You get what you measure, so make sure you’re tracking the right things. I’ve seen a lot of organizations create strategies, programs, and projects focused on optimizing operations, streamlining processes, and driving innovation. Leadership teams put lots of energy coming up with the next big thing. But amazingly few teams think about how they’ll measure…
In 1998, Chuck Templeton started a company called EasyEats.com. I went to high school with Chuck. We discussed the business plan which included providing recipes, food critic review, and much more. He eventually honed the scope and changed the name to OpenTable. As you probably know, the company would become an icon for what it…
Harvard Research Suggests Pessimism Is Bad for Business. Replace pessimism with “calculated optimism” for better decision-making. Research from Harvard University looked at whether people were afraid of various situations or objects, such as being stuck in enclosed places or coming face-to-face with snakes. These same individuals were asked to estimate the number of fatalities each year…
‘Unconscious thinking’ helps you analyze data so you make the best decisions. I get asked a lot about how much to rely on data versus gut instinct when innovating the next big thing. I wrote about this extensively in my book Leapfrogging. The answer may surprise you. Disruptive Innovators Use Their Gut Apple never did…
Successful strategy and innovation are about how fast you can become aware of your assumptions. When it comes to strategy and innovation, success depends on how fast you become aware of your assumptions and then modify them. But it’s a paradox: You can’t see your most fundamental assumptions until you overcome them. This means that you…
Here’s how Amazon defines the ideal customer experience and then works backward to create it. Everyone wants to uncover the secret to the perfect business model that will unlock their true potential. The best business strategies focus on meeting and exceeding customer needs and expectations. This means envisioning customer problems as well as ideal…
As the co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman once said that trying to innovate and scale a business quickly requires you to “throw yourself off a cliff and assemble your airplane on the way down.” Sounds risky. It doesn’t have to be. For most new upstarts — be it a startup or corporate venture — finding…
Companies don’t fail at innovation due to lack of ideas. They often don’t create the right innovation structure to implement their opportunities. Most organizations struggle with innovation. That’s because they try to apply processes and structures that don’t fit their business strategies and cultures. They partner with Silicon Valley startups who have breakthrough technology when…
Most brainstorms fall far short of breakthroughs. Painstorming provides the focus and insight to leapfrog to the next big thing. Brainstorming is today’s no-brainer. Most leaders and organizations preach it and teach it. It’s about generating lots of ideas, deferring judgment and then – for savvy innovators – using some type of meaningful criteria to…
Strategic plans become outdated the moment they’re created. Instead, create a one-page strategy map. Stop trying to disrupt. Start changing the world. In the late 1990’s when I was running the strategy consulting group at HP, we invited Clayton Christensen, the iconic Harvard professor who wrote The Innovator’s Dilemma and popularized the term “disruptive innovation,”…