What is worse? Being rejected or being ignored?
While the pain from rejection can be severe, the closure that one gets from the rejection can allow people to move on to other things. When someone pours their heart and soul into an idea which they feel is great, then they hear nothing – nothing good or bad – then the lack of communication becomes one of the worst possible things you can do.
Futurists are usually right, at the wrong time. The thing about true innovation, is almost everything is an expansion on an older idea. It isn’t until time and technology converge at that perfect moment that great ideas are executed. Ideas tend to spark well before the execution due to lack or resources, namely practicality.
Imagine if I went to my economics teacher in 1987 and explained any one of these seemingly crazy ideas to them:
The teacher would ask me when I hit my head and how hard.
If you haven’t already put it together, the aforementioned ideas lead to Wikipedia, Google, and FedEx. They say hindsight is 20/20, so it’s easy to look back and marvel at the successes of innovative pioneers, but do you think these ideas were so critically acclaimed when pitched at their humble beginnings?
For some reason, many people feel that innovation is not innovation unless it’s some innovative technology which is included somewhere above – or is at least being mentioned as being innovative in the news: drones, internet of things, chatbots, sensors, robots, augmented reality, etc.
The Hope: Your leaders take whatever risks they need to in order to get the job done.
The Reality: Your leaders are risk averse, hoping that their less-than-bold moves trigger some kind of true change.
How many times have you heard, in the midst of a crisis, that “everything is on the table” when in reality, there are very few things on the table? Typically, in my experience, that phrase is only used instead of the blunter “Someone here is going to have to make a sacrifice, and just so you know, it won’t be me”.
What would you be willing to spend to unearth a billion-dollar idea from your organization? A hundred thousand? A million? Nothing?
Why are you looking at revenues at all?
Unless you have a true Silicon Valley mindset, that question is wrong in so many ways. I’ve posted before on how many executives feel that an idea is not innovative unless it makes a billion dollars (everyone loves a unicorn), so anything less than that is not worth working on.
Many in the press are thinking that this is a disruptive move. If you ask me, I’d say it’s more evolutionary than revolutionary.
A few years ago, I was doing some foresight consulting for a large brick-and-mortar retailer, who, at the time was (and probably still is) worried about Amazon. In fact, every brick-and-mortar retailer was and likely still is, worried about Amazon, although I doubt Whole Foods was one of those.
The term innovation has become almost meaningless. What does it really mean? What does it mean to your company? What does it mean to your customer? What does it mean to you?
If you ask me, there is one clear definition we should stick to when it comes to corporate innovation.
What’s your personal I.Q.?
I’m not talking about intelligence quotient. I’m talking about your innovation quotient.
Let’s call it an IN.Q. – pronounced “in-queue”
How innovative are you, personally?
Innovation is central to your company, but at the same time, innovation is dangerous.
Innovation can be a threat to a lot of people within your organization. The sole purpose of an innovation group within a larger company should be to disrupt the main business. To replace the main business. Its purpose should be a threat to the main business.