Creativity Central [Marty Baker]

A Conversation with Saul Kaplan of the Business Innovation Factory

Mention the word Prozac and you’re bound to get a smile from Saul Kaplan.

It has nothing to do with the medicinal effects of the popular drug, but rather Saul’s eight-year tenure with Eli Lily and Company – the makers of Prozac. As a Marketing Plans Manager, Kaplan helped guide the launch strategy and successful introduction of Prozac into the U.S. market in 1987.

These days, Kaplan is marketing a much different product– collaborative innovation. As Founder and Chief Catalyst of the Business Innovation Factory in Providence, Rhode Island, his new mission is to create a non-profit, real-world laboratory for innovators to explore and test new business models and system level solutions in such critical areas health care, education, energy independence and quality of life.

I met Saul last year at BIF, the Business Innovation Factory’s annual Collaborative Innovation Summit. The summit has become the innovation party of the year with a growing national reputation for being more conversation than conference.

In his book “Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration,” Warren Bennis writes a prescient thought “Despite the rhetoric of collaboration, we continue to advocate it in a culture in which people strive to distinguish themselves as individuals.”

One of Kaplan’s favorite terms is “The Unusual Suspects,” an homage to the movie Casablanca. It’s bringing diverse people together to co-mingle ideas and collaborate on ideas. Last week, we talked with Saul about the art of collaboration, innovation, the group versus individuals, and tinkering with business models.

“An active BIF member once suggested that BIF’s t-shirts should proclaim “BIF: The Anti-Silo,” says Kaplan. “I think one of most enduring lessons I learned at Lily in the late 80’s was their “anti-silo” mind set. They encouraged collaboration and executives would change responsibilities to get a more 360⁰ view of the organization.”

“My new passion is about R&D for new business models,” adds Kaplan. “Just exploring your own industry for best practices is limiting.New sources of competitive advantage are far more likely to come from observing and adopting best practices in completely unrelated industries.I believe that leaders should spend more discretionary time outside of their industry, discipline, and sector.”

“Most CEOs today have only had to lead their organizations based on a single business model throughout their careers. The half-life of a company’s business model is getting shorter. Look at business model of Blockbuster, Netflix and newer industry players like Hulu.”

“Many of the companies we have worked with have recognized the value of looking outside of their industry for practices that might provide a source of competitive advantage. Going beyond the limits of your current business model requires a network-enabled capability to do R&D for new business models.

Kaplan adds, “As Clay Christensen famously said, ‘companies don’t disrupt themselves’,” and I think that’s the toughest challenge facing executives. “It is easy to sketch out business model innovation scenarios on the white board. It is far more difficult to take the idea off the white board for a spin in the real world.We need safe and manageable platforms for real world experimentation of new business models and systems. That’s really the heart and focus of our organization.

“Through BIF, organizations have access to a ‘safe haven’ for experimenting with new business models – particularly networked models that cut across organizations, industries, and public and private sector.”

The kudos for BIF keep on coming. Recently, Mashable (one of top ten blogs in the world) named  the BIF conference among the nation's best places to connect with great minds

Over the past few years, Kaplan and BIF have walked the talk, collaborating across silos and the public and private sectors to explore new solutions for health care. Partnering with Tockwotton Home, Quality Partners of Rhode Island and MIT AgeLab, the Nursing Home of the Future Project is a real-world laboratory for developing and testing new solutions, products and models for improving elderly care.

http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/nhf/

And now this year, BIF and a wide range of collaborators are taking on the two other big elephants  in the room– energy and education.

“You really have to have very thick skin to span silos and foster collaboration.” Kaplan continues “Everyone loves the idea of innovation until it impacts them. I used to think that we could create more innovators by teaching but that doesn’t get past the buzzwords and what passes for innovation in many companies.”

“I now believe in exploring the world to identify the innovators across every imaginable discipline, then finding ways to connect them in purposeful ways.”

I asked Saul about “innovation fatigue – the proliferation of innovation articles over the past few years. “I’ve spent a lot of my career proselytizing about innovation and value of collaboration, but I think that many companies internalize it to mean that everyone has to be innovative, says Kaplan.

“Like virtually everything in business, some people are better at it than others. I believe there are some individuals that are simply hot-wired for innovation. The models that appear to work best are a mix of a core team focused on innovation with open collaboration with both internal and external resources.”

I asked Saul a parting question. What about the transformation of his own business model? “We all know the story about the cobbler's shoes. If BIF is about business model and system innovation we must commit ourselves to ongoing experimentation and change. Our model is changing in two visible ways right now:

 1) The "DO" part of our operating model is taking shape. BIF's experience labs are where the action is. Our Elder and Student Experience labs are up and running and bringing our innovation network together in purposeful ways.

2) The "Connect" part of BIF's operating model is also coming together. We are taking an open innovation approach to both capability building and experiments in BIF's Experience Labs.

If none of us is as smart as all of us, Saul Kaplan has rounded up the unusual suspects to evolve  a new model for collaboration.  

http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/

 

 

 

"Poor leadership in good times can be hidden. But poor leadership in bad times is a recipe for disaster." These prescient words (and warnings) are from Jack Zenger and Joesph Folkman, the CEO and President of a Zenger/Folkman, leadership development consultancy.

Poor leadership appears to be an epidemic.  

But every epidemic comes with a long line of saviors. Wizened professionals with advice, antidotes, and cures.  Much like the cosmetic aisle at your local pharmacy, they sell formulas and hope. And somehow, people keep on coming back for a better product.

So why do we continue to mass produce bad leaders?

In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review (June 2009), Zenger and Folkman have some answers. They share the results of their research into the fatal flaws that derail leaders.  They collected feedback data on more than 450 Fortune 500 executives and compared the common characteristics of the 31 that were fired over the following three years.  They also analyzed 360 degree-feedback data from more than 11,000 leaders and identified the 10% who were considered the least effective.

Here are their 10 most common leadership shortcomings:

Don't learn from mistakes.  They don't make more mistakes than their peers but they fail to use setbacks as opportunities for improvement.  Their MO? Hiding errors and brooding or blaming others instead.

Resist new ideas.  They reject new suggestions from peers and subordinates.  Good ideas are not implemented or are put on a slow track and the organization gets stuck.

Accept their own mediocre performance.  They overstate the difficulty of reaching targets so they will look good when they achieve them.

Fail to develop others.  They focus on themselves to the exclusion of developing staff --  causing individuals and teams to disengage. 

Lack interpersonal skills.  They make sins of commission (they are abrasive and bullying) and omission (they're aloof, unavailable, and reluctant to praise).

Have poor judgement.  They made decisions that colleagues and subordinates consider to be not in the best interest of the organization.

Don't walk the talk.  They set standards of behavior and expectations of performance and then violate them.

Lack clear vision and direction.  They believe their only job is to execute.  Like a hiker who sticks close to the trail, they're fine until they come to a fork.

Don't collaborate.  They avoid peers, act independently, and view other leaders as competitors.  As a result, they are alienating the very people whose insights and support they need.

Lack energy and enthusiasm.  They see new initiatives as a burden, rarely volunteer, and fear being overwhelmed.

These sound like obvious flaws that any leader would try to fix, right? No. Zenger and Folkman discovered that the ineffective leaders they studied, were often unaware that they exhibited these behaviors.  In fact, the leaders who were rated most negatively rated themselves most positively.

You could stick all the above flaws on the office bulletin board and they wouldn't recognize themselves.

So please, stick this blog entry on the office bulletin board.  The message might not resonate with the person at the top, but it will be a soothing balm to the rest of the organization.  

 

 

Last year, I wrote a entry called Innovation for the Rest of Us. http://creativitycentral.squarespace.com/creativity-central/2008/6/25/innovation-for-the-rest-of-us.html I recently found Charles Leadbeater's Talk on TED about collaborative creativity. I like his insights. His theories on innovation have compelled some of the world’s largest organizations to rethink their strategies. A financial journalist turned innovation consultant, Leadbeater noticed the rise of "pro-ams" -- passionate amateurs who act like professionals, making breakthrough discoveries in many fields, from software to astronomy to kite-surfing.

Ah, the box.

Over the past thirty years, management and creative consultants want you to think out of it.

Much like the light bulb metaphor, it’s an idea that has become so clichéd, it has become the creative equivalent of a dial tone.

The origin of the phrase is a bit murky. One writer found a citation in 1975 in Aviation Week & Space Technology. “ We must step back and see if the solutions to our problems lie outside the box."

I first learned the phrase in 1974 when a professor at Rutgers gave us the 9-dots puzzle. The puzzle itself has become a cliché because nearly every book on creativity uses it to illustrate the invisible boundaries that most of us assume are there.

(The challenge is to connect the dots by drawing four straight, continuous lines that pass through each of the dots while never lifting the pencil or pen from the paper.)

The solution was (and still is for some people) a jarring revelation. The puzzle shows just how unconsciously our thinking is filled with boundaries.

Now a few words from the other side.

The Antonym Lens. Ernie Schenk, the great creative director and writer, has written a terrific book called The Houdini Solution. Put Creativity and Innovation to Work by Thinking Inside the Box. He opens with a quotation from Michelangelo, “Art lives on constraint and dies of freedom.”

His technique, “The Antonym Lens” is about looking at the opposite of an idea and using that opposite as a catalyst for ideas. So his book is really his use of the technique to make the “box” or the imposed constraints of a creative challenge.

There are budget boxes. There are media boxes. There are brand boxes. (A company like Disney can be innovative in many ways, but the brand is always family friendly.) There are client boxes. (Some are risk takers and some are conservative). And, of course, there is a boss box.

Okay, so what?

Truth is, our mind is not in the box. The box is in our mind.

I learned this lesson from another great creative director, Nick Souter.

What companies like Inotivity, Solution People and Seriously Creative in Puerto Rico do -- is to help you identify both conscious and unconscious barriers (boxes) to developing new ideas or solutions to problems.

I don’t think you can really think out of the box, unless you create a model of what that box looks like for you or your company. 

Take a mental picture of this box? What does it look like? Feel like? Does it have dimension? Is it a box or a sphere? Nick sees the box as 6-sided – each side a common barrier to creative thinking.

Fear. Knowledge. Habit. Rules. Assumption. And Complacency.

Challenge: Get a notebook, label it “our box” and start drawing your box. (Not all boxes are bad, but some may be limiting your success.)

If you email me at Inotivity@gmail.com I will send you a free question bank to help you define your box.

Notes and annotations.

A case lesson: Blockbuster.

 Is the video giant doomed to go the way of Circuit City or Linen’s and Things?

Massive layoffs are in the cards at Blockbuster as revenue slid nearly 6% in the 3^rd quarter and 526 stores have been closed last year. Growing consumer familiarity with Netflix and its streaming films have proven to much for the video store icon. CEO Jim Keyes has admitted that the focus on Netflix has damaged the company.

"While we believe that...we will be in a position to close on the amended credit facility on or about May 11, 2009, there can be no assurance regarding these matters," the filing said. "The risk that we may not successfully complete this refinancing...raises substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern." Report by Gina Keating. © Thomson Reuters 2009.

The reasons for Blockbuster’s downfall are many but one was a failure of imagination. They didn’t understand their box. They were committed to brick and mortar buildings and an in-store rental model. 

Then came Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph, both veteran new technology entrepreneurs, with an idea called Netflix. The company would rent and sell DVDs over the Internet. Hastings, who supplied the firm's startup cash of $2.5 million, had reportedly hit upon the idea for rental-by-mail when he was forced to pay $40 in fines after returning an overdue videotape of the film Apollo 13.

The question that a creative consultant would ask isn’t how might be rent or sell more videos in store? But in what other ways might we deliver videos/or DVDs to our customers?

A simple rewording of the question. But imagine the possibilities. Blockbuster’s box was a commitment to their current prevailing business model, but not to the future or distruptive technology like broadband or even the US mail. Now Netflix has to define and imagine beyond their box.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two days ago, the Boston Globe's lead article was "Green Line collision injures 49. Officials say trolley driver was sending text message."

The trolley operator was not named but he was described as 24 years-old and had been on the job 22 months.

The irony was that I was writing an article about the perils of multi-tasking when I read about the incident.

The accident was reminiscent of the story of Captain Robert Loft, the pilot of Eastern Airlines Flight 104. 99 people were killed when the plane crashed into the Everglades. An investigation into the accident revealed that Captain Loft and the first officer were trying to discover why a lightbulb that should have indicated that the landing gear was down was malfunctioning. The crew was so attentive to the light bulb, they forgot that no one was flying the airplane.

Like the iconic message on the cigaratte pack, there should be a warning in all offices and homes, "Multi-tasking could be dangerous to your health and sanity."

Study after study shows that the gains we make by multi-tasking are often illusory. That’s because the brain slows down when it has to juggle tasks. Workplace studies have found that it takes up to 15 minutes for us to regain a deep state of concentration after a distraction such as a phone call.

And the contents of our working memory evaporate almost immediately. After about 2 seconds, things begin to disappear. And after 15 seconds of considering a new problem, we will have forgotten the original problem. In some cases the forgetting rate can be as high as 40%.

While multi-tasking may seem to be saving time, psychologists, neuroscientists and others are finding that it puts us under a great deal of stress and actually make us less efficient.

Edward M. Hallowell, a psychiatrist and author of CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap says, “Multi-tasking is shifting focus from one task to another in rapid succession. It gives the illusion that we’re simultaneously tasking, but we’re really not. It’s like playing tennis with three balls.”

You can Google all these studies, but common sense does not always translate into common practice.  The ability to "multi-task" is regarded as skill set.  Employers put it their job descriptions.  The perils and myths of multi-tasking do not have any traction in the transcendent busyness of our lives.

Dr. Hallowell has a nice exclamation point for this story, "As our minds fill with noise -- feckless synaptic events signifying nothing -- the brain gradually loses its capacity to attend fully and gradually to anything. Desperately trying to keep up with a multitude of jobs, we feel a constant low level of panic and guilt."

I don't feel panic or guilt, but I do feel a creeping sense that a day's work has been reduced to an hour of true productivity.

It is sad that not even the death of 99 passengers on flight 104 or the injury of 49 people on the MBTA Green Line will make a dent in the pervasiveness of multi-tasking.   So, let us try to make a habit of smart single tasking -- especially when the lives of others are in our hands.

Post Script:

You can read the story of flight 104 by Luisa Yanez in http://tinyurl.com/qh9kox.

 

Great short video on crowd sourcing with Jeff Howe.

 

Opportunity used to knock. Now it’s visualized.

 

Above. Nursing Home of the Future Opportunity Map from Business Innovation Factory.

The classic opportunity map story comes from Herb Kelleher’s infamous napkin sketch. When he was brainstorming about how to beat the traditional hub-and-spoke-airlines, he grabbed a napkin and pen. Three dots represented Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. Three arrows to show direct flights. The simple sketch made it easy to sell Southwest Airlines to investors and customers.

In a recent BusinessWeek article on opportunity maps, Alonzo Canada, a principal at Jump Associates talked about a corporate retreat for Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers – a venture capital company with offices in Menlo Park and China. “Partner Bill Joy presented what he called "the map of grand challenges." This chart of multicolored squares tracked the progress of the venerable venture capital firm in identifying and investing in key categories of green technologies, including transportation, energy efficiency, electricity generation, energy storage, and more.

Joy also left blank spots on this chart that hinted at technologies that should be possible in the near future. For Kleiner Perkins, this map has come to represent a rough outline of tomorrow's clean energy economy. The firm now uses it as its investment playbook to help identify promising startups and stimulate universities and laboratories to create technologies that don't exist yet. “

Canada talks about how Nike used a similar approach at the start of the decade. Their Explore team was given challenge of helping Nike become a sports company. The team met the challenge by creating a map to identify the richest opportunities, define a strategy for growth, and set first steps toward a future vision. The map helped the team see product beyond shoes, such as sunglasses, watches, MP3 players, and sports apparel. The data on their map included consumer needs, societal and technology trends, and Nike's chief competitors, Adidas, Puma, and Reebok

When I was at last year’s Business Innovation Factory Conference, Matt Cottam, a team member of Nursing Home of the Future presented a variety of opportunity maps – visual launching pads for innovation.

The idea for visualizing business concepts isn’t new. But every few years, it gets reinvented and rebranded so that it has the patina of an innovation. Like A SWOT matrix it goes beyond words to create a portrait of relationships and connections that enable the viewer to see beyond words.

At Solution People in Chicago, Gerald Haman will often bring in an artist to visualize the ideation sessions. I do the same at my company when there’s a need to synthesize lots of diverse information or design is a key driver for the meeting.Companies should make opportunity maps a critical part of their planning process.

Even if all you have is a napkin.

Check out BIF's opportunity and experience maps @

http://tinyurl.com/dyj3qv

http://tinyurl.com/92f2c8

 

 

 

Maps Courtesy of BIF. Business Innovation Factory, Providence RI