E29: It's Not Survival of the Fittest

What if it is not about survival of the fittest? Welcome to Invisible Solutions. I'm your host, Steven Shapiro. Each week we tackle your most complex problems using the lenses from my book, Invisible Solutions. If you need the lenses, go to getthelenses.com and with that, let's get started with today's episode. Starting with this episode, every other episode will be content from my Best Practices Are Stupid book. Now, I recently got the rights back from Penguin for this book because I wanted to produce an audiobook version. But instead I've decided that, at least for now, I'm going to drip the content out here in this podcast. Therefore, what I'm going to do is alternate between Problem solving episodes and Best Practices are Stupid content. But even when it's best practices or stupid content like this one, I'm going to do my best to link it back to the Invisible Solutions lenses because I want there to be consistency across all episodes. So with that, let's get started with chapter one from Best Practices are Stupid. And this is a really fundamental one because it sets the stage for why innovation matters and how we can start thinking about it in a systematic way. Chapter 1 Not Survival of the Fittest Survival of the Adaptable have you heard the one about two men who are hiking through the mountains of Canada? The story goes that after stumbling upon a hungry 600 pound grizzly bear, one of the hikers takes off his backpack and his hiking boots and proceeds to put on his running shoes. The other hiker looks at him and asks, what are you doing? You can't outrun a bear. And the first hiker responds, I know I only need to outrun you. This story highlights the essence of innovation. Innovation is not about new products, new processes, new services, new business models, or even new ideas. It is about staying one step ahead of your competition so that you are not eaten. And let's face it, there are a lot of hungry competitors out there. And when you're trying to outpace the bear, maybe your current competition, you you also need to make sure that you don't run into an alligator or a tiger, which might be your new competition. Innovation is about change. Not a one time change, but ongoing change. It is about adaptability, flexibility and agility. Consider this. When the pace of change outside your organization is greater than the pace of change within, you will be eaten and you'll have a tough time keeping your business afloat. And as you know, the pace of change outside your organization is faster than ever. The only way to survive is to stop treating innovation as a one time Event Innovation must be continuous. It must be a never ending process. The second you rest on your laurels, you will be certain that someone else will catch you for breakfast. But here's an interesting thing that a lot of people don't know. The story of the two hikers does not end with the first hiker saying I only need to outrun you. It actually continues with the second hiker saying go ahead and try. And then he stands perfectly still as the first hiker takes off. The second hiker smiles because he knows that bears have poor eyesight and will only chase prey that run away. So the first hiker is the one that gets eaten. The second hiker reflects on the importance of understanding the hunting habits of large carnivores and and of choosing friends wisely. The moral of the story is that although organizations want to speed up their innovation efforts and move quickly, running in the wrong direction can actually slow you down and burn valuable resources. Instead, take deliberate action. Know what will improve your business, understand the marketplace, and harness the energies of your organization by focusing on what is most important. And yes, of course, pick your friends and your colleagues wisely. The people you choose as your innovation partners is an important part of your innovation strategy. So what can your organization do to not get eaten by the competition? The answer to this question lies in a basic understanding of three levels of innovation. The first level, Level one is innovation as an event. This is where most companies find themselves. They conduct brainstorming sessions or hold random contests to generate new ideas. If a good idea is produced, there's some value added to the organization. In some cases, the idea may even lead to tremendous value such as 3M's invention of the post. It notes. However, there is generally a huge amount of work that needs to happen between idea generation and realization. This brings us to the second level, Level two, Innovation as a capability. This is the next level of sophistication. The organization puts in place structures and processes to define problems, generate and evaluate solutions, and develop action plans to implement those solutions. The result is a realistic deliverable based on an organizational challenge or opportunity. And for those of you who are familiar with the Invisible solutions content, you will know that a lot of that deals with part of this, which is the process for defining and and reframing problems to be able to generate and evaluate better solutions. This then leads us to level three, which is Innovation as a system. The ultimate level involves creating an environment where innovation is embedded in everything you do. At both the event and the capability driven levels, innovation tends to be reactionary and discrete. It is somewhat separate from the business with embedded innovation. Innovation as a system. People not only innovate to deal with problems or challenges that are presented to them, but with everything they do, they continuously even radically improve their products, processes and organization. And this creates exponential and ongoing value. So where do you begin? The first step is to create an environment where creativity is encouraged and where solutions are implemented in response to specific challenges. And this is level two, Innovation as a repeatable process and capability. In fact, what you're going to find is a large portion of this Best Practices. Our stupid book is dedicated to helping organizations achieve that level. Because once this is mastered, you can more easily move on to innovation as a system, which is the holy grail of innovation. Too often organizations send employees to creativity classes, and when they return, these individuals, they're excited about generating new ideas. But unfortunately, they are confronted with an environment that stifles creativity and innovation. They are told to keep their heads down and keep their mouths shut. There's no vehicle for tapping into their new creative energies. So they become disgruntled, they become frustrated. Now you have a bigger morale problem. Creative ideas without an encouraging innovation environment can lead to employee dissatisfaction. An overall shift towards a culture of innovation must be put in place before people can be trained to be creative thinkers. Although people believe that Darwin suggested that it is the survival of the fittest, his perspective on natural selection was that it is not physical shape, but rather the ability to adapt that is critical. And this is the goal of innovation. The smartest organization will not survive. The company with the most money can quickly fall from grace. But the organization that adapts and evolves to address ever changing market conditions will thrive in the long run. So how does this relate to invisible solutions? In order to be an adaptable organization, you need the ability to uncover hidden opportunities and to leverage better ways to quickly solve them. It's not about one time change. It's about repeatedly and rapidly finding, reframing and solving your biggest challenges. And with that, we are at the end of this week's episode. I realize it's a slightly shorter episode and it's a different format and I'd love to get your feedback. So if you could certainly drop me a line and let me know your thoughts. And as always, to submit a problem you want solved in this podcast, go to invisiblesolutionspodcast.com and remember to download the lenses. Go to getthelenses.com I look forward to being with you next week. And until then, happy problem solving.