How to Start Innovation?
Japan is a great country, with wonderful people. I am in Ise, Japan, right now to see the Ise Jingu (shrine) after 10 days of lecturing and workshops on ‘How to Start Innovation?’. I met a lot of innovators, new business developers and managers who are frustrated to the bone. They complain big time that it so difficult for them to convince their top management to really innovate.
Now Japan is THE country in the world where kaizen, or improvement as you like, is in the heart of every organisation. Japanese love making small steps. It’s in their culture. They don’t like to stand out, as you can see everyday on the streets of Tokyo, where everybody is dressed in a black suit with white shirt. Japanese don’t like risk. And they are not the only ones. Does your top manager, or your client like to run a risk?
Masters of Kaizen
Innovation is a paradox for all of us. On the one hand you are well aware that you have to take new roads before you reach the end of the present dead end street. On the other hand it is incredibly risky. It takes a lot of time. And it takes a lot of resources. Research shows that only one out of seven innovation projects gets launched and is successful. So saying yes to innovation is a step into the unknown. It creates fear of failure, which causes fear to innovate, especially in big organisations where a conservative corporate culture prevails.
I have only one tip: make them nervous…
That’s why the Japanese are masters of kaizen: step-by-step improvement instead of making a jump, what innovation often is. It’s not that Japanse are not creative. On the contrary. During one of the brainstorms during my training we got 537 creative ideas in less than 3 hours.
Where to start?
- Make them nervous that kaizen is not good enough anymore.
- Take them to visit start-ups challenging your position.
- Invite a trend watcher to confront them how quick their world is changing.
- Visit ex-customers who just changed to a very innovative competitor.
- Take them to Tech Universities to see experiments with new technologies.
- Spam them with articles of new successful business models.
- Visit young customers and ask what they think of your brand and – products.
Your conservative top managers will say yes to innovation as soon as they get the insight that doing nothing is a big risk. So let them discover it themselves. And hope that is not too late …
This article was posted with permission from the author: Gijs van Wulfen
Do you like this post? Then, check out Gijs van Wulfen’s new book The Innovation Maze at: Amazon UK.
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