Leaders today face challenges for which they are utterly unprepared.
If you work on a new product launch, spent time in a new geography, or work to develop a completely new skill, you have no choice but to figure out new ways to solve problems.
When we are looking at ideas, we really are thinking of three things. Are you doing something that seems consistent with the patterns of success? Are there reasons to believe you have or can access the right people to make it happen? Can we play a unique role in enabling success? We all have our rules of thumb, I suppose.
I use the term "fool's gold white space" to highlight a common problem for innovation. People see a market that doesn't exist, and assume that one should exist.
Of course, it is worth it to take the time to think carefully through your assumptions, and ensure you at least have hypotheses around how you will create value. But use the analysis as a way to focus attention on the most critical assumptions, rather than spend a ton of time massaging the numbers.
I think people make innovation much more complicated than it needs to be.
I'm not very good at sitting still.
Some people who were central to former success aren't the right people for your future success.
Avoiding along some dimensions is easy. Create organization space and bring in some new talent so the innate cultural resistance is less material. Unfortunately, it's rarely that easy.
You have to make the decision about whether you want to avoid or you want to overcome the resistance.
Now, I worry a bit about the TEDification of the world where style trumps substance, so hopefully you have a good blend of both!
I've never seen impeccable logic be sufficient to win both the heart and the mind.
There is what Steve Blank calls the stage where you are searching for a scalable business model. Then, there is the stage when you have found that model and need to scale it. In the former stage you have to have a "beginner's mind," be in learning mode, and expect to learn things you didn't anticipate.
I think the most important thing to do is to recognize the fundamentally different circumstances of pursuing growth.
In the strengthening the core job, a leader can draw on their past experiences. After all, in most cases they did the job of the people that are reporting to them! So they know when something is screwed up, they know the risks worth taking, and they know the corners to cut. But when they are creating the new, no one knows what the right answer is.
There's a general belief that failure is the friend of the innovator, but I've come to view it a different way.
The curious company studies the anomalies or the unexpected findings. The company that isn't curious ignores them or punishes people who don't do exactly what they set out to do.
Three of our core corporate values are inclusiveness, collaboration, and humility.
The reality is customers lie - not because they want to want to deceive you, but because they don't do a good job of predicting what they will do in the future.
You can always figure out how to deliver things in somewhat controlled situations, but when you start to get into the reality of the market you start to figure out what isn't going to work.
You can increase the odds of spotting the weak points in your approach if you really think about the end-to-end business model you plan to follow - how you plan to create, capture, and deliver value.
The school at which you studied - design school, disruptive school, TRIZ school, user-centered innovation school, etc - determines the specific words you use.
Make sure that you take the time to think about how other companies might respond to your idea, both those companies already in the market you plan to target as well as others that might imagine targeting that market.
A spreadsheet for an innovative idea reports the mathematical relationship between made up numbers. You can't cash a spreadsheet.
Have a core concept, but wrap it in a full business model.
"Another key role the CEO plays is to focus efforts."
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: