3. “What does he
mean we’re the
whiskiest pair in
Fjord? Is it good for
business?”
4. We’re in a
good state
It’s never been as
quick
It’s never been
cheaper
“ “
It’s never been
practiced more
Customers have
never desired it as
much
“ “
Innovation
consultancies have
never been more
plentiful
It’s never been
easier
“ “
12. Hi, I’m Elon.
This week I sold $14BN
orders for a
revolutionary new car
and successfully landed
a rocket on a floating
drone ship.
Enjoy your afternoon.
20. What we
are…
Hearing
Seeing
Feeling
Our IT guys won’t
support it
Our board is not
willing to disrupt
“ “
Speed of change is
our challenge
We can’t see
anything big
enough
“ “
Our compliance
department won’t
allow it
No one else is
doing it…
“ “
22. What we
are…
Hearing
Seeing
Feeling
The world has been
sold a formula
Organisations
antibodies are
very strong
“ “
There’s a lot of old
men who are trying
to look cool
It’s all product and
no people
“ “
23. We all know how
successful
innovations end.
Innovation (a definition)
Celebrity white men doing (epic)
technology shit in the US West
Coast.
You?
26. Are we honest
and open where
we’re
comfortable
playing?
UNGLAMOUROUSGLAMOUROUS
EXCLUSIVE INCLUSIVE
R & D
Labs
Employee
Inbox
Hackathons
Market Leaders
“Disruptors”
28. If technology is in
our hands
and we are putting
design at the
heart…
we need to put
innovation in the
head
29. Innovation is
in the head?
It’s not skills based It’s not a capability
It doesn’t require
specialist
knowledge
It doesn’t require
authority
It doesn’t require
huge expenditure
It takes confidence
& simplicity
“ “
“ “
“ “
32. Adding additional
styles later, never
losing the movement
TRANSFORMATIONAL
Vision / Dream
TRANSACTIONAL
Process / Do
Leadership
CREATE A MOVEMENT
Management
CREATE A PROCESS
We’re not sure it’s about the drink or the fear of creativity, but both are good for innovation so lets roll with it.
This is the state of innovation
It’s never been easier to be an innovator than these days…
You just need an idea, some designers, coders, some tech, someone to operate it.
The Innovation discourse in the market is not different than a Men’s Health cover:
Short-cuts from celebrity white men showing how easy and glamorous is to get an innovation six-pack.
But we’re in a strange state
This is Ianus, the Roman God of transitions. He looks to the past and to the future.
This is the State of Innovation. A transitional moment when we are trying to make sense about where we are and where are we going.
Not only are we looking backwards and forwards, we’re having to do it in 4 dimensions.
Creativity is flowing, we’re learning about the small steps path to confidence
We started with Design Thinking, we following by doing and learning and then we saw that organisations begin to change and ask for more change…
And we’re dealing with a huge stretch in cultures.
Business guys using creative people to show they are new and cool…
With the future throwing things back at us whenever it feels like it
Artificial Intelligence, Chatbots, Blockchain, Platforms, Free Energy, Value Change…
But the rich kids of innovation aren’t failing
Everyone is showing their perfect innovation life on Instagram.
And this guy… (again)
During a ritual's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold" between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the ritual establishes.
In anthropology, liminality is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. During a ritual's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold"[2] between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the ritual establishes.
Maybe, this quest for a transformation, for purpose, healthy lifestyle, looking cool, and flirting with younger generations (millennials)… is nothing more than a midlife crisis of a generation of corporate executives…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midlife_crisis
A midlife crisis is a transition of identity and self-confidence that can occur in middle aged individuals, typically 45–64 years old.[1][2][3][4] The pheonomenon is described as a psychological crisis brought about by events that highlight a person's growing age, inevitable mortality, and possibly shortcomings of accomplishments in life. This may produce feelings of depression, remorse, and anxiety, or the desire to achieve youthfulness or make drastic changes to current lifestyle.
A midlife crisis can happen when men think they've reached life's halfway stage and feel time is running out.
Individuals experiencing a mid-life crisis may feel:[12]
• a deep sense of remorse for goals not accomplished
• a fear of humiliation among more successful colleagues
• longing to achieve a feeling of youthfulness
• need to spend more time alone or with certain peers
• a heightened sense of their sexuality or lack thereof
• ennui, confusion, resentment or anger due to their discontent with their marital, work, health, economic, or social status
• ambitious to right the missteps they feel they have taken early in life[13]
https://www.powerofpositivity.com/10-signs-midlife-crisis/
Human driven rise and fall of complex organisms, like the Fall of the Roman Empire… (well… it wasn’t so dramatic)
The drama feels similar though
This beats Olof’s story of cave paintings.
Innovation is the problem
We should really rename this talk the complexity of new value.
Innovation is too simple, it glosses over the complexity and gravity of the situation, it also makes it into a thing, that can be fixed outside of the core business
Everybody wants to be innovative until they realise what it takes and then few have the stomach to make the tough decisions to execute.
If we don’t go mad, freak out and run away, we end up with a huge complex
The fear of the crazy, the need to embrace it.
The best ideas are crazy at first
Sometimes you need a buffoon to tell the truth and break the ice.
Somebody capable to tell the uncomfortable messages to the King without being killed
The way most companies work today, is not too different to the spreadsheet that drives our businesses.
Today, each of these people have become an Excel Cell.
This is pretty much how companies really work, even if they have one of those new innovation hubs with coloured bean bags
Because at the moment this is all we hear:
That they can’t change that fast, they are tied up with their legacy
We hear in more that one multinational a C-Level executive say ‘“when this comes over the wall I’m going to kill it”
The some industries are telling us they have had record sales… so why do they need to innovate?
And our favourite: “no one else is doing it” but isn't that what innovation is!?
Tech led innovation generally loses sight of the customer need and most trends don’t last.
Just thinking of financials can skew your choices early on….
Dismissing all of it as a failure can mask what was really the problem, but it also doesn’t show how close you might have been.
Predefined formulas have created commoditisation. Everyone has an Innovation Lab now. We all have apps, chatbots, kiosks, speech services… - giving middle managers blind innovation targets can be catastrophic to simplicity These are the risks of recipe based innovation
Antibodies are stronger than we thought, even to change to customer focus
We’re trying too hard to be cool and innovative that we lose our authentic selves – we’ve lost our unique purpose.
People – we seem companies compiling huge databases of prioritised products and features, but we’ve never seen a list of priority people or teams.
And we seem to be doing the wrong way round.
We all know how successful innovations end.
But we don’t know their unglamorous birth
This is a Tweet of Travis Kalanick, Uber founder begging for users on Twitter…
How unglamorous! Could you imagine that now?
https://www.recode.net/2017/8/23/16189048/uber-pitch-deck-2008-ubercab-travis-kalanick-founder-startup
https://cdn0.tnwcdn.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/06/tumblr_l1ywqfYEKS1qzvttao1_500.jpg
http://www.appideaawards.com/events/2016/3/17/ateoj18qu3jgdgtyfl2wcmsz9b5fkd
https://www.recode.net/2017/8/23/16189048/uber-pitch-deck-2008-ubercab-travis-kalanick-founder-startup
What does Uber mean= Is not anything about Nazis?
http://gizmodo.com/ubers-old-youtube-channel-is-awkward-involves-nazis-1794593214
Potential is being stopped when numbers get a bit difficult.
Are we honest and open where we’re comfortable playing?
HOW COMMITTED Soft and glamorous (talk) or Hard and Unglamorous (do, launch & repeat)
WHO DOES IT Exclusive or Inclusive
WHERE HAPPENSCustomer, External or Internal
It’s all about people, in human organisms.
If we’re putting Technology in our Hands
…and Design at the Heart
…we need to put Innovation in the Head
Monzo
It’s not skills based
It’s not a capability
It doesn’t require specialist knowledge
It’s about attitude
Rebellions are very inefficient. Many rebellions fail because there is no plan when you get to power.
We need to harness rebels and activate followers to create movements
Leaders of movements, understand it’s about the followers, not about them
It’s more important to focus on the followers: Authority doesn´t work.
Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world, unreasonable people adapt the world to them. We need a change in leadership to unreasonable movement makers. Any innovation implies a threat to a Status Quo. There will be winners and losers.
Rebellions are very inefficient. Many rebellions fail because there is no plan when you get to power.
We need to harness rebels and activate followers to create movements
Leaders of movements, understand it’s about the followers, not about them
It’s more important to focus on the followers: Authority doesn´t work.
Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world, unreasonable people adapt the world to them. We need a change in leadership to unreasonable movement makers. Any innovation implies a threat to a Status Quo. There will be winners and losers.
We need to combine different types of leadership that mix vision, (dreaming) and execution (doing).
Keep dreaming awake… so we are not converted into machines.
Be a visionary and shout or conspire…
Valmont (seduces to control and exploit others, manipulates current regimes) - We could be secretly rebelious, waiting for the breakthrough – a lot of startup founders and intrapeneurs are like this too.
MLK (truth, inspired with a vision, told vivid stories, persevered, adopted a servant mindset, inclusive) - We could create movements
A few predictions, no, a few hopes for the future of innovation.
Innovation becomes people, not product or tech led.
Throwing technology at problems without understanding people make things worse.
There is a rediscovery of purpose.
We start questioning why are we innovating and find a purpose that propel us through all the process?
We see a resurgence in quality, craft & ownership.
People want to feel proud of what they.
Customers want to feel taken care of.
And simplicity, as their design thinking evolves into structured thinking.
And simplicity, as their design thinking evolves into structured thinking.
We see the first Chief Story-Telling officer sharing stories inside and outside the organisation.
Organisations gain venture confidence:
Bold decision making
Perserverance
Unglamourous starts
Organisations gain venture confidence:
Amazon has stuck with 3 big ideas for 18 years: customer first, invent & be patient
Then we could change our talk next year to ….
How confidence humanised venturing
The challenge is down to you