Transformation and Innovation

A friend of mine and I recently had a dialog about transformation and innovation. He is amazingly sharp and works for a large organization. His vision and perspective on being a transformative company at scale is unique. We spoke about each word (transformation and innovation) and shared how we believe they are different and yet symbiotic.

From my point of view, measures of transformation are different than measures of innovation. I like utilizing a future-back strategy approach from Mark W. Johnson to design who we want to transform into, markets we want to participate in, etc. That work allows us to establish transformation measures. What do we look like, in data, when we are transformed? For example, I remember one transformation measure of a high-tech software company. A large portion of their revenue was generated by products that launched three years or earlier and they wanted a higher percentage to come from new solutions. That is a measure of transformation.

Once we decide what we want our transformed organization to be, we have to ask "how do we get there?" That is the role of innovation; innovation as a verb! What does it mean to "innovate"? Jeff Bezos offers that only a consumer can really determine if something is innovative; I agree. With that being the case, we don't really need to concern ourselves with calling ourselves innovative. What we want is for our consumers and customers to say we innovate. Our role is to focus on behaving innovatively to deliver consumer-defined innovation. Transformation can be the adjective; innovation can be the verb.

What are some behaviors that driven transformation ? As senior leaders, thinking in the following ways may help:

? Lets make sure, if needed, that we move from teammates coming to us for answers to coming to us for questions! Curiosity is a principle of innovation and is embodied in a question.

? We want to move from our design and decisions being solely informed in the "Three C's of Design Disease" (conference rooms, conference calls and cubes) to being informed and tested in the context of the consumer/customer! Empathy is the heartbeat of healthcare and is a principle of great innovation. It isn't very empathetic to assume we know what progress people are trying to make without spending time in their context. It also isn't very empathetic to design something that they would not love or that would create bad friction for them. https://shorturl.at/inpAO Bob Sutton Hayagreeva Rao

? We need to move from defending and believing spreadsheets to having a system that causes us to document and test our assumptions before we document a business plan. As leaders, we can ask "What five key assumptions did you articulate, how did you test them, and what evidence caused you to commit to this plan?" To drive evidence-informed business plans, we need to implement a system of business modeling that precedes and informs business plans.

? As leaders, if any of us do this, we need to move from labeling people who question us as "not aligned" to labeling them as "testers" of assumptions to de-risk the investment of time and money or let's label them as "evidence seekers" to drive better decisions. Their questions are a sign of them being committed to the company, great innovators and great teammates. Let's be more bothered by the question that isn't asked vs by how the question is asked!

? We need to move from requiring people to just adhere to a vision we created without engaging them, to pressure testing that vision by creating a psychological safe space that invites and encourages debate. Questions harness the passion and brilliance of teams. A question may be the most engaging tool ever! We can use questions such as:

o What causes you to have a different point of view?

o What could I be missing in how I am thinking about this?

o What do you think could go wrong in this plan?

o What key assumptions do you believe I have and how could we test those?

o How could we learn fast and learn cheap?

o What question do you want to ask that you think I don't want to hear? please ask that one!

o What have you seen in other places that we may need to consider, etc?

Our questions as leaders must be asked in a sincere and true psychologically safe way. Let's be cautious to say we invite and encourage questions but then show behavior that we don't really want them. For example, we can't say we invite questions then punish those who drive for clarity through questions.

Innovation delivers transformation. Just like football teams require a playbook so too does transformation and innovation. That playbook will include questions and behaviors that move our cultures to being transformed through innovation. Reach out for a dialog! [email protected] or DM me.