innovation
Are you Visionary or Insightful?
Having great ideas that go misunderstood or unvalidated is pointless, just as being great at “filling in the gaps” does little if what you are building achieves little toward your needs and goals. This post is about Dreaming Big and turning those dreams into actionable plans.
Let me preface this post by stating that both are important and complementary roles. But if you don’t recognize the difference between the two, it becomes much more challenging to execute and realize value/gain a competitive advantage.
The Visionary has great ideas but doesn’t always create plans or follow through on developing the idea. There are many reasons why this happens (distractions, new interests, frustration, lack of time), so it is good to be aware of that, as this type of person can benefit by being paired with people willing and able to understand a new idea or approach, and then take the next steps to flesh out a high-level plan to present that idea and potential benefits to key stakeholders. People may view them as aloof or unfocused.
The Insightful sees the potential in an idea, helps others understand the benefits and gain their support, and often creates and executes a plan to prototype and validate the idea – killing it off early if the anticipated goals are unachievable. They document these experiences, learn from them, and become increasingly proficient at validating the idea or approach and quantifying the potential benefits. They are usually very pragmatic.
Neither of these types of people is affected by loss aversion bias.
I find it amazing how often you hear someone referred to as a visionary, only to see that person could eliminate some of the noise and “see further down the road” than most people. While this skill is valuable, it is more akin to analytics and science than art. Insight usually comes from focus, understanding, intelligence, and being open-minded. Those qualities matter in both business and personal settings.
On the other hand, someone truly visionary looks beyond what is already illuminated and can, therefore, be detected or analyzed. It’s like a game of chess, where the visionary person thinks six or seven moves ahead. They connect the dots across various future possibilities while their competitor is still thinking about their next move.
Interestingly, this can be frustrating for everyone.
- The Visionary with an excellent idea may become frustrated because they feel an unmet need for understanding.
- The people around that visionary person become frustrated, wondering why that person can’t focus on what is important or why they fail to see/understand the big picture.
- Others view the visionary ideas and suggestions as tangential or irrelevant. It is only over time that the others understand what the visionary was trying to show them – often after a competitor has already begun implementing a similar idea.
- The Insightful, wanting to make a difference, can feel constrained in static environments, which offer little opportunity for change and improvement.
Both Insightful and Visionary people view themselves as strategic. Both believe they are doing the right thing. Both have similar goals. What’s truly ironic is that they may view each other as competitors rather than seeing the potential for collaboration.
A strong management team can boost creativity by fostering a culture of innovation and bringing these people together to work toward a common goal. Providing little time and resources to explore an idea can lead to remarkable outcomes. When I had my consulting company, I sometimes joked, “What would Google do?” to describe how amazing things were possible and waiting to be done.
The insightful person may see a payoff from their ideas sooner than the visionary person, because they focus on what is already in front of them. It may be a year or more before what the visionary person has described shifts to the mainstream and into the realm of insight – hopefully before it reaches the realm of common sense (or worse yet, is entirely passed by).
I recommend that people create a system to gather ideas, along with a description of the purpose, goals, and advantages of those ideas. Foster creativity and innovation by rewarding people for participation, regardless of what becomes of the idea. Review those ideas regularly and document your commentary. You will find good ideas with luck – some insightful and possibly even visionary.
Look for commonalities and trends to identify the people who can cut through the noise or see beyond the periphery and the areas having the greatest innovation potential. This approach will help drive your business to the next level.
You never know where the next good idea will come from. Efforts like these provide growth opportunities for people, products, and profits.
Failing Productively
As an entrepreneur, you will typically get advice like, “Fail fast and fail often.” I always found this somewhat amusing, similar to the saying, “It takes money to make money” (a lot of bad investments are made using that philosophy). Living this yourself is an amazing experience – especially when things turn out well. But as I have written about before, you learn as much from the good experiences as you do from the bad ones.
Innovating is tough. You need people who always think of different and better ways of doing things or question why something has to be done or made a certain way. It means shifting away from the “how” and “why” and focusing on the “what” (outcomes). It takes confidence to ask questions that many would view as stupid (“Why would you do that? It’s always been done this way.”) But when you have the right mix of people and culture, amazing things can and do happen, and it feels great.
Innovating takes a willingness to lose time and money, hoping to win something big enough later to make it all worthwhile. This is where many companies fall short because they lack the patience, budget, or appetite to fail. I believe this is why innovation often comes from small companies and small teams. For them, the prospect of doing something cool or making a big impact is motivation enough to try something, and the barriers to getting started are often much lower.
It also takes a lot of discipline to follow a plan when a project appears to be failing, but it takes even more discipline to kill a project that has demonstrated real potential but isn’t meeting expectations. That was one of my first and probably most important lessons learned in this area. Let me explain…
In 2000, we looked at franchising our “Consulting System” – processes, procedures, tools, metrics, etc., developed and proven in my business. We believed this approach could help average consultants deliver above-average work products in less time. The idea seemed to have real potential.
Finding an attorney who would even consider this idea took a lot of work. Most believed it would be impossible to proceduralize a somewhat ambiguous task like solving a business or technical problem. We finally found an attorney who, after a 2-hour no-cost interview, agreed to work with us. When asked about his approach, he replied, “I did not want to waste my [his] time or our money on a fool’s errand.”
We estimated it would take 12 months and cost approximately $100,000 to fully develop our consulting system. We met with potential prospects to validate the idea (it would have been illegal to pre-sell the system) and then got to work. Twelve months turned into 18, and the original $100K budget increased nearly 50%. All indications were positive, and we felt very good about the success and business potential of this effort.
Then, the terror attacks occurred on Sept. 11th, and businesses everywhere saw a decline. In early 2002, we reevaluated the project and felt that it could be completed within the next 6-8 months and would cost another $50K+. Our confidence was high.
After a long and emotional debate, we decided to kill the project – not because we felt it would not work, but because there was less of a target market, and now the payback period (time to value) would double or triple. This was one of the most difficult business decisions that I ever made.
A big lesson learned from this experience was that our approach needed to be more analytical.
- From that point forward, we created a budget for “time off” (we bought our own time, rather than waiting for bench time) and other project-related items.
- We developed a simple system to collect and track ideas and feedback. When an idea felt right, we took the next steps and created a plan with a defined budget, milestones, and timeline. If the project failed to meet any defined objectives, it would be killed – No questions asked.
- We documented what we did, why we did it, our goals, and expected outcomes and timelines. Regardless of success or failure, we would conduct postmortem reviews to learn and document as much as possible from every effort and investment.
We still had failures, but with each one, we took less time and spent less money. More importantly, we learned how to do this better, which enhanced our resilience and helped us realize several successes. It gave us both the structure and the freedom to create amazing things. Since failure was an acceptable outcome, we never feared it.
This approach was more than just “failing fast and failing often”; it was “intelligent failure,” and it served us well for nearly a decade.
Things that make you go hmmm
This week I read a story about Astronomers finding a new, free-floating planet (PSO J318.5-22). What I loved about this story is that the planet defies the definition of a planet, as it does not orbit a star. It’s something that shouldn’t exist, or at least something that exists outside the current astronomical framework.
It’s funny how you grow up being taught what is right and how things should work. While knowledge and understanding are good, they can also be limiting. When you just know something should not work, it becomes easy to accept that and move on. It can be a real innovation killer.
Occasionally, something new, different, and sometimes even inconsequential comes around and makes a big difference. Think about Apple’s iTunes. It was created merely as a means to sell iPods. Critics said it would never work. But, it created a paradigm shift in how people consumed and purchased music and video content. Now it is one of the fastest growing businesses within Apple.
Or, think about Twitter. An idea for a microblogging service to send text messages to a group of friends. Now news is reported via tweets, and social media of all types use hashtags to create communities and generate buzz. Something that should have been almost nothing has become powerful and important.
People who know me or have worked for me have often heard this saying: “Don’t give me the 10 reasons why something won’t work; Instead, find the one or two ways that it might work, and let’s go from there.” This statement sets a simple yet very important expectation.
Most people spend a lot of time and effort finding ways to prove that things will or should fail. I find that very frustrating. But, get the right people with the right mindset, and you can do some pretty amazing things. And, like Post It® notes, you might create something really cool that was completely unexpected. But you will never know if you don’t even get started.
So, actively look for examples of products or services that broke the rules. Try to understand the genesis of those ideas. And, the next time you think that something is impossible, remember PSO J318.5-22
Teaching & Learning in a Business Environment
In the past, I had occasion to teach technical courses, often to groups of 20 or more people. It was always interesting. There were one or two people trying to prove how much smarter / better than you they were. There were one or two people who were there just so they didn’t have to work. But most of the people were there to learn. You figured out who was who pretty quickly. Even so, falling into the trap of labeling them and then only focusing on a subset can be problematic.
My teaching approach was to ask people about real issues (current or past) and use them as case studies for the class. This made the lessons more tangible for everyone. People were forced to develop an understanding of the problem with incomplete knowledge, ask clarifying questions, and then offer suggestions that may or may not work.
Sometimes someone would suggest a solution that just seemed completely off the wall. You wanted to understand their line of thinking to show them a better way. Occasionally you would find that their unorthodox approach was brilliantly simple and/or highly effective – and very different from what you expected.
Every time I taught a course, I would learn something. Different perspectives lead to a different understanding of the problems at hand, which can lead to creative and innovative solutions. The best ideas sometimes come from the places where you least expect them.
Even with the most seasoned teams, there are opportunities for teaching and learning. You may hear questions or statements that initially lead you to believe someone doesn’t understand the problem or goal. It becomes easy to dismiss when you don’t feel they are adding value.
But, if you take the extra effort to drill into their thinking, you could be very surprised. If nothing else, your team should feel more motivated and empowered with the process, leading to them taking ownership of the problem and finding a solution. Results improve when everyone is focused on a common goal and feels their contributions matter.
Everyone wins as long as you give them the chance.
Why I Love Technology
Technology was not native to me, at least relative to children and young adults today. Simple four-function calculators started becoming popular when I was in Elementary School. I only had a single computer course in High School (it was the only one offered). We had a Timex Sinclair and, later, a Commodore 64 computer at home. It was fun, but I wasn’t hooked yet.
I started a car and motorcycle parts business when I was 18. Initially, I was looking for a way to get cheaper parts for myself and thought if I could make money doing it, then all the better. Nearly everything I did was manual. Then I learned about a Radio Shack TRS-80 at college that had a word processing program. I used that to create mailings to parts companies, distributors, and potential customers. Before long, I had a catalog of products I could sell and a small but loyal customer base buying products and services from me. If Quickbooks had been available back then, I may have kept the business running. Doing everything manually just took too much time. Even so, this was my first technology win, and I liked it.
A few years later, I was programming at a local marketing company. The MIS Director (what IT used to be called) purchased a new relational database product with a 4GL application language. This was in 1987, and this technology was very new. The product was sold as saving “75% of your development time and effort.” Most seasoned people in the group did not want to risk their reputations on something that might not work.
I was new and had nothing to lose, so for the next month, I read every manual cover-to-cover. Before long, I worked on new applications and soon became the in-house RDBMS/4GL expert. This led to a fast track of promotions and being selected to develop the majority of new custom applications sold by our company. It was not easy, but it was fun and good for my career.
My first and arguably most influential mentor was my manager at this job (Jim). He taught me how to design parameter-driven systems that were flexible and extensible. He also taught me that “good enough usually isn’t good enough.” Most people are lucky to have one really good mentor during their career. I’ve been blessed with four of them at different stages of my career. It has motivated me to return the favor and help others whenever possible. This job helped me grow in so many ways.
A few years later, I worked at a software company creating a new standard product on this database platform. Nobody was trained on the product, and most wrote their embedded C/SQL programs like any other 3GL program (i.e., non-transactionally). I pointed out to the VP of Development that this would be a problem. He didn’t want to hear that. I pushed for a concurrency test, and everything locked up. Many people were suddenly upset with me, but the longer you wait to solve problems like these, the more expensive it becomes.
We spent the next two months creating functions to manage transactions, optimizing everything (even table structures to get the best byte alignment), and making this new packaged system work. The VP now liked and respected me, which changed our working dynamics. That shifted the focus from people and personalities to technologies and results.
We also worked on other aspects of the system to enhance performance. We created a system much like Memcached in Perl (back in 1990) that allowed us to handle the workflow of even the fastest warehouses in near real-time. We did many leading-edge things at the time (HA clusters with automatic failover, automated restart of remote devices to resume work in progress to the point of failure, outsourcing to India using an X.400 connection that I configured, distributed systems, client/server systems, etc.) I learned a lot from that experience and was proud of the results.
Later, I worked for that database company (Ingres). This was in the heyday of consulting, where projects were huge, and rates were high. My first project (started on my second day on the job) was to redesign a Risk Management System at an insurance company that had started using our products. I soon found that the project had been in progress for two years and had binders full of specifications, but nothing was actionable. I did not make many friends those first two weeks, as I pointed these things out.
I offered to facilitate a JAD (joint application design) session with multiple lines of business. This pointed out issues that even they were unaware of and allowed us to begin designing a flexible system that would accommodate all lines of business. We used an agile approach to prototype the new system, demonstrations to get buy-in, and moved the project forward quickly. Six months later, the first part of that functionality went live. The system was fully functional within a year!
I had the opportunity to work on some of the largest databases at the time (roughly 300 GB total, which is small by today’s measures), work on leading-edge technology (Clustering, VLDB, and Enterprise Unix systems), and really become a true Consultant along the way (with the help of another mentor – Bill). I was sent to several Unix Internals courses and then worked with our Engineering team to improve our products and create configurations supporting other large companies with similar problems.
A few years later, I worked at a small start-up company that created the world’s first commercial JDBC driver. I have worked with many very smart people before, but now I worked with a couple of very brilliant people. My main contribution this time was on the business side, but we learned a lot from each other as we grew the business to over $1M in sales within the first year.
One thing that sticks with me is that I became interested in VRML (virtual reality modeling language) during this time. I had an idea (1997) that we could create a website to show the insides of buildings, productize them, and sell them to real estate companies and larger apartment complex owners. My idea was not well received by the team, but a few years later, systems like this were being developed, and a few people were making a lot of money. That taught me to have more faith in ideas based on new technology, regardless of what others thought. It also brought me back to an important concept in business and consulting: being able to communicate ideas and benefits in ways that are easy for everyone to understand, rather than focusing on the technology itself.
Over the years, these lessons learned have helped with BI (business intelligence) – building dashboards using relevant KPIs tailored to the specific audience, mobile computing, cloud computing, IoT, and big data. Most people think these things are “not important until they become important,” often 6 – 12 months (or more) later. From my perspective, the real trick isn’t in trying to understand the next big thing, but in considering better, easier, and more efficient ways of doing the things you do today.
This is why I love technology. It has helped me accomplish many things that have had a tangible impact on the businesses I have worked for and consulted with. It has taught me to think about problems and ideas from various perspectives and to leverage lessons learned in one area to help solve problems in another (i.e., transfer knowledge and skills from one area to another). Technology has provided me opportunities to learn about and work on solving business and technical problems in several industries as I ponder, “Why not?” It has been a wonderful journey.
My interest in technology has allowed me to meet and work with many interesting and incredible people throughout my career in many industries and settings. That’s much more than I ever expected when I took my first programming course so long ago, and it has become a significant aspect of almost everything I do. My diverse background has proven beneficial many times over, but the greatest gift has been the ability to consider other possibilities based on those experiences.
Welcome to this journey of discovery and sharing.
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