Innovating Faster: We don't stop walking when we learn to run, now, do we…

Too many leaders feel that the only way to drive new innovations is to rip up what was there before. This does not make sense.

The existing debate over healthcare insurance is a case in point. It is either an entirely new healthcare scheme (government funded) or nothing. The existing employer-based scheme seems to work well but not for all. Why not then try to solve the problem by keeping what works and deriving lessons from what works to create a hybrid solution?  Keep what works and supplement it with another solution that could be government funded. First learn from what works and use it on the supplemental solution.

It is in the “walking” or “what works”, where valuable lessons reside; wisdom that innovators can learn from and lessons that can be adapted and tweaked into the next new thing.

We don’t throw away walking once we learn to run, now, do we…

Levi jeans did not stop making jeans when faced with designer jeans (Jordache started the trend in the late 70’s?) No, they used what they already knew and optimized it to deliver entirely new lines of jeans. It took them a bit, but they did it. I am not privy to the thinking of the product managers at the time, but for certain they must have asked: “What are our jean wearers’ hidden desires that we are not addressing with our existing products.” (A classic design-thinking question, by the way.)

Did Lego stop making sets? No, they adapted and optimized what they did best and innovated new “themed” Lego sets. I am certain that the product managers must have asked: “what are the evolving toy and entertainment trends that we can leverage in our transformation.” Here I imagine they must have run multiple reframing scenarios of what constitutes a Lego set.  And here we are, Lego sets that turn into cars, boats, etc. And movies! Movies, of course, being the quintessential entertainment asset that keeps on giving; much longer, that is, than a toy that is bought only once.

How about 3M? One of the most innovate companies of all time. They leveraged their capabilities in developing glues to invent Post-It notes. I am sure it took someone to ask the question: “Is there a possible market for weak glue?”

There are so many definitions of what an “innovation” is out there. I will throw yet another into the winds of ambiguity. An innovation can be an incremental upgrading of existing capabilities to meet an unrealized desire inherent in an existing product. Want another simple example? Different color Post-It notes. Another, different color electrical tape (huge hit that led to them being used in all sorts of ways unrelated to electricity), how about duct tape and their use of color and designs (another huge hit.)

Who knew, people like tape of different colors and psychedelic designs.

The key, of course, is figuring out the unmet desire. And clearly people wanted these things. How difficult was it to optimize their machinery and processes to add color? I suspect not too much. An optimization here and there and you have an entire new market of colors for completely new uses, some artistic.

The good thing is that many organizations are on this journey. It is encouraging to see companies now actively promoting into their executive ranks design thinkers, Chief Innovation/learning/experience/new Insights/officers. The likes of State Farm, ICF, REI, Pepsi are executing well in their transformations by turning themselves into design thinking companies and leveraging decades of expertise into the next set of product. I commend these companies for complementing that ethos with new mindsets in order to develop the necessary fore-vision capabilities to find those new simple concepts (can’t get any simpler than adding colors) that can gratify unfulfilled desires.  

In conclusion: existing capabilities that have worked well are absolutely relevant to the next new thing: optimize the walking and get faster in the running.