively making the time to communicate with people and keep them involved and engaged. Acknowledging their contribution and the importance of their skills to making something work. This can help people see the journey that they have been on – what often started as an opportunity or a vague idea – into the creation of something that has tangible worth. Recognition. Valuing others. Praise. Gratefulness. Being thankful. Not really words we associate much with working life but, if we want to create a motivational climate where people are willing to invest their skills and talents, this type of recognition and communication can help to create the climate that can produce successful innovation outcomes.

TOOLS

Recognition and communication review

1. Recognise
   • What makes you/your team members feel recognised? (Praise, reward, etc.)
   • What could you do to improve your ability to communicate and engage with others to improve this sense of recognition?
   • Start to formally recognise people for their contribution to helping new ideas become reality.
2. Communicate
   • Start making communication and engagement part of the way that you formally and informally manage.
   • Thank people for their contribution.
   • Experiment with formal recognition incentives such as award ceremonies and innovation days – find out what works for you and the culture in which you work.
   • Reinforce a commitment to innovation in organisational or team communications:
     1. Company announcements
     2. Newsletters
     3. External communication with customers or clients
3. Measure
   • Measure your innovation effectiveness that is appropriate for your industry and size of organisation.
   • Actively communicate how you are going to track performance against innovation goals.