Newsletter 21 Key Image

The Joy of Failing

by with No Comment Innovation News

This past week I’ve been pushing myself to new levels of failure. I’m not talking polite “excuse me” failures I’m talking about down right UGH that didn’t work. 
In some cases they were public failures  – messing up the cooking of a meal – making mistakes on some math – not saying the right things at the right time. In other cases they were private mistakes that I came to realize privately.
Years ago these types of failures would have infected my mind. I would have played the “could of, should of” game of mental torture with myself. I would have relived my failures over and over again. I would have spent most of the weekend dealing with my past week rather then living in the current moment.
Today – I make it a point to view failure in the framework of the Deming Plan, Do, Study, Act cycle of learning. I simply Study what I learned and take action. I don’t dwell on it – but rather see the failure as simply a cycle of learning.
When I see failure as learning I enjoy the failure. Often it ignites within me an energy to do another test cycle as fast as I can. Note – when I’m talking a learning cycle I’m talking about situations where I am failing in situations where I have systems in place that allow me to fail FAST and CHEAP. What I’m not talking about is epic, major failures with high cost. In my life I go to great lengths to avoid those kind of situations. I’ve learned that every HIGH COST risk can be broken down into a series of Fast & Cheap experiments that can drive down the overall risk.
I’ve gotten very good at letting go of failures. What I need to work on is doing the same Plan, Do, Study, Act cycle when things to right. When things work I need to stop and THINK harder about why they worked, what was the key to the success.
When I look at failure as a cycle of learning I generate joy from the failure instead of fear. Frankly, it’s the secret to my work over the past 40 years inventing ideas during Eureka! Inventing sessions for clients. I love creating bad ideas – as fast as possible. I know that the faster I create bad ideas the sooner I’m going to discover an amazing transformational WOW Idea.
Click HERE to learn more about the online personal workspace my team created to support systems for cycles of learning.

Pursuing Big Ideas

5 Reasons Organizations Don’t Pursue Big Ideas

by with No Comment Innovation News

Following the financial crises of 2008, organizations pulled back from

“thinking big” and embraced small, incremental ideas. The problem with this is these ideas still require investment of time, energy and money but with very little financial and emotional return. The result is a lot of “talk but no action” on the ideas.

To IGNITE Innovation we have to return to THINKING BIG!
In my new roll as Chief Inventor / Chairman of the Eureka! Ranch my focus is 100% on igniting fresh ideas, bold ideas, crazy ideas that stretch thinking. It’s not my job to be reasonable, prudent or politically correct :). As I’ve gotten into the new roll of being a pure idea catalyst – I’ve been having a ton fo fun. The new systems we have with spark decks, 6 types of stimulus mining, artificial intelligence “instant” concept feedback, etc. – make it easier then ever to THINK BIG.
As I’m having fun cranking ideas – I’ve had opportunities to talk with executives about what holds them back. Here are the five top reasons I’m hearing.
“Our Success Standards are just too LOW.” Our research on $17 Billion worth of innovations shows that successful companies success standards are much higher than unsuccessful companies. We are finding that most companies testing standards for “go” decisions on innovations were fine in the 80’s but today – with the more crowded marketplace – they are are 2 standard deviations too low. Quite simply – what was good enough yesterday is not today. We need to take all of our success standards up significantly if we are to win with innovation.
“We don’t trust our development system so we PLAY IT SAFE”  Most organizations only pursue ideas they already know how to execute. If an idea has serious technical, financial, manufacturing, sales or marketing challenges they “chicken out” and play it safe. They do this because they don’t believe their people, teams, company, system, bureaucracy can problem solve the challenges. What’s needed is INNOVATION ON THE INNOVATION SYSTEM. This means investing in education, tools and systems for innovating faster, smarter and more creatively. THINK – is your innovation system faster, more effective and successful than it was a year ago. If not what are you waiting for? I don’t care if you use our approach or another – it’s time to take action.
“The Aim of Our System is to CONTROL not ENABLE” Sadly, most innovation systems are designed to prevent failure as opposed to accelerate success. THINK – does your system enable employees during development to experiment, explore and discover ways to work smarter and create bigger and bolder ideas. OR, is it designed to prevent waste, mistakes and failure at all costs.
“We have no ability to Fail FAST and Fail CHEAP” In Development. When feedback loops during the development process are slow and expensive there will be NO BIG IDEAS. When it takes as one lady told me two months to test a new product formulation then employees will play it safe. Alternatively, when during development employees can prototype and test ideas fast and cheap they run bolder experiments – and in the process discover ways to upgrade your innovation making it bigger, bolder and more successful. It all starts with a mindset – is the aim of development to create bigger and more successful ideas or is the aim of development to simply find a way to get the idea as defined executed. 
“There is no Pride of Work”.  Today’s corporate structure has replaced pride of work with profit per case. Craftsmanship has been replaced with task completion. Personal passion with KPI bribery. What’s needed is a transformation from Command and Control to the US and Canadian MIlitary’s method of enabling front line troops called Commanders Intent. In this case – Leaders move from being dictatorial managers to inspirational leaders. Leadership sets the mission, explaining what and why (called a Blue Card in our language) then the front line folks turn the mission into reality (called a Yellow Card and PDSA cycles of learning).