The document discusses breaking orthodoxies around innovation. It argues that traditional approaches to innovation focused on mass production are no longer effective given today's environment of abundance. It recommends that companies innovate less but with more meaning by focusing on enhancing customer relationships. A 5-step process is outlined to transform innovation efforts, including listening to customers, broadening the innovation horizon, involving employees, ensuring initiatives are properly evaluated, and focusing on market experiences that strengthen relationships.

1. Alain Thys
So You Want To Be Innovative?
A FUTURELAB ACTION GUIDE
May 2011

2. FUTURELAB
So you want to be innovative?
Prelude
“Chance favours the prepared mind”
Louis Pasteur

3. Let us start with a few questions:
Why do the space shuttle engines have the diameter they have?
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4. Let us start with a few questions:
OK, that’s pragmatic, but why is the tunnel that width?
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5. Let us start with a few questions:
That makes sense, but who decided on the width of tracks?
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6. Let us start with a few questions:
Remarkable, but why choose this base for trams?
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7. Let us start with a few questions:
OK, but then why make the axes this wide?
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8. Let us start with a few questions:
So if the ruts lead to the cart, what caused the ruts?
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9. Let us start with a few questions:
Standardised imperial chariots? Where did Ceasar get that idea?
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10. Let us start with a few questions:
OK, but some Egyptian must have had an original idea!
2000 B.C.
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11. Let us start with a few questions:
And so we find the answer: it’s all because of a horse’s ass.
2x
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12. Orthodoxies drive our behaviour
We copy and build on what we know to work
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13. Orthodoxies drive our behaviour
In fact, it’s in our genes
HUMANS
COPY
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... behaviour ...
... ways of working ...
... processes ....
... organisational structures ...
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14. Orthodoxies drive our behaviour
It is the secret to human success and achievement
Reading and print
Agriculture
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Industrial progress
Apps
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15. Orthodoxies drive our behaviour
But there is also a dark side
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16. Orthodoxies drive our behaviour
They can fail us if the world around us changes
Music industry
Education
Personal shame
(1994/5)
“Blockbuster CD’s rule.”
“No cheating.”
“Browsing is for geeks.”
Illustration by ~Si2. Print can be purchased at www.deviantart.com
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17. Orthodoxies drive our behaviour
They can be based on wrong assumptions
Our actions have always been driven by
assumptions which everyone knows to be true.
It can happen to the best of us:
“God does not play dice with
the universe”
Albert Einstein
on Quantum Mechanics
Earth is flat illustration by ~Si2. Print can be purchased at www.deviantart.com
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18. Orthodoxies drive our behaviour
Worst of all, they can close our mind to other options
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We’ve always done it that way
This is “best practice”
That’s what everyone does
Our world-view is right
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So you want to be innovative?
Part 1: What orthodoxy does to innovation
Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all
classes, our ancestors.
G.K. Chesterton

20. What orthodoxy does to innovation.
No, I’m not going to talk about orthodoxy versus creativity
Think out of the box!
Wear a green hat!
Find your inner lightbulb!
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21. What orthodoxy does to innovation.
I am going to talk about the orthodoxy of innovation itself
Why we make it
harder than it
needs to be?
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22. Time for an innovation renaissance
Which would be the easiest route to cross this desert?
Over the
mountains?
Through the
valleys?
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23. Time for an innovation renaissance
Weird, most corporate innovators seem to disagree.
AIRLINES
BANKS
COMPUTERS
UTILITIES
PROCESSED FOOD
PHARMA
Source: The Doblin Group, www.doblin.com
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24. Time for an innovation renaissance
Weird, most corporate innovators seem to disagree.
Why?
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25. Time for an innovation renaissance
Innovation is driven by industrial mass production orthodoxies
Industrial revolution
Mass-production logic
More volume
Better & more features
Lower costs
Invention mindset
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26. Time for an innovation renaissance
This worked fine as long as we had room in our life for “more”
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27. Time for an innovation renaissance
But our world has changed – the tub is full
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28. Time for an innovation renaissance
Many of our innovation efforts are wasted
Product parity
Category overload
Hypercompetition
Too much choice actually
reduces the preparedness
of customers to make a
purchase.
Barry Schwartz
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29. Time for an innovation renaissance
We consider massive failure as the norm (orthodoxy?)
“50-90% percent of innovation projects [are] judged to have made little or no contribution to
Wikipedia, 2011
organizational goals”
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30. Time for an innovation renaissance
Our response: innovating even more
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31. Time for an innovation renaissance
Accepting “collateral damage” as it occurs
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Demotivation
Stress
Wasted resources
Lost competitive position
Complexity
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32. FUTURELAB
So you want to be innovative?
Part 2: Time for an innovation renaissance
Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is
proof of utility, and utility is success.
Thomas A. Edison

33. Time for an innovation renaissance
How do these guys do it?
The industrialist’s nightmare:
I sell overpriced, underspec’d
computers and people love them.
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I take a traditional industry like finance,
travel or telco and slap a red logo on it.
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34. Time for an innovation renaissance
On innovation, they lead their people through the valleys
Experience innovation
Business model innovation
Service innovation
…
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35. Time for an innovation renaissance
They have let go of the old world orthodoxies
“Age of Scarcity”
Innovate for:
More volume
Better & more features
Lower costs
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36. Time for an innovation renaissance
They have recognised we live in a different era
“Age of Abundance”
In mature markets
It’s hard to get double-digit growth
from finding new customers.
It’s much easier to extend the
relationship with the customers
you already have.
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37. Time for an innovation renaissance
They innovate for relationships
Enough to keep things fresh
and interesting.
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But not too much.
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38. Time for an innovation renaissance
Or in business terms
A compass for your consideration
“Age of Abundance”
Innovate for:
Stakeholder Lifetime Value
Better relationships & reputation
Lower costs
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39. An innovation renaissance
Some remarkably good practices
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Hardware
Software
Infrastructure
Hosting
Consulting
Operations
...
One more
thing
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40. Time for an innovation renaissance
A “not so best” practice
Every innovation poses a relationship risk.
Innovate to keep your relationships fresh, but don’t overdo it.
DO
DON’T
Innovate
for growth
Risk
relationships
How Planta almost lost me ... and still might.
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So you want to be innovative?
5 Steps to transform yourself
A leader is someone who steps back from the entire
system and tries to build a more collaborative, more
innovative system that will work over the long term.
Robert Reich

42. 5 Steps to transform yourself
Step 1: Listen, Watch and Learn
Take the customer perspective ... all the way.
Choice Drivers
Insights
Recommendation triggers
Key Advice
“Shop your own product”.
By walking in customers’
shoes you understand
how they see the world.
Georges-Edouard Dias
SVP, L’Oréal Group
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Obvious? Test yourself:
If you’re in B2C: when was the last
time you really spoke to a consumer?
If you’re in B2B: how actively do you
manage all your stakeholder’s
emotions?
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43. 5 Steps to transform yourself
Step 1: Listen, Watch and Learn
Asset leveraging
Bad profits
Global inspiration
Co-creation
For most of us
Innovation is not invention.
Most of what you need will
exist in some shape or form.
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Internal sensing
Market foresight
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44. 5 Steps to transform yourself
Step 2: Broaden your innovation horizon
The Innovation Radar
There are 12-15
types of innovation.
Which ones are
your competitors
missing?
Adaptation of The Innovation Radar 2.0 by J.Chen and M.Sawney of Kellogg School of Management, 2008.
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45. 5 Steps to transform yourself
Step 2: Broaden your innovation horizon
The Innovation Strategy Matrix
High
Areas to
keep up
or stay ahead
Look at
the niches
Customer Engagement
Develop a “portfolio”
of innovation
strategies depending
on the situation.
Opportunities for
meaningful
differentiation
Copy when
proven only
Low
Low
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Innovation Intensity
High
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46. 5 Steps to transform yourself
Step 3: Involve your people
Innovation is a social, not a personal achievement.
It does not belong in a “department”.
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Engagement programmes
Digital (open) platforms
Organisational flexibility
Corporate venturing projects
Innovation teams
...
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47. 5 Steps to transform yourself
Step 3: Involve your people
Only 5% of your workforce
understands your strategy*
So how can they innovate upon it?
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Make sure people understand what you aim to achieve
Provide people with the innovation & design knowledge/tools to contribute
Build an innovation movement that rewards initiative rather than ask for instant ROI
* Based on Norton, D. Aligning your Strategy to the Customer Value Proposition, 13/9/2005.
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48. 5 Steps to transform yourself
Step 4: Make sure you got it “right”
“Failing fast” is no
excuse for being
sloppy.
Implement a simple system that allows people to evaluate their
own ideas and forces cross-functional co-operation.
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49. 5 Steps to transform yourself
Step 4: Make sure you got it “right”
Simplify, so your business is able to execute. Then simplify again.
The Laws of Simplicity
John Maeda
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4.
5.
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10.
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Reduce
Organise
Time
Learn
Differences
Context
Emotion
Trust
Failure
The One
Food for thought:
Can you “appify”
your business?
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50. 5 Steps to transform yourself
Step 5: Go to market to enhance relationships
Experience
The experience IS
the product.
Peter Merholz
Delight
Loyalty
Profit
How do your
innovations strengthen
your existing customer
relationships?
Racing to market is no excuse for being sloppy.
Align your business as if it were the only innovation
you’ll ever launch.
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51. FUTURELAB
So you want to be innovative?
Conclusion
Finally, in conclusion, let me just say this.
Peter Sellers

52. CONCLUSION
Break innovation’s orthodoxies.
STEP 1
Listen, watch and learn.
STEP 2
Broaden your innovation horizon.
STEP 3
Involve your people.
STEP 4
Make sure you got it “right”.
STEP 5
: Go to market to enhance existing relationships.
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53. Conclusion
Focus on the valleys that lead to customer success
You can innovate less
Because no one is there, you
make your life easier.
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Innovations have more meaning
With the same effort you can
differentiate yourself more.
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54. Conclusion
In Summary
Innovate Less
But with More meaning.
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55. Alain Thys
Email: ath@futurelab.net
Twitter: @FLB_alainthys
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