Heads-Up! on Organizational Innovation

7 Types of Leadership Stories

"Through a story, life invites us to come inside as a participant." -- Steve Denning, author of the Springboard: How Storytelling Ignited Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations and Squirrel, Inc.: A Fable of Leadership and Storytelling

In his new book, "Squirrel, Inc.," Convergence 2004 keynote speaker, Steve Denning, describes seven types of stories:

Sparking Action. Leadership is, above all, about getting people to change. To achieve this goal, you need to communicate the sometimes complex nature of the changes required and inspire an
often skeptical organization to enthusiastically carry them out. This is the place for what I call "springboard story," one that enables listeners to visualize the large-scale transformation needed in their circumstances and then to act on that realization.

Such a story is based on an actual event, preferably recent enough to seem relevant. It has a single protagonist with whom members of the target audience can identify. And there is an authentically happy ending, in which a change has at least in part been successfully implemented. (There is also an implicit alternate ending, an unhappy one that would have resulted had the change not occurred.)

The story has enough detail to be intelligible and credible but not so much that listeners are but -- and this is key -- not so much texture that audience becomes completely wrapped up in it. If that happens, people won't have the mental space to create an analogous scenario for change in their own organization. For example, if you want to get an organization to embrace a new technology, you might tell stories about individuals elsewhere who have successfully implemented it, without dwelling on the specifics of implementation.

The Language of Innovation

"Prototyping is the language of innovation." -- Tom Kelley,Managing Director, IDEO

Tom Kelley wowed us at Convergence 2000 and we're delighted to have him back to speak at Convergence 2004 to share his latest insights (before they wind up in his upcoming book!). In the four years since we last heard from Tom, IDEO has continued to develop as theh premier design firm in the world. They were splashed across the cover of the May 17, 2004 issue of BusinessWeek with the statement: "This tiny firm called IDEO redefined design by creating experiences, not just products. Now it's changing the way companies innovate."

Here are some of the highlights Tom shared with us in 2000 and in his book "The Art of Innovation."

Innovation begins with an eye -- Identifying innovation opportunities by watching real people in real-life settings and understanding their latent human needs

Prototyping is the language of innovation -- Sustaining a culture of continuous innovation—not by aiming for perfection the first time but by creating lots of rapid prototypes—and building on many small failures to ultimately reach a market success

Verbs not nouns -- Building brand loyalty and creating market "buzz" by designing great customer experiences

Being a visionary by living the future -- Informing short-term decision-making by having a long-term point-of-view on technology and market developments

Space is the final frontier -- Using the physical office environment as a tool to shape the attitude and behavior and performance of your creative team.

We'd love to have you join us at Convergence This is the 10th annual conference of innovation practitioners and it's an incredible opportunity to exchange ideas with folks from organizations around the world.

The Future of Consulting

"Business...is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight."

-- Henry R. Luce

Most of us probably don't think much about the future of consulting, even if that activity applies to us in some form ... as external or internal consultants, or as clients of consultants, or even as people who are affected by the work consultants do. However, the topic came up recently when someone said they had heard a prediction that consulting would be drastically different at some time in the not-too-distant future.

It started several of us thinking about what might cause that and what the result might look like? So we thought we'd invite you to think with us. Here's the question:

Wha

t factors and influences could change the landscape of consulting significantly in ten years?

Please add your thoughts in the Comments section below.

US Must Innovate - IBM CEO

From Council on Competitiveness

IBM CEO says U.S. must innovate to keep jobs Reuters (October 30, 2003)

NEW YORK, Oct 30 (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp. (IBM.N) Chief Executive Officer Samuel Palmisano said on Thursday that the United States needs to step up the pace of innovation to help stem the flow of technology jobs overseas.

Palmisano said that he expects 13 million jobs to be created in the next two years around the world, including in rapidly developing countries such as China, India and South Korea.

"We are at a critical moment," he said. "Because if we're not careful, the U.S. will fall out of step with the new realities of innovation. If that were to happen, the innovators and risk-takers would go elsewhere. Because today they can."

He was speaking at the annual meeting of the Council on Competitiveness in Washington D.C., which is creating a National Innovation Initiative to come up with ideas on how to continue to innovate in the face of such competition.

Other countries are becoming more competitive not only in wages but in education, job skills and network infrastructure, he said.

"We believe the United States must again raise the bar - to take the steps necessary to keep the nation at the forefront, to continue to offer the most fertile and attractive environment for innovation in the world," Palmisano said.

Innovation or Cheating?

Peter de Jager in the latest issue of his newsletter, "Managing Change & Technology" raises an interesting question on the distinction between innovation and "cheating." Microsoft says it's innovating; a lot of the rest of the world says it's not playing fair ... it's cheating.

Peter talks about Napster and Ice Wine in his article. From my perspective, Napster was "cheating." It found a better way to distribute music and made a lot of people happy ... however, it was distributing somebody else's property. I could probably do pretty well in life if I could figure out how to give away free cars that were built and paid for by someone else.

Of course, the Napster phenomenon was made possible by the music industry's pricing structure which many people see as greed ... and the restricted availability of lesser known bands and music artists. So, Napster invented something new that created value for some stakeholders but harmed others. It's a reminder that innovation takes place in a system where all stakeholders must be considered.

Peter also talks about Ice Wine ... the process of creating a very sweet dessert wine from frozen grapes. Canada discovered the process and feels very proprietary about it. New Zealand decided to innovate the process of creating wine from frozen grapes by using refrigerators. Result: 1/10 the cost for a product even experts can't distinguish. New Zealand calls it innovation, Canada calls it "cheating" and rushed off to the courts to protect the term "Ice Wine." This one goes to New Zealand: quality product, dramatic price difference ... this *is* innovation.

Peter offers more examples from the automotive and movie industries and ends his article with this statement:

"All businesses are threatened by innovation. How do we respond to it? By seeing innovation as unfair competition and wasting resources in legal battles that inevitably fail? Or by accepting that the world changes and then deciding we are best served by finding our own innovations?"

We recommend reading the entire article ... Thanks, Peter, for the food for thought.