Good Morning Thinkers!

Applying the Innovator's Solution

Two of the most influential books in the innovation field are "The Innovator's Dilemma" and the "The Innovator's Solution."  "Dilemma" outlined the sometimes counter-intuitive conundrum of innovation and "Solution" provided ideas for how to handle the complexities of innovation.

Michael Raynor, co-author of "The Innovator's Solution" with Clayton Christensen is a keynote speaker at "Unblocking Innovation," the 11th annual Convergence of people, ideas and great practices related to innovation to be held in Minneapolis, September 21-23.

After observing numerous successful and unsuccessful companies, Raynor and his co-author, Clayton Christensen, theorized that innovation is a process that can best be realized in a four-step approach:

1. Identify overshoot: When an industry-leading product enters the mature phase of its lifecycle, it reaches a point where it improves past the expectations and needs of consumers. Unwilling to pay the extra money for extra features they don’t need, customers are open to cheaper or easier-to-use products ... the problem is, these products don’t exist.

2. Find a foothold: Once slivers of the market’s needs are unfulfilled, a disruptive company comes up with something to fill that hole. In "low-end disruption," this can be a cheaper, inferior product targeted at the current incumbent’s lower-end consumers who are willing to pay less money for less quality. In "new market disruption," this means altering a product to better suit a new market that is not being addressed by the current incumbent.

3. Improve what matters: As the new product begins its lifecycle, it has to get better while keeping in mind the needs of its consumers. This usually means improving quality while keeping costs low.

4. Catch up with the needs of mainstream consumers: Eventually, a disruptive company develops until it reaches a point of contention with the product leader. Its disruptive business model gives the new company the power to surpass the old one.

A brilliant and galvanizing speaker, Raynor is a uniquely qualified expert on creating and sustaining business growth. In addition to his work with Christensen, he is a director for Deloitte, the global profesional services firm, and part of Deloitte Research, the thought leadership arm of Deloitte.  He has a great depth of experience and theoretical understanding of the innovation field and will share best practices from around the world with Convergence participants.

Convergence Blog -- get the latest here.

Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature

What if models for new revenue streams or cost-cutting measures were sitting right in front of you waiting for you to be able to see them?  According to nature writer Janine Benyus, answers are all around us ... we just need to look to nature for models.

If you attend "Unlocking Innovation," the eleventh annual Convergence of people, ideas and great practices related to innovation, you will hear Janine, who coined the term "biomimicry" and wrote the book of the same title, tell you exactly how this new way of looking at nature is helping people solve important problems.

In an interview for "Interiors & Sources" magazine, author Penny Bonda states, "She's (Benyus) brought biologists, industrialists, inventors and designers together at the drawing board ... and convinced commercial giants to alter the way they look at product development and manufacturing."

A self-described "nature-nerd," Benyus suggests that we focus on new questions such as ...

-- How does life make things?

-- How does life make the most of things?

-- How does like make things disappear into systems?

Biomimicry example: Traditional hearing aids do not do a very good job of detecting the direction of sounds, thus handicapping their users. Biomimicry suggests that a solution to this conundrum would be found in nature by studying organisms that depend on sound direction for their survival, such as the ormia fly that feeds off crickets and needs to locate them by their sounds. An analysis of the fly's hearing mechanisms became the basis for a whole new kind of hearing aid.

From biomimicry.net: "Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a new science that studies nature's best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems. Studying a leaf to invent a better solar cell is an example. I think of it as "innovation inspired by nature."

"The core idea is that nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on Earth. This is the real news of biomimicry: After 3.8 billion years of research and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival.

"Like the viceroy butterfly imitating the monarch, we humans are imitating the best and brightest organisms in our habitat. We are learning, for instance, how to harness energy like a leaf, grow food like a prairie, build ceramics like an abalone, self-medicate like a chimp, compute like a cell, and run a business like a hickory forest.

"The conscious emulation of life's genius is a survival strategy for the human race, a path to a sustainable future. The more our world looks and functions like the natural world, the more likely we are to endure on this home that is ours, but not ours alone." For more info: http://www.biomimicry.net/

Convergence Blog -- get the latest here.

Summer Reading Recommendations

From Joyce Wycoff:   I’ve been in an orgy of summer reading and have found some wonderful excursions and am definitely looking forward to hearing about your favorites.  Generally summer reading is on the slight and frothy side ... but, you can see by some of the recommendations received so far that you guys are reading some pretty weighty stuff even while at the beach.

Anyway, we’ll keep this thread going for another week to give some of the rest of you a chance to tell us what you’re reading.  Send your recommendations to mailto:staff@thinksmart.com, SUBJECT: Books.

Here are some books I’ve enjoyed immensely this summer.

Fiction

** Above the Thunder by Renee Manfredi ... this is a wise and beautiful book with characters who wind up seeming like part of the family.

** The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland ... an inspiring book about Emily Carr, a Canadian artist who fell in love with the spirit of the western Canadian forests and the art of the indigenous people. A light read with just enough meat to hold your interest ... interesting discussion of seeing beyond the surface.  By the same author and equally gripping is "The Passion of Artemisia," the story of one of the first recognized women artists in seventeenth century Italy.

** Harry Potter, the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling ... what’s better than an afternoon tryst with Harry Potter?  Rowling continues the tale and throws in a few surprises.

** The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini ... by page 50, I found myself slowing down because I didn’t want the book to end.  This book has it all and leaves you feeling a little wiser about the ways of life and the heart.

** The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason ... The DaVinci Code it’s not but it’s a worthwhile romp through youth and obsession.  However, it did leave me wondering how anyone could possibly be so smart.

** The Cabinet of Curiosities by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child ... another great archaeological mystery tour by two highly skilled authors.  It’s really hard to put this one down.

** Skinny Dip or Stormy Weather ... or almost anything else by Carl Hiaasen.  This is the role model for summer reading.  Light and funny with characters who live life completely out of balance. Hiaasen is like potato chips ... you can’t read just one.

Non-Fiction:

** The Devil in the White City, Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson ... probably one of the best light history books I’ve read.  The tale of the Chicago world fair of 1893 and America’s first serial killer weave together to create an engaging picture of the time and a reminder about how big challenges pull creativity and ingenuity into reality.

** From Robert Tucker:

This summer I'm reading the McCullough biography of Harry Truman and a book by Claude Bristol called, The Magic of Believing.

** From Ryan Carney:

For the book list I think that two great suggestions are:  Cradle to Cradle: Re-making the Way we make things    by William Mcdonough, Michael Braungart    and     Eco-Economy By Lester R. Brown. Both these works hold very inspirational ideas of how we can revolutionize our world so that economic growth is good and how us humans can make much less of a negative impact on evironment (maybe even make a good one).

** From Richard Weddle:

The Power of Productivity by William Lewis. How nations become rich or how they become poor.  A wonderful book. One of the best I've read out of 2000 books in the past 5 years.

Private property rights are crucial.  Shocking differences in the productivity of economies like Germany and Japan.  Consumers do drive the economies.

Korea is following Japan in the wrong ways.  Brazil has a problem and it is big government.  India has bad central control government despite democracy.  GDP per capita is the shocking figure.  China is 1/7th that of the USA.  Insight into the Japanese markets we do not see - other than steel and cars and consumer electronics - only 15% of the Japanese economy is world class.

Russia is an 'informal' or mafia based economy where outsiders cannot compete because the outsiders will have a 'legal' business and insiders will use illegal means and thus costs are 40% lower.

** From Dan Sullivan:

"Not Fade Away" by Lawrence Shames & Peter barton

"The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz

"Refrigerator Rights" by Dr. Will MIller

** From Karl Mettke:

I have just started reading a book, "The Joy of Not Working," by Ernie Zelinski.  Many good creativity concepts on finding other activities rather than working to occupy your time.  Highly recommend after only reading two chapters.

** From Tom Watkins:

The world is truly getting smaller with and the issues are getting bigger----some books to help you cope and think:
Collapsed -- How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
The Next Global Stage--- Challenges and Opportunities in our Borderless World-- Kenichi Ohmae
China INC. How the rise of the next superpower challenges America and the world -- Ted C Fishman
Three Billion New Capitalists-- the great shift of wealth and power to the East -- Clyde Prestowitz

and when you are done with these four books-- pick up a copy of the old Classic--- The Power of Positive Thinking By Norman Vincent Peale ------------ you will need it!

** From Jerry McNellis:

Just got home from the beach.  Played a dozen or so games of Scrabble, watched birds, ate fish, slept and read, read, read.  My favorite book was "Freakonomics" by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.   My oldest son Pat told me I must read it and I see why. Today I bought a copy to send my Dad for his 92nd birthday. At 4:30 Steven Levitt was on C-Span.  He was delightful.  Funny and so
insightful.  "Data detective".  How's that for a title he used to describe himself.

If I had been exposed to Professor Levitt when I was younger there is a good chance I'd be an economist today.

Blue Ocean Strategy

* Blue Ocean Strategy, How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.

How can you not like a book that begins, "This is a book about friendship, about loyalty, about believing in one another."

Primary theme:  ... to win the future, companies must stop competing with each other.  The only way to beat the competition is to stop *trying* to beat the competition.  The  book offers some clear, compelling examples and a handfull of useful tools that make the book well worth the purchase price.

Freakonomics

* Freakonomics, a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

This is a fun book designed to make you question conventional wisdom and look for the real reasons things happen.  In it you find out why high-stakes school testing actually promotes cheating ... by students and teachers;  what really caused the drop in violent crimes (not a pleasant answer); and what's really important in parenting (interestingly, having books in the house may be more
important than going to a good school.)

One great story included is about the rise and fall of the Ku Klux Klan and an interesting guy named Stetson Kennedy who infiltrated the Klan in the 1940s. He came up with a novel way to fight the Klan -- he released their secret codes and positions (Exalted Cyclops, Imperial Wizard, and so on) to the producers of the "Adventures of Superman" radio shows.  Kids starting playing Superman and fighting the evil klansmen and mocking the members who were now afraid their
kids would find their robes.  Score 1 for creativity.

Raising Creative Kids

Could saying "Good Job!" to your kids be a bad thing?

Several years ago, we invited Alfie Kohn, author of "Punished by Rewards" to speak to us at Convergence.  We've heard a lot of speakers over the years but Alfie is among the handful who stimulated us enough to keep digging deeper into the material and trying to figure out how to apply it.

Alfie's basic message is simple:  extrinsic motivators (punishment or rewards) drive out intrinsic motivation (doing something because we enjoy it or deeply want the results of doing it).  This message is supported by hundreds of studies with adults and children.  A simple example:  children who were rewarded for playing with toys, stop playing with them once the reward was earned, whereas children who were not rewarded for playing, continued to play much longer.

Alfie's work is especially important in the area of creativity and innovation where we don't know the answer and the drive to continue looking for better ways is critical to success.  The studies prove that external rewards actually decrease the motivation to create.

The message is simple. Implementing it, however, is not only hard, it's frustratingly counterintuitive.  Over the years, Alfie has graciously agreed to help us untangle the "how" through occasional teleconferences.  One question that always came up was, "How do I use this information with my children; how can I be a better parent?"

The answer comes in Alfie's new book, "Unconditional Parenting, Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason."  But, again, this is challenging material.  Even those of us who have experienced the failure of most  punishment methods have a hard time realizing that praise can also be destructive.  According to Alfie (and supported by numerous studies), telling a child, "Good Job!" is generally a way of trying to shape behavior to our own standards ... a nice way of saying we're trying to control the child.  It's also a way of saying, "I love you when you do a good job!" with the implied undertone of "my love is conditional upon your being a good child."

Most of us don't want to send that message and yet we don't know how to set boundaries and create the structure necessary for children to grow and learn without using these techniques.  This is where Alfie's book is a critical must-read.  A warning however, there are no simple answers here ... no easy "time-outs" or "naughty-chairs."  Unconditional parenting requires a constant commitment to the relationship with the child and to the goals of raising children who are "happy, balanced, independent, fulfilled, productive, self-reliant, responsible, functioning, kind, thoughtful, loving, inquisitive, and confident."

If those are indeed our objectives as parents, we need to evaluate our actions to see if they are leading to that desired end.  This is definitely not an easy task in our all-too-busy world after a long day at the office, when bills may be outpacing income and there's still dinner to cook, laundry stacking up and some small, determined soul with poorly formed communication and reasoning skills is force-
feeding ice cream to the hamster.

Alfie is a parent and not an unreasonable idealist.  He offers specific recommendations with the understanding that you will need to tailor them to your own parenting style and situations.  For instance, instead of saying, "Good job!" you could simply pay attention.  Or you might describe the action rather than evaluating it. (Example:  "Hey, there's something new on the feet of those people you just drew.  They've got toes.")  Or you might explain the effects of the child's action on other people. (Example: "You set the table!  Boy, that makes things a lot easier on me while I'm cooking.") Or you might ask, rather than judge. (Example:  "what made you decide to give some of your brownie to Deirdre when you didn't have to?"

Parenting may be the hardest job we do in life -- Alfie's new book is a common sense approach to raising children who are not only happier, but also more capable of using their creative potential. 

Highly recommended -- and if you want to talk to other parents trying to figure this stuff out, there is a great forum at the Unconditional Parenting website.

if you haven't read "Punished by Rewards," we consider it a must-read for anyone who works with other people.

Great story below.

The Samurai Way

Harvey Lloyd is an incredible photographer who has combined his photography with his spiritual journey in a beautiful book, The Samurai Way.  You can order his book and see more of his photography at http://harveylloyd.com.

Micro Lending Miracles

A few years ago, I had the good fortune to hear Mohammad Yunus, pioneer of the microlending program, speak in Argentina.  Not only did all 6000 of us in the audience fall in love with him, we were awed by the power of his program to help people lift themselves out of poverty.  Click here to buy the book.

His book provides a glimpse of this powerful program and the editorial review includes this statement:  Yunus's theories work. Grameen Bank has provided 3.8 billion dollars to 2.4 million families in rural Bangladesh. Today, more than 250 institutions in nearly 100 countries operate micro-credit programs based on the Grameen methodology, placing Grameen at the forefront of a burgeoning world movement toward eradicating poverty through micro-lending.

Grameen is profiled by Fast Company in the January issue of Social Capitalist awards.

Also, here is a link to a fascinating interview about this program.

Grameen Foundation USA.

Seven Spiritual Laws of Success for Parents

" ... since we can't know what knowledge will be most needed in the future, it is senseless to try to teach it in advance.  Instead we
should try to turn out people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned."  -- John Holt, "How Children Fail"

Buy at amazon.com. 

Deepak Chopra's "Seven Spiritual Laws of Success" has been a self-help block buster with several follow-on versions (yoga, relationship, business and so on).  My friend Andrea who is on a continuous search for how to be a better parent was particularly taken with Chopra's "Seven Spiritual Laws of Success for Parents."

Since we are in the holiday season, when family is a major focus, I thought it might be good to share Andrea's summary of the Chopra book.  Hope you enjoy and happy holiday season ... Joyce

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success for Parents

1. Everything is possible.

2. If you want to get something, give it.

3. When you make a choice, you change the future.

4. Don't say no--go with the flow.

5. Every time you wish or want, you plant a seed.

6. Enjoy the journey.

7. You are here for a reason.

Then, the laws are broken down into teachings for each day of the week. For example:

Sunday is the day of Pure Potentiality:

1. Lead them in a few minutes of silent meditation.
2. Inspire them to appreciate the beauty and wonder of Nature.
3. Show them hidden possibilities in familiar situations.

Persepolis, a "graphic novel"

Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran: of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life and of the enormous toll repressive regimes exact on the individual spirit. Marjane's child's-eye-view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a stunning reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, through laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love.

Click here to see full page.

Read about Satrapi's inspiration and writing process, in her own words.

About the Genre ...

Grow Where You're Planted

This summer, while kayaking on a placid alpine lake, I was looking at the stunted junipers twisting up out of the granite crags in the cliffs. Kayaking is one of those activities that wipes the slate of the mind clean, making it almost impossible to hold a thought. It is almost a pure state of just being, so it was memorable when a thought showed up almost like a caption in a cartoon, “Grow where you’re planted.” I spent a few moments contemplating that wisdom and later noted it in my journal and moved on.

When Alex Pattakos sent me the copy of his new book, Prisoners of Our Thoughts, Viktor Frankl’s Principles at Work, it reminded me of how influential Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning has been in my life, as it has been to millions of other people around the world. As I finished Alex’s very worthy connection of Frankl’s principles to the world of work, I thought back to that alpine wisdom: “Grow where you’re planted” and realized that it echoed the essence of Frankl’s message.   Buy at amazon.com.

Frankl experienced the horror of life in the Nazi concentration camps but his spirit would not be dampened. He deliberately chose to find meaning even in the traumatic circumstances of the camp and later wrote, “I am convinced that, in the final analysis, there is no situation which does not contain the seed of meaning.” Every life experience offers us the opportunity to learn, grow and find meaning.

Alex was deeply touched by Frankl’s work and decided to meet him and discuss the possibility of creating a book which would help people incorporate the principles in the world of work. This led to the newly released book and to the seven core principles which he synthesized from Frankl’s work:

1. Exercise the freedom to choose your attitude—in all situations, no matter how desperate they may appear or actually be, you always have the ultimate freedom to choose your attitude.
2. Realize your will to meaning –commit authentically to meaningful values and goals that only you can actualize and fulfill.
3. Detect the meaning of life’s moments—only you can answer for your own life by detecting the meaning at any given moment and assuming responsibility for weaving your unique tapestry of existence.
4. Don’t work against yourself—avoid becoming so obsessed with or fixated on an intent or outcome that you actually work against the desired result.
5. Look at yourself from a distance—only human beings possess the capacity to look at themselves out of some perspective or distance, including the uniquely human trait known as your “sense of humor.”
6. Shift your focus of attention—deflect your attention from the problem situation to something else and build your coping mechanisms for dealing with stress and change.
7. Extend beyond yourself—manifest the human spirit at work by relating and being directed to something more than yourself.

Stephen R. Covey provides an eloquent introduction to this book, ending it by encouraging readers to practice and share the principles, reminding us, “life is a mission, not a career.”

Telling us how to live life as a mission was Frankl’s legacy to us. Alex Pattakos’ gift is this book which clearly outlines Frankl’s principles to help us find meaning in our life at work. For most of us, work is one of the dominating themes of our existence. Finding meaning in our work is a critical aspect of living life as a mission and this book is a powerful guide for the journey.

Learning is the Master Skill

(We're delighted to have this guest article from a couple of leading thinkers.)

by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner

When discussing innovation and risk-taking in our leadership development programs we regularly ask participants, ”How many of you have ever learned a new game or a new sport?” Invariably every hand in the room goes up. We then ask, “And how many of you got it perfect the first day you played it?” People chuckle. No hands go up. Who ever gets it right the first time?

There was this one time, however, when Urban E. Hilger, Jr. raised his hand and said that on the very first day he went skiing he got it perfect. Naturally we were curious and asked Urban to tell us about the experience. Here’s what he said.

It was the first day of skiing classes. I skied all day long, and I didn’t fall down once. I was so elated; I felt so good. So I skied up to the instructor, and I told him of my great day. You know what the ski instructor said? He told me, “Personally, Urban, I think you had a lousy day.” I was stunned. “What do you mean lousy day? I thought the objective was to stand up on these boards, not fall down.” The ski instructor looked me straight in the eyes and replied, “Urban, if you’re not falling, you’re not learning.”

Urban’s ski instructor understood that if you can stand up on your skis all day long the first time out, you’re only doing what you already know how to do, not pushing yourself to try anything new and difficult. By definition learning is about something you don’t know. Those who do what they already know how to do never learn anything new. Promoting learning requires building in a tolerance for error and a framework for forgiveness. Learning and innovation go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. We’ve also discovered that the same thing is true for leadership.

In a series of research studies we conducted — along with Lillas Brown of the University of Saskatchewan — we found that leaders can be differentiated by the range and depth of the learning tactics they employ when facing a new or unfamiliar experience. We measured managers on four different approaches to learning — taking action, feeling, thinking, and accessing others — and we discovered that managers who were more engaged rather than less engaged in each of these learning tactics were also more effective at leading. The more they engaged in learning the better they did at leading. We discovered, in other words, that we could predict that someone would be a more effective leader based on the extent to which they engaged in learning!

This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone. It just makes sense that those people who push themselves to learn will do better than those who only dabble in it. Attending one three-day workshop, reading one best-selling book, reflecting only on one incident, or participating in one simulation doesn’t produce great leaders. It doesn’t produce great innovators either. What was somewhat surprising to us, however, was that no one style of learning was more effective than any other at being a more effective leader. Learning to lead seems to be independent of any particular learning style. It doesn’t matter how you learn. What matters is that you do more of whatever learning tactic works best for you. Becoming a better leader is clearly linked to becoming a better learner.

These findings also raise an extremely interesting and mostly unexplored question: Which comes first, learning or leading? Whenever we pursue this question with our clients their hunches are the same as ours. Learning comes first, they say. When people are predisposed to be curious and want to learn something new, they are much more likely to get better at it than those who don’t become fully engaged. When it comes to getting great at leading, or anything for that matter, the axiom is not simply “Just do it.” It’s “Just do more of it!”

Learning is the master skill. When we fully engage in learning — when we throw ourselves whole-heartedly into experimenting, reflecting, reading, or getting coaching – we’re going to experience the thrill of improvement and the taste of success. Less is not more when it comes to learning. More is more. And a word of caution to executives with the red pencils. In these challenging times when we’re faced with the need to innovate, don’t cut the training budget!

Question of the Week: Let's take this great question about learning and leading and see what your experience is. How do you see your leaders learning? What brief example of outstanding learning leading to great leadership? Please respond in the comments section below.

Click here to buy the book: Leadership Challenge.

Click here to buy the book: Encouraging the Heart: A Leader's Guide to Rewarding and Recognizing Others

Heart of Change

"Change the environment, not the person. "
-- Inventor-philosopher Buckminster Fuller

"Every corporate giant says it wants to change.
Few can do it.
Every young company starts out as a natural force for change.
Few can sustain it.
Every organization has people who think they can be agents of
change.
Few can survive it."
-- Charles Fishman, Fast Company magazine,
April-May, 1997 "Change"

I love it when authors spell out their most important message right up front. In John Kotter's book "The Heart of Change," he puts it on page 1 -- here's what he states:

"People change what they do less because they are given analysis that shifts their thinking than because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings."

In talking about organizational change, he emphasizes that the central challenge is changing people's behavior and the way to change behavior is to "influence their feelings." "The heart of change," he continues, "is in the emotions."

So, how do you show a truth? And, what is truth? I thought this topic might stimulate some conversation. Think about change initiatives in your organization. What have you done, or seen done, that was effective in getting people to change their behaviors? Do you agree with the author's point about the value of showing truth over providing analysis? What does that say about the value of facts and factual analysis? And how does Buckminster Fuller's quote fit into this mix?

Please add your thoughts in the comments section below.

Buy the book here.