Innovation Zen

The toppling of the storied financial house Bear Stearns, as so aptly reported this week in a three part series by the Wall Street Journal, profoundly illustrates the power of trust. In just three days the firm ran through it's $15billion in cash reserves and was unable to secure additional financing due to a loss of investor confidence. This forced a Federally encouraged fire sale to J.P. Morgan and the firm ceased to exist.

The folks at TraceParts.com have an innovative business model. They offer a single large repository of pre-drawn CAD parts for use in product development. The advantage to the designer is that they do not have to create the part themselves, saving time, and they can go to a single source to find what they need, also saving time. TraceParts makes money by charging the component suppliers to be listed in their repository. The component suppliers are willing to pay because they know once they get sourced in the product they make a lot of money selling their parts. It's a win-win-win.

It's a good thing to be a Gen Xer (born between 1965 and 1980). According to a 4/28 Wall Street Journal article the retiring of the 75 million baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 is causing an overall workforce reduction. This is confirmed in a conversation I had last night where an civil engineering firm has given up trying to hire only degreed civil engineers and is hiring electrical and mechanical engineers and training them.

The More Things Change

I like to pick up books that I've already read and leaf through them for a while. I'm picking my way through two right now: Tom Peter's A Passion for Excellence published in 1985 and Dale Carnegie's Lifetime Plan for Success published in 1936. What strikes me about these books is there relevance today decades after being originally published.

For example from A Passion for Excellence:

• Leaders: Carries water for people. Non-Leader: Presides over the mess
• Leaders: Available. Non-Leader: Hard to reach from below
• Leaders: Does dog-work when necessary. Non-Leader: Above dog-work

From A Lifetime Plan for Success:

• Become genuinely interested in other people
• Talk in terms of other people's interests
• Let the other person do a great deal of the talking
  

The lesson is that despite the advances in technology over the decades one thing remains the same: People are People. They have the same hopes, fears, dreams, and petty idiosyncrasies today that they had two hundred years ago. Or for that matter two thousand years ago.

So when planning out the new innovation program remember this. Innovation is a social process and therefore based on trust. All the new tools in the world (Wiki's, PLM systems, video-conferencing, blue ocean hunting, etc) don't mean a thing if the people on the team don't get along.

One Leg At A Time...

uhhh, no they don't. These guys are definitely pants-putting-on innovators.

Saying "No" To The Boss (2)

We know from research that "people spontaneously attribute unflattering motives, traits, or abilities to those who disagree – and persist in disagreeing with our strongly held views."

Therefore the tendency of your boss, anyone really, when you disagree with them is to view you in a negative context, i.e. you're a jerk. This explains why we so often just go along.

But we also know that when you agree to do something, be it explicitly or tacitly, you also agree to accept the consequences. Such is the case with former New England Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh.

Matt illegally video taped opposing team's hand signals which is in violation of the NFL's stated policy. In an article at ESPN.com Walsh is quoted in response to a question as to whether he felt what he was doing was wrong. "I had always been a big Patriots fan. I was very enthused, just to have the opportunity that I had and the job to work for them. I wasn't going to question what they wanted me to do. They became upset if we filmed a practice drill incorrectly. I didn't want to imagine what the consequences would be if I refused to do something altogether."

In other words, Matt wasn't willing to accept the upfront consequences of saying no. Instead he must now accept the consequences of being known nationally as a cheat.

The trick then, when tasked with something that you think will have negative long term ramifications, is to be able to go back to management with an alternative that they believe is better than their original idea.

Step 1: Get Data
If you respond with a personal opinion the default response from your management is that you don't want to do the work. This is not good. Instead you need to build a data driven case as to why something won't work. Results of a pilot project or quotes from respected individuals help to bolster the cause. The plan needs to be crisp, concise, and data driven.

Step 2: Offer An Alternative
My Dad, who was an executive with Kodak, once shared this story with me. He had gone to his boss with an issue that he needed help with. "Mark, how should I know? That's what we're paying you for," was management's response.

Your job therefore is to go back to with a plan. Again, the plan can't appear to be something that you produced after much deep thought in your office. It has to have data and analysis behind it to give it the weight of credibility. This of course requires a lot of initiative on your part.

None of this of course is easy and none of this guarantees success but it is a formula that has worked in the past and serves as the basis for your own personal journey.

Link to the previous article on this topic

Space Shuttle

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It has become routine to hear that the space shuttle has taken off or landed but when you actually see the pictures of NASA preparing the shuttle for launch you are reminded that space travel is by no means a routine endeavor.

Space travel is an amazing accomplishment (understatement) that requires an amazing amount of technology (again, understatement) to pull off safely. When you watch this you see everything that is good about NASA.

Go Here, Read This

Great piece by Malcolm Gladwell regarding innovation in the New Yorker. Link

But What The Hell Do You Do? (3)

I think that a lot of the time people complicate things because if it sounds complicated than it must be important.

Exhibit A is the advertisement for something called 3dvia composer from Dassault Systemes:

Are You Tired of Recreating Files and Images for Documentation Every Time Your Design Changes?

Wish there was a way to reuse the knowledge in your CAD models to improve critical processes in your company outside engineering and design?

What?

It has taken me several readings of the advertisement for me to understand exactly what this software does and why that's important.

Essentially the software will save you time by automating the process by which pictures are created for manuals and sales collateral.

So why not say just that?

This software saves you time by automating how pictures are made from 3D models.

Why ask me if I wish there was a way to reuse knowledge in my CAD models to improve critical processes in my company? Nobody wishes for that.

What they wish for is things to be simpler, cheaper, better.

Comlumbia University Press Book Sale

Columbia University Press (Link) is having a book sale with up to 80% off on more than 1,000 titles. Might be worth a look.

Technology Just Showing Up

It's amazing to me how technology just sort of shows up in life. The May 9th addition of the Wall Street Journal included the following in an article about insurance premiums

Some companies now offer pay-as-you-go-insurance, tied to how many miles a car-mounted Global Positioning System says a vehicle drives each year

Using GPS for insurance purposes makes sense, but who would have guessed it that it would have been an outcome of launching all of those satellites into orbit?

To me, the creative cycle, of new products seemingly coming out of nowhere to become common place, is awe inspiring. Given how hard it is to get a good idea and then actually capitalize on it to see it take place is wonderful.

But What the Hell Do You Do? (2)

From the web page of a computer services firm....

"Acme Computer Co" provides a global solution that manages the entire services procurement lifecycle with the market-leading technology platform and a flexible, vendor-neutral managed services offering.

Can you imagine telling your boss that you successfully "global solutionized" last week?

When selling your customer you need to tell them what's in it for them (cheaper, faster, better) and then tell them what you do.

Ifest 2008

There is a very interesting conference coming up in Spain this July. Ifest '08 is being billed as a business inspiration fest, a place where you can go and see what other really smart creative people are doing. If you have the time it might be worth a trip.

Neat Idea

This was listed under the background section of a LinkedIn user.

Whale Facts

Things that quite possibly only interest me

Michigan has lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000

M.C Hammer filed for bankruptcy in 1996 after his 200-person entourage squandered the better part of his $30 million fortune. (4/11 WSJ)

Federal Trade Commission complaints involving tax returns linked to identity theft rose to 20,782 in 2007, up 158% since 2003. Similar complaints to the IRS Taxpayer Advocate jumped to 3,327 in federal fiscal year 2007, up 644% in three years. (4/11 USA Today)

According to the CDC in 1998 there were 90,000 killed and 2,000,000 injured from hospital caused drug errors and infections. (source Tom Peters)

Neat Idea

Channellock, a Meadville, PA hand tool company, has introduced the rescue tool. The tool which was designed for first responders includes: A punch to shatter safety glass, a catch to tighter or loosen hose connections, a pry to spread things a part, a cutter, a gripper for pulling, and a gas line shut off. And it will all fit into your pocket.

Image via Popular Mechanics

Martyrs Don't Get To Make Decisions

I'd like to add to what Scott Berkun, who writes at ScottBerkun.com, wrote on 4/29. In part he wrote:

If you have the title ‘manager’ in your name, step up. Practice the habit of absorbing blame for what is going on, while distributing the rewards. When all else fails, be the fall guy. If people see you take enough bullets for them, soon they’ll be taking some for you.

The point Scott's trying to make is that good managers take accountability for themselves and their behavior and this is good advice. But, if everything that goes wrong is your fault sooner or later there will be a push to reallocate your organizational responsibilities to someone that can handle them.

The trick then is not to engage in sneaky blame games but to bring transparency to the process so that there is proper accountability.

Step#1: If You Don't Say "No", You Accept The Consequences
The first step is to not willingly go down the wrong path. Most projects are not given enough time, money, and resources to achieve all the desired outcomes; or at least they don't feel like they have enough time, money and resources. In the absence of a direct order from your boss, if you agree to go down a path that you don't agree with then you accept the consequences of the results.

How do you know it's the right path? More often than not the benefit of experience helps you distinguish what works and what doesn't.

Most people feel squeamish about anything that feels like confrontation with the boss and so avoid saying anything in hopes that something good will happen later on. It is far better to have the conversation upfront than to try and salvage a damaged project.

The important thing to remember is that the message is different than how the message is delivered. How the message is delivered depends on the norms of the company and your boss and should be given with careful consideration.

Step #2: Say What Really Happened
Things do go wrong in an organization and it is important that you do accept responsibility. But it is important that you accept responsibility only for the things that you are responsible for. Therefore in the resulting aftermath it is important to tell the truth.

I remember one time I was leading an initiative to source camera labels for the business. The local Mexican engineering manager was really pushing for his local vendor, even though it didn't make a whole lot of sense. Being a junior engineer to his position I forwarded his recommendation, with the explicit understanding that it would be he who would defend the position.

During the management review meeting senior management had a really hard time with the results of the analysis (this is a major understatement) and the Mexican engineering manager said he didn't understand the recommendation either.

Instead of resetting the conversation and reminding the group of our conversation I avoided the controversy in the name corporate peace. As a result I took a performance hit and rightly so.

If you are always the martyr people will be more than willing to let you take the blame rather than have to step up themselves. The trick is to drive transparency into the process so that you can accept accountability for only the things that you are fairly responsible for.