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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of February 2023

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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of February 2023Drum roll please…

At the beginning of each month, we will profile the ten articles from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Human-Centered Change & Innovation. Did your favorite make the cut?

But enough delay, here are February’s ten most popular innovation posts:

  1. Latest Innovation Management Research Revealed — by Braden Kelley

  2. Apple Watch Must Die (At least temporarily, because it’s proven bad for innovation) — by Braden Kelley

  3. Unlock Hundreds of Ideas by Doing This One Thing (Inspired by Hollywood) — by Robyn Bolton

  4. Using Limits to Become Limitless — by Rachel Audige

  5. Kickstarting Change and Innovation in Uncertain Times — by Janet Sernack

  6. Five Challenges All Teams Face — by David Burkus

  7. A Guide to Harnessing the Power of Foresight (Unlock Your Company’s Full Potential) — by Teresa Spangler

  8. Creating Great Change, Transformation and Innovation Teams — by Stefan Lindegaard

  9. The Ultimate Guide to the Phase-Gate Process — by Dainora Jociute

  10. Delivering Innovation (How the History of Mail Order Can Help Us Manage Innovation at Scale) — by John Bessant

BONUS – Here are five more strong articles published in January that continue to resonate with people:

If you’re not familiar with Human-Centered Change & Innovation, we publish 4-7 new articles every week built around innovation and transformation insights from our roster of contributing authors and ad hoc submissions from community members. Get the articles right in your Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin feeds too!

Have something to contribute?

Human-Centered Change & Innovation is open to contributions from any and all innovation and transformation professionals out there (practitioners, professors, researchers, consultants, authors, etc.) who have valuable human-centered change and innovation insights to share with everyone for the greater good. If you’d like to contribute, please contact me.

P.S. Here are our Top 40 Innovation Bloggers lists from the last three years:

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How to Turn Customers into Superfans

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How to Turn Customers into Superfans

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

What do Apple, Zappos, and Chick-fil-A have in common? They are considered “rockstar” brands. Their loyal customers—and they have many—keep coming back and evangelizing these brands, singing their praises to the world. The customers are also willing to defend their favorite brand should someone say something negative about it.

There is a word to describe these types of customers. They are fans, and more specifically, they are superfans. Brittany Hodak may be the foremost expert on the concept of creating superfans in business. In her recently published book, Creating Superfans: How to Turn Your Customers Into Lifelong Advocates, she defines a superfan as “a customer or stakeholder who is so delighted by their experience with a brand, product or service that they become an enthusiastic advocate.”

Hodak’s mantra is:

If your customers aren’t telling their friends about you, you’re in trouble.

So, how do you get your customers to come back, defend your reputation, and spread compliments about you? Follow Hodak’s SUPER model. The word SUPER is an acronym. To whet your appetite for this important literary contribution to the world of customer experience, I’ll share what each letter of the acronym means, followed by my commentary. Some of this is my own interpretation of Hodak’s model, but you will get the idea. So, here is Brittany Hodak’s SUPER model:

  • S – Start With Your Story: Sharing your “story” is powerful. Just make sure it’s the story that will get your customer excited about doing business with you. How should it start? Ask yourself, “Why does a customer want to do business with us (instead of our competition)?” Responses that are truly different will be important to the story. Hodak says, “Your story is your superpower.”

  • U – Understand Your Customer’s Story: Why do customers need you? The answer is their story, and when their story intersects with yours, you have the opportunity to do business, grow the relationship and create a superfan.

  • P – Personalize: The concept of personalizing the experience is a hot topic. Using data about the customer (in the right way) will create a connection. Abuse the data, and the customer will disassociate from you. Hodak uses Chewy, the online pet food, and supply retailer. The company not only know its customers’ buying habits but also often knows their pets’ names—and they use that information to create a better relationship and emotional connection with the customers. This is an excellent example of personalization.

  • E – Exceed Expectations: People often think exceeding expectations is difficult. The reason is because they confuse exceeding expectations with going above and beyond. There are opportunities to do that in special situations, but most of the time, you just need to be a little better than expected. Even the slightest bit better. When you’re at a restaurant, and you are told the wait will be ten minutes, but your name is called in eight minutes, that’s an example of exceeding expectations by being slightly better than expected. The key is to do this consistently. You want your customers to use the word always followed by something positive, such as, “They are always helpful,” to describe their experience with you.

  • R – Repeat: I love the idea of repeat. Create the system with an outcome that drives a positive customer experience every time. The key word here is system. A system can be scaled and is repeatable. It is consistent, and customers love consistency. If the initial experience was good, the next time they come back, they want more of the same. When it happens again and again, the customer “owns” the experience. They can count on it happening. Their confidence about the experience is so high they not only come back, but they also tell others. Creating superfans is an everyday, never-ending effort. Do what works again and again.

Okay, I admit it. I’m a Brittany Hodak superfan. I fall under the category of evangelizing her brand, and recommending her to clients, and now I’m writing about her book. I’m a perfect example of one of the ways Hodak describes a superfan, which is a great way to wrap up this article:

Superfans are customers who create more customers!

This article was originally published on Forbes.com.

Image Credit: Shep Hyken

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Is Now the Time to Finally End Our Culture of Disposability?

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Is Now the Time to Finally End Our Culture of Disposability?Quality used to mean something to companies.

A century ago, when people parted with their hard-earned money to buy something, they expected it to last one or more lifetimes.

Durability was a key design criteria.

But, as the stock market became more central to the American psyche and to executive compensation, the quality of available products and services began to decline in the name of profits above all else.

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Ford Quality is job oneThere was a temporary consumer revolt decades ago that resulted in companies pretending that quality was more important than profits, but it didn’t last long. In the end, Americans accepted the decline in quality as outsourcing and globalization led to declining prices (and of course higher profits) and fewer goods carrying the “Made in the USA” label, quickly replaced by Japan, China, Mexico, Vietnam, Bangladesh and the rest.

An Inconvenient TruthAround the turn of the century we had the birth of the Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C) movement followed a few years later by Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Perhaps people were beginning to wake up to the fact that our planet’s resources are not infinite and our culture of disposability was catching up to us.

But these movements failed to maintain their momentum and the tidal wave of stores stocking disposable goods continued unabated – dollar stores and party stores spread across the country like a virus. States like New York began shipping their garbage across borders as their landfills reached capacity. Unsold goods began being dumped on the African continent and elsewhere (think about all those t-shirts printed up for the team that didn’t end up winning the Super Bowl).

Is now the time for the winds to shift yet again in favor of quality and sustainability after decades of disposability?

Will more companies better embrace sustainability like Patagonia is attempting to do?

People have been complaining for years about the high cost to repair Apple products and the increasing difficulty of executing these repairs oneself. Recently Apple was FORCED by shareholder activists to allow people to repair their iPhones. Here is their press release that tries to put a positive spin on what they were pressured into doing.

This is the moment for shareholder activists and governments around the world to force companies to design for repairability, reuse and a true accounting of the costs of their products and services inflict upon the populace and the planet. The European Union and Mexico are working together towards this not just because the planet needs this, but because The Circular Economy Creates New Business Opportunities.

Meanwhile, Toyota recently announced that starting this year (2022) in Japan that they will retrofit late-model cars with new technology if the customer desires it. The company aims to let motorists benefit from new technology without having to buy a new car. The LoraxToyota calls this “uppgrading” and defines it as retrofitting safety and convenience functions, like blind spot monitoring, emergency braking assist, rear cross-traffic alert, and the addition of a hands-free tailgate or trunk lid. Remodeling will also be an option and will include replacing worn or damaged parts inside and out, such as the upholstery, the seat cushions, and the steering wheel.

Are these two companies voluntary and involuntary actions the beginning of a trend – finally?

Or will the culture of disposability continue unabated until our natural resources are exhausted?

Do we truly live in the land of the Lorax?

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons, OldHouseOnline

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Why Change Must Be Built on Common Ground

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Why Change Must Be Built on Common Ground

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, one of the first things he did was develop a marketing campaign to rebrand the ailing enterprise. Leveraging IBM’s long running “Think” campaign, Apple urged its customers to “Think Different.” The TV spots began, “Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes…”

Yet Jobs actual product strategy did exactly the opposite. While other technology companies jammed as many features into their products as they could to impress the techies and the digerati, Jobs focused on making his products so ridiculously easy to use that they were accessible to everyone. Apple became the brand people would buy for their mothers.

The truth is that while people like the idea of being different, real change is always built on common ground. Differentiation builds devotion among adherents, but to bring new people in, you need to make an idea accessible and that means focusing on values that you share with outsiders, rather than those that stir the passions of insiders. That’s how you win.

Overcoming the Desire to Be Different

Apple’s ad campaign was effective because we are tribal in nature. Setting your idea apart is a great way to unlock tribal fervor among devotees, but it also sends a strong signal to others that they don’t belong. For example, for decades LGBTQ activists celebrated their difference with “Gay Pride,” which made gay people feel better, but didn’t resonate with others.

It’s not much different in the corporate world. Those who want to promote Agile development love to tout the Agile Manifesto and its customer focused ethos. It’s what they love about the Agile methodology. Yet for those outside the Agile community, it can seem more than a bit weird. They don’t want to join a cult, they just want to get their job done.

So, the first step to driving change forward is to make the shift from differentiating values, which make ardent fans passionate about an idea, to shared values, which invite people in. That doesn’t mean you’re abandoning your core values any more than making products accessible meant that Apple had to skimp on capability. But it does create an entry point.

This is a surprisingly hard shift to make, but you won’t be able to move forward until you do.

Identifying and Leveraging Your Opposition

Make no mistake. Change fails because people want it to fail. Any change that is important, that has the potential for real impact, will inspire fierce resistance. Some people will simply hate the idea and will try to undermine your efforts in ways that are dishonest, deceptive and underhanded. That is the chief design constraint of any significant change effort.

So, you’re going to want to identify your most active opposition because you want to know where the attacks are going to be coming from. However, you don’t want to directly engage with these people because it is unlikely to be an honest conversation. Most likely, it will devolve into something that just bogs you down and drains you emotionally.

However, you can listen. People who hate your idea are, in large part, trying to persuade many of the same people you are. Listening to which arguments they find effective can help unlock shared values and that’s what holds the key to truly transformational change. But most importantly, they can help you define shared values.

So, while your main focus should be on empowering those who are excited about change, you should pay attention to your most vocal opposition. In fact, with some effort, you can learn to love your haters. They can point out early flaws. Also, as you begin to gain traction they will often lash out and overreach, undermine themselves and and end up sending people your way.

Defining Shared Values

Your most active opposition, the people who hate your idea and want to undermine it, have essentially the same task that you do. They want to move people who are passive or neutral to support their position and will design their communication efforts to achieve that objective. If you listen carefully though, you can make their efforts work for you.

For example, when faced with President Woodrow Wilson’s opposition to voting rights for women, Alice Paul’s band of Silent Sentinels picketed the White House with phrases lifted from President Wilson’s own book. How could he object, without appearing to be a tremendous hypocrite, to signs that read, “LIBERTY IS A FUNDAMENTAL DEMAND OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT?

In a similar vein, those who opposed LGBTQ rights often did so on the basis of family values and it was, for decades, a very effective strategy. That is, until LGBTQ activists used it against them. After all, shouldn’t those of different sexual orientations be able to live in committed relationships and raise happy and health families? If you believe in the importance of families, how could you not support same sex marriages?

The strategy works just as well in a corporate environment. In our Transformation & Change workshops, we ask executives what those who oppose their idea say about it. From there, we can usually identify the underlying shared value and then leverage it to make our case. Once you identify common ground, it’s much easier to move forward.

Surviving Victory

Steve Jobs, along with his co-founder Steve Wozniak, started Apple to make computers. But if that’s all Apple ever did, it would never have become the world’s most valuable company. What made Jobs the iconic figure he became had nothing to do with any one product, but because he came to represent something more: the fusion of technology and design.

In his autobiography of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson noted that he revolutionized six industries, ranging from music to animated movies, far afield from the computer industry. He was able to do that because he continued to focus on the core values of using technology and design to make products more accessible to ordinary people.

In other words, in every venture he undertook he looked for common ground by asking himself, “how can we make this as easy as possible for those who are not comfortable with technology.” He didn’t merely cater to the differences of his hard core enthusiasts, but constantly looked to bring everybody else in.

Many companies have had hit products, but very few have had the continued success of Apple. In fact, success often breeds failure because it attracts new networks of competitors. Put another way, many entrepreneurs fail to survive victory because they focus on a particular product rather than the shared values that product was based on.

Jobs was different. He was passionate about his products, but his true calling was tapping into basic human desires. In other words, he understood that truly revolutionary change is always built on common ground.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credit: Unsplash

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Can You Be TOO Strategic?

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Can You Be TOO Strategic?

GUEST POST from Howard Tiersky

While the lack of a clear strategy can create problems in any business, there is another end of that spectrum.

Having a strategy means having clarity on what you want to achieve and a plan on how to get there. These are good things, but it’s also possible to be too strategic—too focused on a single goal and plan.

When Being TOO Strategic is a Problem

1. You Have an Ineffective Plan

What if you have a plan for reaching your goal but it doesn’t work? You could be putting all your eggs in one basket.

In some cases, you may be able to determine very quickly if your strategy isn’t working. That’s one of the beauties of digital. For example, with ecommerce, you can try a new email subject line and within a few hours (or even minutes) you can see whether people are responding to it.

There are other strategies, however, that demonstrate their effectiveness over time. A program that is designed to build relationships to drive more long-term customer loyalty is an example of a strategy that you won’t be able to determine the success of overnight.

Regardless of whether your plan can be evaluated quickly, if you put all your eggs in one strategic basket, there’s always the possibility that you’re wrong about the method to achieve your goal.

2. You Set the Wrong Goal

There’s also the possibility that you have either the wrong goal or a goal that’s not optimal.

No matter what group of consumers you choose to target, things can change quickly; it may turn out that you haven’t chosen a good target at all.

For example, think about when COVID-19 first disrupted our world. Consumers’ needs and habits changed because of the pandemic, which caused many companies to adjust their goals because their original goals were no longer going to bring successful outcomes. If you stayed laser focused on the goal of increasing the number of shoppers coming to your store each day amidst the pandemic, you were a little too strategically disciplined.

Even in less extreme cases, there are still situations where leaders fail to see new trends and opportunities for growth.

Blockbuster VideoBlockbuster is a great example of a company that had the wrong goal in mind. They were so hyper focused on putting a video rental store in every neighborhood that they failed to see the potential opportunity in digital streaming services.

Netflix, on the other hand, did an excellent job seeing that opportunity and successfully transformed from the DVD rental by mail service to the popular digital streaming service consumers love today.

There’s always the risk that either you’re pursuing the wrong destination or the wrong means to get there. And what do you do then? You have the opportunity to say, “Maybe I shouldn’t be 100% strategic.”

Often, mistakes and variability promote evolution and growth in a company, so it’s important to determine what percentage of your business should be based on strategy and what percentage should be based on trying new and different things which may not align with the current official strategy.

3. Consider a Balanced Approach

Ideally, find a balance of mostly strategic activities, but carve out some time for non-strategic activity to allow employees to be creative and freely come up with new ideas that just might turn into something great.

An example of a company who does this well and has seen success come out of this strategy is Google. Google offers “20% time,” which allows each employee to spend 20% of their work time on independent projects they feel will benefit Google in the long run without having to justify it to anyone.

This freedom promotes innovation and creativity, making employees feel like their work and input really matters to the company. Many of Google’s widely known products have come out of this non-strategic time, such as Gmail and Google Maps.

Another area of business that often takes a balanced approach to strategy is Research and Development (R&D). R&D teams are typically made up of creative and original thinkers; they may be faced with problems that they’re fascinated by and are trying to solve. It’s not always clear how solving that problem is going to help the company right away, but some of the world’s greatest innovations have come out of R&D departments.

For example, at Bell Labs, the transistor was invented by people who were fascinated by the way materials could be used to control electricity. It wasn’t clear when they were doing that original research exactly how the product would be used; it was much later that the potential was realized for commercial applications such as the microchip

Another example is Steve Jobs in the early days of Apple. When the Apple ][ computer was at its height, it was the main focus of the company and where all the money was coming from. The long term success of the Apple ][ platform was the strategic focus of the company.

At the time, in order to politically sideline him, Jobs was assigned to work on a seemingly non-strategic project, which was the Apple Macintosh, originally intended as a product for the education market. As successful as the Apple ][ was, ultimately, the innovation that came from launching the Macintosh massively eclipsed the Apple ][ and is a key product line to this day. Thank goodness for a non-strategic project.

4. It Might Be Worth It to Pursue a “Moonshot Idea”

It can be beneficial to allow a certain amount of time to work on complete “moonshot ideas”—
ideas that are highly risky but could change the company or the industry as a whole if they’re successful.

While these grand ideas have only proven to be occasionally successful, the payoff can be so huge when they do succeed that they are worth pursuing.

The bottom line is that you want to be good at being strategic, but not get so caught up in being so strategic that you miss out on a great opportunity for growth and success in your company that may not align with your strategy.

Parting Gift

My Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Winning Digital Customers: The Antidote to Irrelevance, contains a blueprint for developing a successful strategy for your company as well as practices to aid in identifying new trends and opportunities to explore. You can download the first chapter for free here or purchase the book here.

Image credits: Pixabay and Unsplash

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Friday Funny – Unexpected Blackberry and Apple Problems

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Thanks to Bettina von Stamm for bringing this comedic gem to my attention:

It does a great job of highlighting how technology companies come along and completely change parts of our common language.

For my non-European friends, Orange is a French mobile telecommunications provider (aka France Telecom).

I hope everyone has a funny Friday and a great weekend!


Accelerate your change and transformation success

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How to Create a Customer-Centric Culture in Your Organization

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How to Create a Customer-Centric Culture in Your Organization

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

In today’s highly competitive business environment, creating a customer-centric culture within your organization is crucial for long-term success. A customer-centric culture ensures that all members of your organization are focused on meeting and exceeding customer expectations, leading to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately, business growth. Here are some strategies and case study examples to help you develop a customer-centric culture in your organization.

1. Empower Your Employees to Act in the Customer’s Best Interest

One of the keys to building a customer-centric culture is empowering your employees to go above and beyond for customers. Zappos, the online shoe and clothing retailer, is a prime example of an organization that prioritizes customer satisfaction. Zappos encourages its employees to spend as much time as needed with customers to ensure they find the perfect product. The company empowers its customer service representatives to act in the customer’s best interest and provide exceptional service, even if it means taking unconventional measures such as locating an item from a competitor’s store. By giving employees the freedom to make decisions that benefit customers, Zappos has cultivated a strong customer-centric culture that sets them apart in the industry.

2. Gather and Act on Customer Feedback

To truly create a customer-centric culture, you need to actively listen to your customers and address their concerns. Apple, renowned for its loyal customer base, exemplifies the importance of leveraging customer feedback. The company collects extensive feedback from its customers through various channels, including surveys, customer support interactions, and product reviews. Apple then uses this feedback to improve its products and services continuously. By actively seeking out customer input and acting upon it, Apple demonstrates a commitment to meeting customer needs and preferences. This customer-centric approach has undoubtedly contributed to their success and brand loyalty.

3. Align Your Organization’s Goals and Values

Creating a customer-centric culture requires aligning your organization’s goals and values with the needs and wants of your customers. Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, exemplifies this alignment by making customer obsession one of their core values. This focus on the customer has driven Amazon to continuously innovate and find ways to make the shopping experience more convenient and personalized. By ensuring that every decision and action within the organization is driven by customer needs, Amazon has successfully ingrained a customer-centric culture into its DNA.

4. Invest in Employee Training and Development

To create a customer-centric culture, it is crucial to invest in training and developing your employees. Ritz-Carlton Hotels is a perfect example of an organization that places a high emphasis on employee training to drive exceptional customer service. The hotel chain is renowned for its personalized and luxurious customer experience, which is made possible by empowering its employees through intensive training and ongoing professional development. Ritz-Carlton provides its employees with the necessary tools, knowledge, and skills to anticipate and fulfill customer needs, ensuring that every interaction leaves a lasting positive impression.

Conclusion

Creating a customer-centric culture is essential for organizations looking to thrive in today’s customer-driven world. By empowering employees, actively seeking and acting on customer feedback, aligning goals and values with customer needs, and investing in employee training, organizations can foster a customer-centric culture that drives long-term success. Drawing insights from successful case studies such as Zappos, Apple, Amazon, and Ritz-Carlton Hotels can provide valuable inspiration and guidance in this journey.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Braden Kelley’s Problem Finding Canvas can be a super useful starting point for doing design thinking or human-centered design.

“The Problem Finding Canvas should help you investigate a handful of areas to explore, choose the one most important to you, extract all of the potential challenges and opportunities and choose one to prioritize.”

Image credit: misterinnovation.com

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The Power of Empathy in Driving Innovation

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The Power of Empathy in Driving Innovation

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

Empathy is a powerful skill that allows individuals to understand and share the feelings of others. While it is often associated with personal relationships and emotional intelligence, empathy also plays a crucial role in driving innovation. By putting themselves in the shoes of their customers, innovators can gain valuable insights and create products and services that truly address their needs and desires. This article explores the impact of empathy in driving innovation through two intriguing case studies.

Case Study 1 – The Airbnb Story

In 2008, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky were two struggling entrepreneurs in San Francisco, struggling to pay their rent. They decided to rent out some space in their apartment and provide a homemade breakfast for guests. To better understand the needs and experiences of their potential customers, the duo decided to step into their shoes.

To gain empathy, Gebbia and Chesky traveled to New York City and rented out their own space using their platform. They lived with the guests, capturing their reactions, preferences, and pain points. This experience turned out to be crucial in shaping Airbnb’s future success.

The empathy-driven insights helped them understand that people craved authentic, unique experiences when traveling. As a result, they shifted their focus from just renting out spaces to creating an entire marketplace for unique and local accommodations. They incorporated features like personal profiles, reviews, and detailed listings to build a sense of trust and connection between hosts and guests.

By putting themselves in the shoes of their customers, Gebbia and Chesky were able to create a platform that revolutionized the way people travel. Today, Airbnb boasts over 7 million listings worldwide and has become a global leader in the hospitality industry.

Case Study 2 – The Apple Story

Apple, under the leadership of Steve Jobs, is renowned for its innovative products that have shaped the technology landscape. One of the key factors contributing to Apple’s success is its ability to empathize with customers and anticipate their needs, even before they realize them.

When developing the iPod, for instance, Apple recognized that ordinary people found existing MP3 players too confusing and cumbersome. To better understand the user experience, the team at Apple conducted extensive research, observed customers, and put themselves in their shoes.

The insights gathered from this empathetic approach led to the creation of a simple and intuitive interface that revolutionized the way people interacted with portable music players. The iPod’s success paved the way for future innovations like the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.

By empathizing with customers and anticipating their desires, Apple has consistently introduced groundbreaking products that transcend consumer expectations, reinvent industries, and propel technological advancements.

Conclusion

These case studies highlight how the power of empathy can drive innovation and shape successful business ventures. By understanding the needs, desires, and pain points of customers through empathy, entrepreneurs can develop products and services that truly resonate with their target audience. Furthermore, empathy encourages a user-centric approach, fueling creativity and unlocking new possibilities for innovation.

In a world that is becoming increasingly interconnected and diverse, empathy is not only an essential skill in personal relationships but also a critical catalyst for driving innovation. As businesses strive to stay competitive and relevant, the power of empathy should not be underestimated. It has the potential to transform industries, disrupt markets, and create products and services that truly make a difference in people’s lives.

Image credit: Pexels

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Are You Lying to Your Customers?

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Are You Lying to Your Customers?

It seems like every company these days is trying to claim that they are innovative, trying to claim that they are customer-centric, trying to claim that their employees are important to them. But are they?

Can all this be true?

Or, are all of these companies lying to their customers, lying to their employees, and lying to their shareholders?

Many companies say that they are committed to innovation, but employees know the truth. If employees’ experience around the innovation efforts of the company (and its outcomes) isn’t consistent with the innovation messages being communicated, then not only will innovation participation and outcomes be low, but ongoing trust and loyalty will be further eroded in the organization.

Employees can see the Lucky Charms on your face when you say you’re committed to innovation publicly, but behind the scenes your actions demonstrate that you really are not.

And don’t be fooled, customers will start to see the Lucky Charms show up on your face, no matter how hard you try and convince them that the marshmallow goodness is not there.

If you aren’t going to define what innovation means to your company, if you aren’t going to create a common language of innovation, if you aren’t going to teach people new innovation skills and support innovation at all levels by making limited amounts of time and capital available to push their ideas forward, then don’t say you’re committed to innovation. You’ll tear the organization down instead of building it up.

Lying to CustomersIf customers don’t see you increasing your level of value creation, improving your level of value access, and doing a better job at value translation (see Innovation is All About Value), especially when compared to the competition, then they too will become disillusioned, frustrated, and start to look for other alternative solutions that deliver more value then all of your offerings.

Meanwhile, shareholders behave like customers on steroids. If you are being rewarded with an innovation premium by the market, you can’t be “all hat and no cattle” for very long, meaning you have to deliver compelling inventions on a repeated basis with a strong potential to become the innovations that drive the future growth of the company. This is hard to do once, let alone on a repeated basis. We will likely see Apple be the latest victim in the next twelve months.

Why? Because AAPL is at an all-time high based on the likely high percentage of people that are likely to upgrade from an iPhone 4 or 5s to an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus. What about after that? Well, the smartphone industry is about to enter the same place that the PC industry hit a few years ago, when replacement cycles began to lengthen, reducing revenues, and forcing prices (and margins) lower. Simultaneously carriers will seek to extract more of the margin from the overall equation, and if Google/Motorola/Lenovo, Nokia and others start to bring $99 smartphones developed for India and other places to the richer economies that will in their next generation likely be “good enough” compared to the high end $699 handsets, more people will choose to wait longer between upgrades, or trade down with their next purchase, much as they did when $400 laptops started to become the rage.

So, what are we to learn from Apple’s pending share price collapse about the middle of next year?

Well, the first thing we will learn is that continuous innovation is hard. Now I’m not saying that Apple is going to go away, HP and Dell haven’t gone away, but Apple’s share price in Q2/Q3 2015 will struggle, they will face employee defections, and it will become more like Dell, HP and Microsoft than Facebook or Google. Not because those companies are any more or less innovative than any of the others, but because the growth paradigms are different and those companies are still in a different place on their growth curves.

We can also learn that continuous innovation requires consistency, commitment, the ability to recognize and prepare for the inevitable peaking of any growth curve, the organizational agility necessary to change as fast as the wants and needs of your customers and your environment, and the ability to understand what your customers will give you permission to do (so you know where to go next when your most profitable growth curve begins to peak).

You should see by now that continuous innovation is about far more than technological innovation, but instead requires not only continuous commitment, but also a continuous willingness and ability to change, and a continuous scanning of your environment using a Global Sensing Network.

Do you have one?

What is yours telling you about your company’s future?

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Apple iPhone 6 Killer App Revealed

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Apple iPhone 6 Killer App RevealedWhile most people are focused on what the new Apple iPhone 6 hardware might look like and what new gizmos it might have, the real killer app for Apple’s latest refresh of their flagship mobile device will be an App and a little tiny NFC chipset.

Rumored for the iPhone 5 (rumors which were heightened by Apple’s acquisition and subsequent inclusion of fingerprint sensor technology), mobile payments may finally be a built-in feature of the Apple’s newest handset, the iPhone 6.

Apple has been reportedly out talking to the likes of Visa, American Express, Nordstrom and others, and if that is all true then expect part of Apple’s Tuesday September 9th announcement to be focused on the new mobile payment capabilities of the iPhone 6.

I was one of those who thought that mobile payments might launch as part of the iPhone 5’s capabilities, but obviously the technology, or more likely the relationships and contracts, were not ready for prime time a year ago.

Will mobile payments authenticated by your fingerprint finally appear in the iPhone 6?

If so, soon we will finally be able to stop carrying around wallets and switch to money clips and mobile phones, as such a feature will not only replace credit cards, but loyalty cards, insurance cards, and more.

Yes, Samsung may have done it first with the Galaxy S5, but you know Apple will do it bigger (and better).

I guess we’ll find out next week.

Image credit: Ricardo Del Toro


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