Jeffrey C. is a local entrepreneur who wrote a short, poignant and very funny book called We Love Innovation: So Long as it’s Nothing New. In the "Prelude" he notes that the book took about a week to write, many weeks to write “right,” and thirty years to prepare for its writing.The theme of Jeffery’s writing appears on page 49:
How do you create innovation? You don’t need to do a single thing.
But you do have to work very hard at not killing it.
This is proof certain that Jeffrey has faced his share of battles around new ideas and products, pitching to boards, partners and investors. It’s also a reminder that there are a million ways to kill an idea, and if you are at it long enough, you’ll get to see each and every one of them.
(If you’d like a copy of the book, send me an email and I will make the introduction.)
Here are 5 take-aways:
1. Do a word search on “innovation” in Annual Reports from large companies and you’ll typically get a dozen hits. Everybody loves innovation. They must, because they sure do talk about it a lot. But, truly innovative companies spend a lot less time talking about innovation and a lot more time describing how they meet customer needs. Innovation for them “is a way of life and just a means to an end."
2. It is fine to have “high level” contact between companies, where two top managers meet. But, it probably has little bearing on how the company’s products or services are actually used.
3. Strategic Planning:
We’ve just finished our strategic plan.
We cannot look at your idea because we are in the middle of our strategic planning.
We are just about to start our strategic planning.
We are going to an offsite retreat to prepare for our strategic planning. . .
If you require that innovations arrive in synchrony with the planning process, then you miss most of them. Innovations and opportunities will usually arrive at a most inconvenient time. Innovations are messy, unpredictable, and untimely.
4. I love budgets. I hope all my competitors have them. . .When an unforeseen opportunity appears, there will almost certainly be no resources available to pursue it.
5. This is my favorite, called "The Lithuanian Patent":
You’re presenting your idea to senior management. They bring in their most experienced engineer and longest term employee. He is, without question, very bright.
During your presentation, he says that he really loves what we have done. It’s very “clever.”
But he points out a problem. . .He believes your work might be in conflict with a patent by an inventor. . .from Lithuania, he thinks. Heads nod. Managers mumble. This might just be the ticket to avoid making a decision!
Every big company seems to have the one fellow, usually older, exceedingly bright, and often with underdeveloped social skills, that just seems to be there to kill ideas that spill over the corporate razor wire fence. . .
Be prepared for other popular idea-blockers:
I’m pretty sure XYZ company is working on the same thing.
You’ll never get this approved by the regulatory organizations.
It’s against the law to do that in New Jersey.
This won’t work because of something we’re working on “in the lab,” but I cannot tell you what it is.
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