How to Bring Strategic Change to Your Business - Thinking in New Boxes

The ability to survive in a world of accelerating change and challenge calls for ever greater creativity in our thinking. But to become more creative, we need to understand how our minds work. Once we do, we will recognize that we must do more than simply “think outside the box,” as the traditional business manuals suggest. We need to “think in new boxes.” In this way, business leaders can marshal their companies’ creativity and give them a real competitive advantage.

We Cannot Think Without Models

We constantly simplify things in order to make sense of the world around us. Take three examples:

• How many colors are there in a rainbow? You will probably say seven. But why seven, when there are actually thousands? The fact is that thousands is not a manageable figure—so we are forced to simplify, and seven is what we have been taught. 

• How many columns are at the front of the Parthenon? You are probably hesitating and might say anywhere from five to ten. Actually, there are eight. But to have an image of the Parthenon in your mind’s eye requires only that you have a general grasp of the details. 

• How many grains of sand does it take to make a pile? More than a few, obviously. But there is no exact answer because a pile is, by definition, an approximation: we do not need to know the precise number.

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In the business world, we also simplify. Take three more examples: market segments are conceptual categories and do not add up to the same thing as the market itself; balance sheets are models based on rules relating to currency and accounting, and they do not represent financial reality; and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, devised by the behavioral scientist Abraham Maslow, is an abstract rendering of human nature rather than a precise profile of your customer.

These six examples demonstrate that the human mind needs to invent models and concepts and frameworks as stepping stones on the road to interpreting reality. They are not precise representations of reality—they are working hypotheses. They allow us to think and then work. They help us to “freeze” part of reality in order to make things manageable.

The Art of Thinking in New Boxes (Because Thinking Outside the Box Is Not Enough)

Models and concepts and frameworks are—to use another phrase—mental boxes within which we com-prehend the real world. And ever since the 1960s, we have been taught to be creative by “thinking outside the box."

The trouble is this: once you have mentally stepped outside the box, what happens next? The space outside the box is very expansive—infinitely so—and there can be no guarantee that you will find a solution to your problem. So the answer is that you need to find a new box. And you must consciously build or choose that box yourself; if you do not, an unconscious process will do it for you.

The way we think means that we cannot be creative in a constructive way without inventing models or boxes. Ideally, you need to develop a number of new boxes—new models, new scenarios, new ways of approaching a problem—to structure your thinking. The challenge—and the real art of creativity—is to know how to build those new boxes and, in the process, provide the framework for fresh imaginative effort.

Half a century ago, Bic, a French stationery company, brought to market the idea of making low-cost pens. Some creative brainstorming produced a series of variations on the theme: two colors, three colors, gold trim, advertising logos, erasers, and so forth. But who would have thought of making a razor? Or a lighter? Bic could come up with those ideas only by adopting a radical change of perspective. Instead of viewing itself simply as a pen company, Bic started to think of itself as a disposable-objects company—that is, as a mass producer of inexpensive plastic implements. In making this transition, Bic had, in effect, created a new box.

Business offers a number of other examples.

• Apple, originally a manufacturer of popular personal computers, leveraged its expertise to expand into the multimedia business. Initially, there was no logical reason for it to contemplate taking on Sony and its ubiquitous Walkman. But once Apple had created a new box and viewed itself through a different lens—specifically, as a multimedia company that knows circuits and bytes—the notion of developing a digital “walkman” became obvious. 

• Google’s original aspiration was to build the best search engine ever. Arguably, the company eventually achieved that. But for Google to enter a new era of growth, it needed to perceive itself differently. The creation of a new “we want to know everything” box sparked projects such as Google Earth, Google Book Search, and Google Labs, as well as further improvements to the company’s search engine. 

• Philips, a high-tech company, had concentrated its efforts on product-oriented ventures ranging from semiconductors to domestic appliances. Then it started to shift its strategic emphasis and endeavored to identify and exploit global trends in health care and consumer markets. In doing so, it has become a world leader in several new categories, including home health-care systems. By thinking in a new box, Philips has used its core skills in different ways—and has fundamentally changed its business as a result. 

• Michelin and IBM illustrate how some companies have successfully moved from a product or technology orientation to a solutions or results orientation—without necessarily abandoning their core products or technologies. Michelin, the tire manufacturer, is now a road safety specialist, while IBM, the computer giant, has entered the consulting business.

How to Create New Boxes

If the theory makes sense, how does it work in practice? Here is one example. Like many companies, Champagne De Castellane, a French champagne manufacturer, was committed to growing its sales. To develop ways of achieving this goal, it held workshops on three days over a two-week period. Senior executives were asked to build a new box that would foster some innovative business ideas.

To start with, the executives were asked to think about their business without mentioning the words they most often used to describe it—for instance, liquor, drink, champagne, alcohol, bottle, and so on. As a result of this exercise, the team came to the conclusion that the company’s business was fundamentally about contributing to the success of parties and celebrations.

Once that insight had emerged—and a new box had been formed—the executives had a framework within which they could think about the company and its future. Many ideas flowed—a number of which enabled Champagne De Castellane to become more appealing to consumers and to grow sales. For instance:

• In the summer, champagne is often not cold enough, especially if it is brought to a party as a gift. The company found that it could solve the problem by making a plastic bag that was sturdy enough to carry not only the bottle but also a few pounds of ice. 

• At many parties and celebrations, someone is called on to give a speech. The company determined that it could put together a self-help booklet titled “How to Write a Speech” and attach it to the bottle. 

• Parties thrive on games and entertainment. The company resolved to modify the wooden crates that contain its champagne bottles so that they could be recycled as game boards for chess, checkers, and backgammon.

It is worth noting that during the three-day brainstorming process, about 80 percent of the executives’ energy was devoted to the identification of a new box (the party). Once that was done, the ideas came relatively easily. Indeed, coming up with the right new box is always the tough part, regardless of whether the underlying challenge is scenario planning, business development, or the design of a new strategic vision. So it is critical that companies understand this—and adopt a process that allows them to create the new box.

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The brain is like a two-stroke engine. We are well aware of the value of the second stroke, when the brain selects, compares, sorts, plans, and decides. But the first stroke—when the brain imagines, dreams, suggests, and opens horizons—is the one that really matters. This process, however, needs organization—hence the need for a new box. And in times of crisis, when companies everywhere are concerned about their future, the importance of being able to think in new boxes is greater than ever. via bcg perspectives

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Jim Woods is about helping companies and people engage innovate and grow in all the areas important to them. Jim is a professional speaker, author, coach, and strategy consultant based in Colorado Springs, Co. Follow Jim on Twitter @innothinkgroup, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/InnoThink Group or check out his company website http://innothinkgroup.com for more tips and strategies effective leadership, engaged employees, increase growth, and customer effectiveness through innovation. To arrange for Jim to consult or speak at your event email Jim.

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8 Rules For Creating A Passionate Work Culture

Several years ago I was in the Thomson Building in Toronto. I went down the hall to the small kitchen to get myself a cup of coffee. Ken Thomson was there, making himself some instant soup. At the time, he was the ninth-richest man in the world, worth approximately $19.6 billion. Enough, certainly, to afford a nice lunch. I looked at the soup he was stirring. “It suits me just fine,” he said, smiling.

Thomson understood value. Neighbors reported seeing him leave his local grocery store with jumbo packages of tissues that were on sale. He bought off-the-rack suits and had his old shoes resoled. Yet he had no difficulty paying almost $76 million for a painting (for Peter Paul Rubens’s Massacre of the Innocents, in 2002). He sought value, whether it was in business, art, or groceries.

In 1976, Thomson inherited a $500-million business empire that was built on newspapers, publishing, travel agencies, and oil. By the time he died, in 2006, his empire had grown to $25 billion.

He left both a financial legacy and an art legacy, but his most lasting legacy might be the culture he created. Geoffrey Beattie, who worked closely with him, said that Ken wasn’t a business genius. His success came from being a principled investor and from surrounding himself with good people and staying loyal to them. In return he earned their loyalty.

For the long-term viability of any enterprise, Thomson understood that you needed a viable corporate culture. It, too, had to be long-term. So he cultivated good people and kept them. Thomson worked with honest and competent business managers and gave them his long-term commitment and support. From these modest principles, an empire grew.

Thomson created a culture that extended out from him and has lived after him. Here are eight rules for creating the right conditions for a culture that reflects your creed:

1. Hire the right people

Hire for passion and commitment first, experience second, and credentials third. There is no shortage of impressive CVs out there, but you should try to find people who are interested in the same things you are. You don’t want to be simply a stepping stone on an employee’s journey toward his or her own (very different) passion. Asking the right questions is key: What do you love about your chosen career? What inspires you? What courses in school did you dread? You want to get a sense of what the potential employee believes.

2. Communicate

Once you have the right people, you need to sit down regularly with them and discuss what is going well and what isn’t. It’s critical to take note of your victories, but it’s just as important to analyze your losses. A fertile culture is one that recognizes when things don’t work and adjusts to rectify the problem. As well, people need to feel safe and trusted, to understand that they can speak freely without fear of repercussion.

The art of communication tends to put the stress on talking, but listening is equally important. Great cultures grow around people who listen, not just to each other or to their clients and stakeholders. It’s also important to listen to what’s happening outside your walls. What is the market saying? What is the zeitgeist? What developments, trends, and calamities are going on?

3. Tend to the weeds

A culture of passion capital can be compromised by the wrong people. One of the most destructive corporate weeds is the whiner. Whiners aren’t necessarily public with their complaints. They don’t stand up in meetings and articulate everything they think is wrong with the company. Instead, they move through the organization, speaking privately, sowing doubt, strangling passion. Sometimes this is simply the nature of the beast: they whined at their last job and will whine at the next. Sometimes these people simply aren’t a good fit. Your passion isn’t theirs. Constructive criticism is healthy, but relentless complaining is toxic. Identify these people and replace them.

4. Work hard, play hard

To obtain passion capital requires a work ethic. It’s easy to do what you love. In the global economy we can measure who has a superior work ethic, who is leading in productivity. Not many industries these days thrive on a forty-hour work week. A culture where everyone understands that long hours are sometimes required will work if this sacrifice is recognized and rewarded.

5. Be ambitious

“Make no little plans: they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” These words were uttered by Daniel Burnham, the Chicago architect whose vision recreated the city after the great fire of 1871. The result of his ambition is an extraordinary American city that still has the magic to stir men’s blood. Ambition is sometimes seen as a negative these days, but without it we would stagnate. You need a culture that supports big steps and powerful beliefs. You can see these qualities in cities that have transformed themselves. Cities are the most visible examples of successful and failed cultures. Bilbao and Barcelona did so and became the envy of the world and prime tourist destinations. Pittsburgh reinvented itself when the steel industry withered. But Detroit wasn’t able to do the same when the auto industry took a dive.

6. Celebrate differences 

When choosing students for a program, most universities consider more than just marks. If you had a dozen straight-A students who were from the same socio-economic background and the same geographical area, you might not get much in the way of interesting debate or interaction. Great cultures are built on a diversity of background, experience, and interests. These differences generate energy, which is critical to any enterprise.

7. Create the space 

Years ago, scientists working in laboratories were often in underground bunkers and rarely saw their colleagues; secrecy was prized. Now innovation is prized. In cutting-edge research and academic buildings, architects try to promote as much interaction as possible. They design spaces where people from different disciplines will come together, whether in workspace or in common leisure space. Their reasoning is simple: it is this interaction that helps breed revolutionary ideas. Creative and engineering chat over coffee. HR and marketing bump into one another in the fitness center. Culture is made in the physical space. Look at your space and ask, “Does it promote interaction and connectivity?”

8. Take the long view 

 

If your culture is dependent on this quarter’s earnings or this month’s sales targets, then it is handicapped by short-term thinking. Passion capitalists take the long view. We tend to overestimate what we can do in a year, but underestimate what we can do in five years. The culture needs to look ahead, not just in months but in years and even decades.

The writer Arthur Koestler said that a writer’s ambition should be to trade a hundred contemporary readers for ten readers in ten years’ time and for one reader in a hundred years’ time. Lasting influence is better than a burst of fame. Keep an eye on the long view.

Excerpted from Passion Capital: The World's Most Valuable Asset © 2012 by Paul Alofs. Published by Signal, a division of Random House of Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.

[Image: Flickr user PurpleMattFish]

via fastcompany.com

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If you're not irate in the first 10 minutes of reading, if I don’t provoke you to revolutionize your management and leadership from think to execute, if you aren’t teetering on the brink of reaching for the Maalox, if you don’t innovate like a banshee, then I have failed you. 

To learn more about how uncanny abilities can increase your competitive advantage and top line growth contact us for a consultation. 

Jim Woods CEO & President, InnoThink Group

A leading strategy, innovation and hypercompetition consultancy.

www.innothinkgroup.com

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Innovation & Competitive Advantage - How a Young Fashion Designer Stands Out in a Crowded Market

 

When Rebecca Minkoff co-founded a New York-based luxury handbags company in 2005, her goal was to develop a high-quality product that was both practical and sexy. What she didn't expect -- especially in the competitive fashion industry -- was that sales would rise so quickly.

Revenues at Rebecca Minkoff LLC jumped to $17.5 million in 2010 from $5.5 million in 2008, according to the Women Presidents' Organization (WPO), which ranked Rebecca Minkoff No. 6 on its recently released Top 50 Fastest-Growing Women-Led Companies annual list.

"We came out at a time when contemporary bags were hot and exciting," says Minkoff, who is 30 and also the youngest business owner on the WPO list. "We definitely rode that momentum and learned how to build a business along the way."

Minkoff's journey into the fashion business started when, at age 18, she moved from St. Petersburg, Fla., to Manhattan and landed an internship at fashion-design house Craig Taylor. She worked closely with the CEO "who took me under her wing and taught me about the whole business," Minkoff says.

By the time she left the company in 2001, Minkoff was already working on her own designs. Her first taste of national recognition came when actress Jenna Elfman -- best known for her starring role in the TV sitcom Dharma and Greg -- wore an "I Love New York" T-shirt Minkoff designed on the Jay Leno show. After the appearance, retailers began calling and Minkoff spent the next six months "sewing T-shirts on my living-room floor."

Although Minkoff continued designing, starting a full-fledged company was daunting. So, her older brother, Uri, who had founded a small handful of health-care and technology startups, joined her, and the duo officially launched Rebecca Minkoff LLC in 2005. Minkoff serves as creative director, while Uri is CEO. The company's first prototype was a leather satchel Minkoff called the "Morning After Bag."

"I envisioned a bag that you'd want to take with you on late nights out when you weren't sure where you'd wind up or when you'd come home the next morning," she says.

Rebecca Minkoff's "Morning After Bag."

The $500 bag struck a chord with consumers -- including celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan and Hayden Panettiere. Minkoff's line has expanded beyond handbags to include accessories and women's apparel, which are sold in 300 U.S. retail stores -- such as Nordstrom, Bloomingdales and Saks Fifth Avenue. This spring, the 30-person company launched a new division called Ben Minkoff, named for Minkoff's grandfather, which manufactures and sells men's bags and accessories. 

How to Break into a Crowded Industry
Minkoff's fast-track growth is particularly notable because she found success in an already crowded and fiercely competitive fashion industry. While the number of fashion-design houses has decreased 2.3 percent annually since 2005, industry revenues have been growing 0.6 percent per year, giving the remaining players an increasingly bigger piece of the market, according to IBISWorld, a market-research firm based in Los Angeles.

Here, Minkoff shares her top three tips for launching a business in a competitive industry:

1. Be unique. Piggybacking on an existing product or service usually won't get your business noticed in competitive markets, Minkoff says. Yours should fill a need and stand out from the competition. "I created a line for what I wanted to wear -- and what I saw there was a lack of in the market -- in terms of design and function at an affordable price," she says.
2. Know your price point. Regardless of the industry, customers want a quality product for a great price, Minkoff says. Setting an appropriate price for a product or service is crucial.

   Minkoff learned that lesson after she downgraded the leather for a particular handbag without lowering the retail price. "I didn't put a tag on it saying it was made with this other type of leather, but the bag didn't look the same, and my customers knew it," she says. "We recognized that immediately when sales for the item didn't perform." Talk to us about our 28 day program to strengthen your innovation capabilities to drive growth.  

3. Listen and respond. Establishing communication with customers and making them feel a part of the decision-making process has been important to Minkoff's success. She connects with her 23,000 Twitter followers and more than 16,000 Facebook fans. In 2009, Minkoff launched Minkette, an online forum for customers to share thoughts about the brand.

   "If someone writes in and tells us the strap on a particular bag isn't long enough to wear in the winter when she's wearing a coat, we'll make the bag with a longer strap the next season," Minkoff says. "My customers know I'm listening and responding." via entrepreneur.com

   Consulting, Speaking & Coaching. Driving Growth through Innovation  

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20 Riskiest Business Moves Of 2011 | Slideshows

Click here for the full slideshow from Fast Company. 

via fastcompany.com

Consulting, Speaking & Coaching. Driving Growth through Innovation 

Innothink Group is a strategic management and innovation consultancy. Where many consulting firms are reluctant to bear risks or tie their rewards to project outcomes, we decided to build a better model. We align our success with yours. We’re outcome obsessed, outcome paid, putting over a third of our fees at risk subject o hitting predetermined milestones. More than a guarantee we wanted from the outset to create true partnerships.

 

For speaking, coaching or consulting inquiries contact:

 

CEO Jim Woods

+1 719- 649-4118

 

Sam Biddle: The 10 Greatest (Accidental) Inventions of All Time

Below are ten ceremonious "accidental innovations." Certainly these are wonderful stories. Actually, though, while we delight in retelling such Horatio Algier like successes, I would not really label these "accidental innovation." The innovation itself can't really be said to be "accidental," even though it involves accident. For it takes a considerable capability to see the value in an accident, and to build upon it to create even more value. Jim Woods

 

1. The Microwave - Percy L. Spencer

Percy Spencer, an engineer at Raytheon after his WWI stint in the Navy, was known as an electronics genius. In 1945, Spencer was fiddling with a microwave-emitting magnetron—used in the guts of radar arrays—when he felt a strange sensation in his pants. A sizzling, even. Spencer paused and found that a chocolate bar in his pocket had started to melt. Figuring that the microwave radiation of the magnetron was to blame (or to credit, as it would turn out), Spencer immediately set out to realize the culinary potential at work. The end result was the microwave oven—savior of eager snackers and single dudes worldwide.

 

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2. Saccharin - Ira Remsen, Constantin Fahlberg

In 1879, Ira Remsen and Constantin Fahlberg, at work in a laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, paused to eat. Fahlberg had neglected to wash his hands before the meal—which usually leads to a quick death for most chemists, but led to him noticing an oddly sweet flavor during his meal. Artificial sweetener! The duo published their findings together, but it was only Fahlberg's name that made it onto the (incredibly lucrative) patent, now found in pink packets at tables everywhere. That is to say, Remsen got screwed—he later remarked, "Fahlberg is a scoundrel. It nauseates me to hear my name mentioned in the same breath with him."

 

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3. Slinky - Richard James

In 1943, Navy engineer Richard James was trying to figure out how to use springs to keep the sensitive instruments aboard ships from rocking themselves to death, when he knocked one of his prototypes over. Instead of crashing to the floor, it gracefully sprang downward, and then righted itself. So pointless—so nimble—so slinky. The spring became a goofy toy of many childhoods—that is before every kid inevitably gets theirs all twisted up and ruins it. 300 million sold worldwide!

 

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4. Play-Doh - Kutol Products

Before being found ground into the rugs of child-rearing homes everywhere, Play-Doh was ironically created to be a cleaning product. The paste was first marketed as a treatment for filthy wallpaper—before the company that produced it began to go down the tubes. The discovery that saved Kutol Products—headed for bankruptcy—wasn't that their wall cleaner worked particularly well, but that schoolchildren were beginning to use it to create Christmas ornaments as arts and crafts projects. By removing the compound's cleanser and adding colors and a fresh scent, Kutol spun their wallpaper saver into one of the most iconic toys of all time—and brought mega-success to a company headed for destruction. Sometimes, you don't even know how brilliant you are until someone notices for you.

 

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5. Super Glue - Harry Coover

In what have been a very messy moment of discovery in 1942, Dr. Harry Coover of Eastman-Kodak Laboratories found that a substance he created—cyanoacrylate—was a miserable failure. It was not, to his dismay, at all suited for a new precision gun sight as he had hoped—it infuriatingly stuck to everything it touched. So it was forgotten. Six years later, while overseeing an experimental new design for airplane canopies, Coover found himself stuck in the same gooey mess with a familiar foe—cyanacrylate was proving useless as ever. But this time, Coover observed that the stuff formed an incredibly strong bond without needing heat. Coover and his team tinkered with sticking various objects in their lab together, and realized they had finally stumbled upon a use for the maddening goop. Coover slapped a patent on his discovery, and in 1958, a full 16 years after he first got stuck, cyanoacrylate was being sold on shelves.

 

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6. Teflon - Roy Plunkett

The next time you make a frustration-free omelette, thank chemist Roy Plunkett, who experienced immense frustration while inadvertently inventing Teflon in 1938. Plunkett had hoped to create a new variety of chlorofluorocarbons (better known as universally-despised CFCs), when he came back to check on his experiment in a refrigeration chamber. When he inspected a canister that was supposed to be full of gas, he found that it appeared to have vanished—leaving behind only a few white flakes. Plunkett was intrigued by these mysterious chemical bits, and began at once to experiment with their properties. The new substance proved to be a fantastic lubricant with an extremely high melting point—perfect at first for military gear, and now the stuff found finely applied across your non-stick cookware.

 

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7. Bakelite - Leo Baekeland

In 1907, shellac was commonly used to insulate the innards of early electronics—think radios and telephones. This was fine, aside from the fact that shellac is made from Asian beetle poop, and not exactly the cheapest or easiest way to insulate a wire. What Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland found in instead was—get ready—polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride, the world's first synthetic plastic, commonly known as Bakelite. This pioneering plastic was moldable into virtually any shape, in any color, and could hold its form against high temperatures and daily wear—making it a star among manufacturers, jewelers, and industrial designers.

 

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8. Pacemaker - Wilson Greatbatch

An assistant professor at the University of Buffalo thought he had ruined his project. Instead of picking a 10,000-ohm resistor out of a box to use on a heart-recording prototype, Wilson Greatbatch took the 1-megaohm variety. The resulting circuit produced a signal that sounded for 1.8 milliseconds, and then paused for a second—a dead ringer for the human heart. Greatbatch realized the precise current could regulate a pulse, overriding the imperfect heartbeat of the ill. Before this point, pacemakers were television-sized, cumbersome things that were temporarily attached to patients from the outside. But now the effect could be achieved with a small circuit, perfect to tuck into someone's chest.

 

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9. Velcro - George de Mestral

A dog invented velcro.

Alright, that's something of an exaggeration, but a dog did play an instrumental role. Swiss engineer George de Mestral was out for a hunting trip with his pooch, and noticed the annoying tendency of burrs to stick to its fur (and his socks). Later, looking under a microscope, Mestral observed the tiny "hooks" that stuck burrs to fabrics and furs. Mestral experimented for years with a variety of textiles before arriving at the newly invented nylon—though it wasn't until two decades later that NASA's fondness for velcro popularized the tech.

 

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10. X-Rays - Wilhelm Roentgen

Okay, yes, x-rays are a phenomenon of the natural world, and thus can't be created. But sshhh! The story of their discovery is a fascinating one of incredible chance. In 1895, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen was performing a routine experiment involving cathode rays, when he noticed that a piece of fluorescent cardboard was lighting up from across the room. A thick screen had been placed between his cathode emitter and the radiated cardboard, proving that particles of light were passing through solid objects. Amazed, Roentgen quickly found that brilliant images could be produced with this incredible radiation—the first of their kind being a skeletal image of his wife's hand.

Eureka is our week-long meditation on the wonders of invention, inventors and genius.

Illustration by our contributing illustrator Sam Spratt. Check out Sam's portfolio and become a fan of his Facebook Artist's Page. via gizmodo.com

Speaking 

As the CEO and founder of InnoThink Group, Jim can help your organization enhance the strategic innovation and competitiveness of your business policy and strategy, with an emphasis on increasing top line growth.  

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