10. “Either you choose to innovate or to commoditize” - Charlie McTargett, 2013 Day of Innovation keynote speaker and VP Product Development at Delta Faucet.
9. Network with others who share an innovation mindset.
8. Event you don’t want to miss because everybody is going to talk about it.
7. Challenge the status quo in your organization and learn from Indiana’s innovation thought leaders.
6. Educate your employees about innovation at a low cost (only $200 compared to other conferences of $1000+).
5. Because we don’t believe in the conventional way of thinking, our panel will bring an espresso shot of disruption to challenge the status quo. Expect (good) chaos.
4. Learn how to be innovative well beyond product development: marketing, customer experience, future planning, competitive intelligence, company culture, mindset.
3. Your competitors have already registered. What are you waiting for?
2. This will change the way you think about innovation in your organization.
1. Expose yourself to new perspectives you’ve not considered before.
I have a firm belief that to stay relevant and be successful in this ever-changing, ultra-competitive, whacky world, we actually need to upgrade the way we think on a permanent basis. To think the same as we always have is to fall behind. The things that used to make us successful no longer work, your old thinking is now taken for granted, and our problem-solving abilities are now commoditized or digitized.
In a recent post, I discussed how organizations fail to innovate, and it very often starts with the (bad) people in place, starting from the top of the org chart.
In a December 18 article, Stefan Lindegaard defines 5 types of people who kill innovation.
Here is my list (non-exhaustive) of people of kill innovation.
Disclaimer: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. BULLSH#T! THEY REALLY EXIST!!
1. Executives who sell innovation to their employees like a car sales person sells a Humvee to a potential buyer trying to convince him it offers the best gas mileage. If a leader is not genuine in his intention to create a true culture of innovation, employees won’t buy into it. They are not stupid.
2. Incompetent “innovation” directors who kill their employees’ creativity and will to innovate because their ideas don’t fit in the “mold”. Hmm… it reminds me of my French literature teacher who used to give me bad grades because I had a different interpretation of a book from hers. Such directors are supposed to encourage innovation within their team, not to teach their team how to think like them. Fu#k it up! (read: funk it up).
3. Executives who want to hire employees with “an entrepreneurial spirit”, but don’t let those same employees experiment business ventures and innovation inside or outside of the company. How are such employees supposed to boost their entrepreneurial spirit if their attempts are shut down?
4. Managers who steal ideas from their team to make those ideas their “own”, transforming concepts to fit their “narrow” views, thus disengaging the very ones who came up with innovative ideas.
5. Formal or informal “leaders” who are put in place because of their “special” connections to the exec team (yeah, many companies still encourage boot lickers), discouraging the willing employees to come forward with ideas.
6. The “narrow-minded” people who only focus on what they can benefit from participating and miss the big picture.
7. Execs who are so afraid of open innovation and bringing outside thinkers that they still live in the stone age when Neanderthals protected fire from their enemies, fearing they would lose the “fire” (to innovate) they have in them.
8. YOU, if you are soooo comfortable in your sleepers that you refuse to grab the remote control and switch the channel to challenge the status quo. If you are afraid to fail, you will never move forward. You must upgrade your thinking. A quote of my kids’ favorite movie (Ratatouille): Gusteau “If you focus on what you left behind you will never see what lies ahead!”.
Conclusion: Steve Jobs’ quote “the crazy ones”
Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them, because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
Share your experiences. Who do you see as innovation killers?
Because we feel the disadvantages of risky decisions (losses) more intensely than the advantages (gains or wins), we see risky moves as bad ideas. Opportunities that are forecast with certainty seem especially tempting since they are risk-free.
In a previous blog, I spoke about how we need to upgrade our thinking, how we must funk up the way we think.
In his LinkedIn post titled “The Power of Loss Aversion”, Cass Sunstein explains that “people dislike losses more than they like equivalent gains”. To illustrate his point, he talks about incentives programs for teachers to improve their student’s achievements. Unfortunately, many of these efforts have been vain. In an ingenious study, teachers were given money in advance and told that if their students did not show real improvements, they would have to give it back. The result? A big improvement in teacher quality, as measured by a significant increase in students’ math scores.
Here are some common behaviors people around us (if not ourselves) experience:
- holding onto a losing stock investment
- keeping a home with a mortgage substantially above its market value
- going to an event you don’t really want to attend because you have already paid for the tickets.
Because gains are fleeting and losses linger, people behave irrationally to avoid loss.
How can you leverage the power of “loss of aversion” to grow your business, motivate your people and increase sales?
When you promote the benefits of your products or services, frame your message towards loss prevention. If you pitch a product to a potential buyer that is designed to increase revenue, don’t just state the obvious benefit such as: “if you use our product X, you can expect your sales to rise by $120K annually”. Instead, remind your buyer that he would face losses from not using your product: “every month that product X is not used, you leave $10K on the table. This is money left that will not be recovered. You will lose money month after month. Can you really afford losing $10K a month?” Switching the message around to remind your buyers that they face losses from not using the product is a much more powerful message than just promoting the gains.
If your business sells products or services directly to consumers, leverage scarcity. Scarcity, one of Cialdini’s “weapons of influence,” is powerful because it represents a loss of freedom. If you are selling a product, promote its limited quantity, retire products early on a constant basis and introduce new products. Put an expiration date on your offer – car dealerships excel at this by pressing potential buyers to accept this one-time deal that may not be available if they shop around and come back two days later. If you are planning an event, make sure you mention the limited seating. Or perhaps you can offer early bird tickets, which gives you the opportunity to market to people’s loss aversion multiple times: once when tickets are announced, once when the early bird discounts are expiring and then just before ticket sales end.
When you define your pricing strategy, focus on the fear of losing money. Retailers who sell home appliances understand this very well. They offer a one-year warranty on a $1000 flat screen plasma or a $2500 refrigerator, reminding customers that after 12 months they are not covered but that they can extend the warranty by paying $200. What do customers do? They pay $200 extra in fear of losing their $1000 purchase, of the (very small) probabilities that their plasma or refrigerator will have some technical issues 3-5 years down the road when the extended warranty is over.
The same could apply to buying insurance, or flat-rate plans for mobile phones, etc. Consumers prefer to pay monthly fees of $40 to protect themselves for potential losses as well as variability of costs for their phone bills, instead of taking the risk to pay $20 a month and $60 another month. They are afraid of paying more, rather than seeing the benefits of paying on actual usage.When you formulate pricing strategies for your different offerings and services, do not forget to utilize the power of loss aversion with your buyers. A dollar gained and a dollar lost might equal zero on a pure economic basis, but it causes great pain to most buyers when behavioral economics is factored in. Buyers will generally pay more to eliminate this pain if your pricing strategy is framed correctly. Ignoring this powerful pricing tool means money left on the table and gone forever... and we all know how painful that can be.
Another principle is the theory of the foot in the door, or the tactic that involves getting a person to agree to a large request by first setting them up by having that person agree to a modest request. You want to create “ownership.” Loss of money (and the freedom of choice that comes with it) can be a barrier to people buying your products or services. However, once they’ve taken ownership of something it’s difficult to give that up. To illustrate, think of the various websites or publications which offer a free 30-day trial period. This is very effective when they require customers’ credit card information up front while allowing them to opt-out within the trial period (most surprisingly, most don’t opt-out simply because they already have a foot in the door). When you sell a product, think about this tactic. You can also easily apply this tactic to motivate your team by asking a small commitment which will lead to a bigger commitment.
Imagine you apply the study described above with teachers to your employees… Let’s say you have a profit-sharing plan where your company gives a 10% bonus to your employees if all company goals are met. This is a nice incentive, but how can you be sure your employees give it all? How would it be different if you deposited at the beginning of the year a 10% bonus in their bank account (bonus would be frozen), and that they would have to give it back at the end of the year if your company does not meet its goals?
Power of loss aversion in your day-to-day communication. PR firms know a great deal of leveraging the power of loss aversion when reporting news or financial results. If you have more than one piece of bad news (or losses) to report, bundle up your bad news into one single statement. If you spread out the divulgation of bad news or losses across multiple announcements, you multiply its negative impact. The pain of losing $40 dollars at one time is less painful that losing $20 in two separate instances.On the opposite, when you have multiple pieces of good news to report, you are better off spreading them across several announcements, as people experience greater satisfaction gaining two times $20 versus $40 one time only.
When you have a mix of good and bad news to report, try to mix small losses with big gains, but separate your small gains from bigger losses.
In conclusion, while you cannot model your business decisions solely based on the power of loss aversion, the opportunities abound where inclusion of these basic principles can be highly advantageous. You must upgrade the way you think in order to seek gains and put the fear of losing and failing behind you.
Tired of hearing the same old adage "we've always done it this way" which leads to nowhere but the status quo? At Centric, we are tired of it!
Join the resistance against the status quo at Indianapolis' Day of Innovation conference on August 28.
Innovation is not just about launching a brand new product on the market. It is a mindset that leads to the implementation of ideas.
Day of Innovation will feature keynote speaker Jeff Baxter,
co-founder of Steely Dan and lead-guitarist of the Doobie Brother.
Baxter is now a consultant for the Pentagon on counter-terrorism. He
will teach the audience how to think non-linear in a linear world.
Speaking of (national) security, companies must keep an (innovative)
eye on this matter. Jeremy Morton and Tom Baldwin, two executives at
Stanley Security, will share with us how to keep abreast of change and
remain the industry leader in innovation.
Doug Boles, President of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, will talk
about the future of one of the most iconic sports venues in the world,
host of the Indianapolis 500.
You can be innovative in marketing in one of the oldest sports in the
world... soccer. Peter Wilt from Indy Eleven, Indianapolis' new NASL
professional soccer team, will share with us how his team developed an
innovative grass-roots and non conventional marketing campaign to defeat
all odds and sell record season tickets.
You can be a product or device focused company but still genuinely
care about your end users, in Roche's case, their patients. Laura
Spiegel will tell the story of Roche's LifeMap Experience to say "no" to
the status quo in Diabetes care.
Want to discover Google's behind-the-scene culture of innovation? We
won't bring Vince Vaughn or Owen Wilson (they are not available,
sorry!), but we'll have a true Xoogler (read: ex-Googler) - Joe Van
Deman - to share some secrets.
Because we don't believe in the conventional way of thinking, our
panel will bring a espresso shot of disruption to challenge the status
quo. Expect (good) chaos!
Finally, Day of Innovation will celebrate Indiana's most innovative organizations with the Indiana Innovation Awards ceremony.
Join the resistance against the status quo!
