Let’s Get Some Terms Straight!

Last night I was at an event where I woman said, “I want to get in touch with my creativity.  I used to paint and play music, but no longer do that.”

This got me thinking about how we throw around a lot of terms with no real clarity around what they mean.

Here are four terms that people use interchangeably.

• Invention, from my perspective, invention is the creation of something that previously was not in existence.  The focus is not on commercial value but rather on novelty.
• Innovation, on the other hand, is an end-to-end process that starts with a specific problem, challenge or opportunity and results in commercial value (however that is defined for the organization).
• Creativity is one step in the innovation process.  When you have a defined problem/opportunity, creativity is the act of finding a solution.
• Artistry involves things like music, painting, and photography.  Although there may be commercial value, the primary focus is often on the experience.

You might think I am splitting hairs discussing the differences between these terms.  But language is important to any culture.  And distinguishing these words can be quite useful in helping an organization grow.

Commercial organizations (including non-profits) really want innovation.  Putting people through creativity training is interesting, but if the resulting solutions are not relevant to needs or are not ultimately implemented, there is no point.  In fact, it can create extra work that detracts from the real opportunities.

Invention can be great.  But I know a lot of broke inventors.  Developing something new does not mean there is a market need.

Equally, I know a lot of great artists who never want to “sell out” and as a result are struggling to get by.

Innovation is the key.  The resulting change does not need to be radical, it only needs to be relevant to the needs of the market.  It does not need to be fancy, as long as the solution is commercially viable an implementable.

Getting clear on these distinctions can help you focus your energies on what matters most.

Is Lack of Innovation Keeping You Stuck?

I was recently interviewed by Lisa Earle McLeod.  The resulting article has been published in a number of newspapers and online sites, including the Huffington Post.  Here’s the first half of the article…

Do you ever find yourself trapped inside the same issue over and over again?

Maybe it’s because you’re looking at it through the same lens. Whether it’s a business challenge or a personal one, the way we frame problems can limit our ability to solve them.

Innovation expert Steve Shapiro says, “If you are working on an aerospace engineering challenge, and you have a 100 engineers, adding another engineer to make it 101 won’t increase your likelihood of solving the problem. But if you add a biologist, a musician, a nanotechnologist or someone from the movie business, you might find some different solutions.”

The secret, says Shapiro, is to get a different perspective.

Shapiro (www.SteveShapiro.com) tells the story of an engineer who was trying to figure out a better way to plug leaks in the Alaskan pipeline, where it’s sub-zero and repair guys aren’t just down the block.

One day the engineer got a paper cut. As he looked at his finger he realized, my finger has the same problem that a gas pipeline has, but I don’t have to go to a surgeon. The cut heals itself. The question then became, how do I create a self-healing pipeline? He didn’t need a band-aid; he needed a clotting agent.

Innovation is not just about creativity for creativity sake, says Shapiro. And it doesn’t just apply to engineering challenges.

Innovation is about harnessing good ideas that solve very specific problems for a very specific opportunity.

If you want to make innovation a repeatable and predictable process to solve your most pressing challenges, Shapiro (www.SteveShapiro.com) offers three strategies…

Read the rest of this article on The Huffington Post

How to Create a Happy Work Environment

While speaking at a conference on “happiness at work” in Copenhagen, I met Cathy Busani, the Managing Director of Happy, a training and consultancy business operating in the U.K. Although they only employ 30 people, Happy has won wide recognition for its innovative approach to management and to customer service. I was intrigued by her philosophy and asked her five questions about happiness at work.

Q: Why is happiness at work important? What evidence do you have that it improves business performance?

A: We believe that if your people are performing their best, then your business cannot fail to perform at its best. And people perform their best when they are happy and feel good about themselves. Therefore, ensuring this is the primary job of every manager. We feel so strongly about it, we ask our staff to complete a “happy check” every few months, which asks questions like “How do you feel walking in the door in the morning?” (from Depressed & Despondent to Eager & Excited) or “How stressed do you feel at work?” (from Very Stressed to Never Stressed). Making staff happy is a serious business!

Q: I heard you say that in happy organizations, the employees pick their boss and not the other way around. Can you say more about that?

A: We believe the people who manage staff should be in that position because they are great at it, and not just because they are great at their core job. Therefore, we believe people should have the right to choose who supports, nurtures, coaches and challenges them. If they do choose this person, they are much more likely to value that relationship and get the most from it. So throughout your career at Happy, if you want to change who manages you, you just have to ask. In most cases, we find people don’t change managers, partly because we have picked managers for their people skills. However, sometimes a change is requested. For example, one person chose a new manager because he had taken on a new role and felt the new manager would challenge him more. On another occasion, someone asked to change her manager because they had become friend’s with their current one and this was causing some issues between them.

Q: I love what you say about failure. Not only do you embrace it, but if someone is not failing enough, you assume something is wrong. How do you practically apply this in your organization?

A: We strongly believe that in order for there to be innovation and creativity in the culture of your business, people should “celebrate” their mistakes. In other words, try something out—if it goes wrong, adapt it and learn from it, but don’t try to hide it. We don’t actually throw a party when someone makes a mistake (and we don’t condone somebody getting the same thing wrong over and over), but everyone is very open and non-judgmental. We believe if you haven’t made any mistakes in your first three months at Happy, you aren’t really trying very hard.

Q: In your company, everyone knows what everyone makes, from the managing director down to the janitor. What are the advantages of this? And has it ever caused any problems?

Read the rest of this article on the American Express OPEN Forum

New School is Old School

I just finished reading a mindless crime novel* – my favorite genre of book. The victim was the producer of an old television series who recently sold the rights to do a remake of the show.

Fans were outraged. Most were purists who liked the original version and would do anything to prevent the new show…including kill the producer.

The producer of the remake defended the decision to do a new version of an old show. He said…

“New school is old school. It’s too risky for the networks and for the audiences. People are much more comfortable with the familiar. Reimagination is the new new.”

Basically he is suggesting that “reimagining” something old is the latest way to innovate.

But is it? Is “reimagining” the same as innovation?

• Is remaking a classic television show innovative? “The Twilight Zone” remake, “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” or “America’s Got Talent” (a reimagination of the “Gong Show”).
• Is remaking an old song with a new interpretation innovative? Jimi Hendrix covering Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower” is a classic example.
• What about sampling an old song in a new song? Eminem sampled Dido’s “Thank You” in his rap, “Stan.”  Vanilla Ice sampled Queen’s “Under Pressure” in “Ice Ice Baby.”
• What about TV spin-offs such as “The Jeffersons” (an “All in the Family” spin-off), “Frasier” (a “Cheers” spin-off), or “Mork and Mindy” (a “Happy Days” spin-off)?
• Are movie sequels such Hangover 2 (which is awesome, by the way), Father of the Bride 15, or The Fockers movies, innovative?

You get the idea.

Many would argue that these are NOT great examples of innovation. But I beg to differ. Although they may not all be wildly original, that does not mean that they are not innovative.

Innovation is developing anything new that creates substantial value. It does not need to be original or even creative in order for it to be innovative.

If a remake, resample, spin-off, or sequel can generate profits, then from my perspective, it is innovative.

It takes innovation to adapt something old to new tastes.  It takes creative thinking to develop sequels and spin-offs that are as good as (if not better than) the original. It takes marketing savvy to convince people that they should spend their time and money on something that they have seen before (albeit in another form).

From my perspective, reimagining is definitely a form of innovation – as long as it creates the intended value.

But of course, not all innovation is simply revamping the old.  Adaptive innovation is only one form of innovation.

And equally important: innovation is more than creating a single hit. You need to do it over and over again. Repeatability is key. If you only reimagine the old, at some point you will run out of ideas.

* Mr. Monk in Outer Space by Lee Goldberg. This book series is a reimagination of the TV show “Monk.”

How Losing Personal Attachments Can Help You Realize Ambition

My friend Susanne and I were recently playing a trivia game, a game in which she excels. However, at one point, she got a couple wrong answers in row. “Urgh,” she blurted out, “every time I have a gut answer and change it, it was actually correct.”

This made me curious. Malcolm Gladwell, in the book Blink, said that we make our best decisions in a blink of an eye. Was this true in Susanne’s case? Or was her mind playing tricks on her? To test this out, we did a little—admittedly unscientific—experiment.

We turned to a set of trivia questions where you had to guess the year that different events took place, like the year President Ford survived two assassination attempts (1975), or the year Pete Rose set a National League consecutive game hitting streak record of 44 (1978).

For our experiment, we took 10 questions. I would read aloud the name of an event (like the signing of the SALT II treaty) and Susanne would instantaneously give me her “gut” answer. I marked those down She would then take a bit more time to apply some analysis and come up with a final “logical” answer. In this case, the correct answer is 1979.

The results?

Out of 10 questions:

• One of her “gut” answers was closer than her “logical” answer—but only by one year.
• Four responses were unchanged after applying further reasoning. This means that 40% of the time, her “gut” answer and “logical” answer were the same.
• Five times, when she changed her “gut” response, her “logical” answer proved to be closer to the real date, often significantly closer.

What does this mean? Well, given that our study was not statistically valid, not much. However, it does highlight an interesting point.

Humans get attached to things—in this particular case, it was Susanne’s gut responses.

Furthermore, when we change an answer that was originally correct to give a final answer that is wrong, we kick ourselves. The irony is that we are much less likely to remember the situations where our gut answer was wrong and our final answer was correct.

This correlates to a study done with college students who were given a multiple-choice exam. The test administrators developed it in such a way that they could track when a student changed an answer.

After the students received their results, the examiner asked if, when the student changed a particular answer, whether they believed that their first answer was correct more often or not. Nearly all of the students believed that their first answers, or “gut” answers, were in fact usually correct, and that when they changed their response they more often got it wrong. This was similar to Susanne’s initial belief.

However, the study showed that the students’ final answers were more often correct than their gut answers— and by a wide margin.

So why is it that these students believed that their initial reactions we more accurate?

One reason is attachment. In particular, we feel losses more powerfully than we notice gains. In fact, a recent study showed that a loss of a relationship activates the same parts of the brain that are associated with physical pain. Losses truly are painful.

The students and Susanne felt a “loss” when a correct gut answer was changed. But they barely noticed the “gain” associated with a wrong gut answer that was ultimately corrected. This is a small example of how attachment affects us, however if you really take an honest look, attachment permeates throughout our entire lives.

Human beings are like packrats. We collect everything: ideas, material possessions, and relationships. However, when packrats stumble across something new that they wish to acquire, they will drop what they are currently carrying and “trade” it for the new item. One might say that these tiny creates are free to explore the world unencumbered by the past. This is in complete contrast to what human’s do. It is rare for us to drop something once we have it. We find it difficult to let go.

What can we learn from this?

Take a look at what you have in your life. What are you attached to? Are you holding on to these things just because you already have them? Consider that these attachments may, in fact, be weighing you down and preventing you from being able to effectively operate or generate creative and fulfilling alternatives in your life. I suspect that people would love to reinvent their lives but haven’t done so because they are already invested in what they have.

How can you break free?

Take an inventory of your life: your belongings, your job, your friends, and your relationships. If you were to design your life from scratch, would you seek out these same things and people? Or, would you make different choices?

Read the rest of this article on the American Express OPEN Forum

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