Nicholas J. Webb's Blog, page 2

Cultivating Brand Authenticity – 5 Tips for Honest Customer Engagement

In today’s fast-paced and hyper-connected world, building a brand that resonates with customers goes far beyond having a great product or service. Authenticity is the key that unlocks genuine connections and fosters trust between brands and their audiences. Let’s explore five essential tips to improve brand authenticity and create honest and humanistic marketplace engagement.

Embrace Your Unique Story

Every brand has a unique story behind its inception, values, and journey. Share this story authentically. Let your audience see the real people and passions that drive your brand. When customers understand your history, values, and mission, they can relate on a deeper level. Use social media, blogs, and videos to showcase your brand’s narrative.

Transparent Communication

Open and honest communication is the cornerstone of authenticity. Always strive to be transparent about your products, pricing, and policies. Address customer concerns and questions openly and promptly. Admit mistakes when they happen, and show how you plan to make things right. Transparency builds trust, and trust is the foundation of strong customer relationships.

Consistent Branding

Consistency in branding helps reinforce authenticity. Ensure that your brand’s messaging, visuals, and tone of voice are consistent across all channels. This consistency not only makes your brand recognizable but also reinforces the idea that you are who you say you are. Strive for uniformity in your brand’s online and offline presence.

Human-Centric Engagement

Customers want to connect with real people, not faceless corporations. Foster human-centric engagement by engaging with your audience genuinely and respectfully. Respond to comments, messages, and reviews personally. Showcase your team members and their expertise. Sharing the human side of your brand allows customers to relate to you on a personal level.

Social Responsibility

Consumers today are more conscious of a brand’s social responsibility efforts. Show your commitment to making a positive impact on society and the environment. Engage in philanthropy, sustainability initiatives, or ethical practices and share these initiatives with your audience. When customers see your brand actively contributing to a better world, they’re more likely to support you.

Building brand authenticity is an ongoing journey that requires genuine commitment and effort. By embracing your unique story, communicating transparently, maintaining brand consistency, prioritizing human-centric engagement, and showing social responsibility, you can create an authentic brand that resonates with your audience and stands out in today’s competitive marketplace.

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Is Chat GPT an idiot?

Is Chat GPT an idiot?

Forgive my strong language, but as a technologist and a futurist, I have been deeply involved in Artificial Intelligence for nearly two decades. With that in mind, I would strongly recommend that people think deeply about the results they get from Chat GPT and other AI resources. Here’s a few quick reasons why:

The genius is in the question

A decade ago, I was at a medical technology conference, and I asked one of the technologists associated with the IBM Watson Project, his opinion of the future of Watson. He instantly responded that his big concern was that you had to “spoon feed” the data into the black box, and accuracy of the data input into the black box was often incomplete or flawed. As the worn-out adage suggests “garbage in garbage out.” Much of the genius of analyzing anything is the incredible human ability to “ask the right questions.”

There is a big difference between intelligence and human wisdom

I know a lot of people who are incredibly intelligent, however they are essentially functionally stupid. By that I mean, they’re using the machinery of their intelligence to draw conclusions that result in really bad ideas. Certainly, you must know some incredibly smart people that constantly seem to be devoid of any human wisdom, just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you draw good conclusions.

AI is a weapon

You can use a handgun to defend yourself against a robber, or you can use it to commit a murder. The hunk of steel that makes up a gun has no sense of ethics, morality, or humanity. There is absolutely no question that bad people will use this weapon in a way to cause injury, while others use it as a way to save lives. With that in mind, let’s treat AI as the weapon it is!

I’m currently working on a comprehensive white paper which will be out in a week or so that talks about the three key elements of Artificial Intelligence and what we need to know about it on a practical level to help us, and our organizations serve others while ensuring that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

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Forget “Quite Quitting” Organization Should be Worried About “Sad Staying”

There is been a big buzz around the phrase “Quiet Quitting” this concept suggests that employees are taking a paycheck, but they’re actually not providing much in the way of work. This is virtually never the fault of the employee. In my experience in my management consulting firm, we find that employers that are suffering from so-called Quiet Quitting, are those employers that have not implemented a thoughtful Happiness Strategy that drives far greater degrees of productivity, and engagement. Employees want to have clear directions on what is expected from them in a way that is surgically connected to their own contributions within the enterprise.

If you want to rapidly improve Employee Happiness and Productivity, you need to get far better employee insights, and then transmute those insights into Actionable Innovations that drive Happiness and Engagement. The net result will be significant improvements in your Cultural, Ether, and Productivity.

Today employees are faced with many stressors that they didn’t have to deal with prior to C-19. Let’s deal with the real problem of “Sad Staying” and get our teams Happy again and your Employee Productivity will soar.

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The Future of Telemedicine and Patient Engagement

The Future of Telemedicine and Patient Engagement

“The future of Telemedicine and Patient Engagement is driven by the combination of improving patient experience, while concurrently improving efficiencies in the delivery of safe and efficacious care” – Nicholas Webb

There are two heroes of the future of digital patient engagement, and they include Intelligent Additive Telemedicine (IAT), and Asynchronous Telemedicine (AT). The reason that these two approaches will be the heroes of the future of patient engagement includes the following key, patient, and enterprise benefits: Significant improvements in enterprise efficiency in the delivery of patient care, improvements in clinical quality and safety, improvements in experiences for both the provider and the patient. Below is a description of these two amazing solutions:

Intelligent Additive Telemedicine (IAT)

Intelligent Additive Telemedicine (IAT) will, in the first wave, leverage the camera and the microphone of existing connected technologies, such as smartphones and desktop computers. It will use the camera to conduct facial and spatial analysis to provide insights and data points so that Artificial Intelligence can identify potential diagnostic cues. It will also use intelligent listening to monitor the dialogue between the patient and the provider. On the provider side of the engagement, there will be a translucent screen that provides information that is delivered by IAT to make certain that the provider is addressing potential issues that were discovered during the dialogue between the provider and the patient. It will ultimately also populate medical health records, and automate many of the lab orders, patient follow-up, prescriptions, and other tasks. This is important because it will allow the provider to focus on the human connection with a patient. On the patient side of the screen, there will be a translucent dashboard that will leverage the same intelligent engine to remind the patient to ask the provider certain key questions, and also to share with the provider-specific symptoms based on the real-time dialogue of the interaction between the patient and the provider. The net result will be far better provider and patient experiences while improving the quality of clinical care, and patient safety.

Asynchronous Telemedicine (AT)

Patient engagement needs to square up with the current methods in which patients prefer to communicate. The popularity of Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok demonstrates that we live in a communication landscape of asynchronous communications. Correspondingly, it only makes sense that we create alignment with the way in which patients prefer to communicate and the way in which we deliver safe and efficacious patient care. In addition to the incredible benefits of creating an alignment between the way in which we all prefer to communicate, and the way in which we engage healthcare, there are many other very important benefits. Over the next five years, healthcare will see continuous stressors on a system that is already at the brink of collapse. The only way that we can deliver on the promise of patient access is that we need to do it in a way that is an alignment with the value flow of healthcare. To use a cryptic example, we essentially provide a conveyor belt of healthcare that is constantly stopping. Traditional patient flows are extremely wasteful in terms of their efficiencies. In order for us to be able to deliver access to more patients in a way that also delivers a good experience. We need to deliver them asynchronously so that we can square up the schedule of the patient with the availability of the provider. My prediction is that a synchronous telemedicine will explode in the next 24 months.

In conclusion, healthcare, needs to do three things concurrently. Healthcare needs to significantly improve the human experience for the patient, and leverage technology to drive improved clinical quality and safety. Lastly, it needs to leverage technologies to significantly improve healthcare enterprise efficiency to reduce cost. Poetically, these two amazing technologies do all three.

 

 

 

 

 

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“Quiet Quitting” is so 2022

Forget worrying about “Quiet Quitting” the bigger concern for employers should be “Sad Staying” “Quiet Quitting” is so 2022.

Employee sadness and depression are significant concerns for many organizations because they can lead to decreased productivity, increased absenteeism, and decreased job satisfaction. Moreover, untreated mental health conditions can have long-term effects on employees’ overall well-being and quality of life. Organizations need to build formal happiness strategies that gain far better insights on how to address the emergent need to support our employees in a time of rapidly increasing personal and job stress.

To help employees who may be struggling with sadness or depression, organizations can take the following steps:

Get far better insights: employee surveys absolutely do not work, and they will not give you actionable insights. You need to be able to identify the causality of stress, you need to go far beyond surveys. In our practice, we leverage listening sessions, that leverage special linguistics, and the superpower of “Happiness Hackathons.”

Encourage honest conversations about mental health: Organizations can create a culture where employees feel comfortable talking about their mental health and seeking help when they need it.

Offer resources and support: Providing employees with access to mental health resources such as employee assistance programs, counseling services, and support groups can help them get the care they need.

Promote work-life balance: Encouraging employees to take time for themselves and prioritize self-care can help prevent burnout and promote overall well-being.

Provide accommodations: Accommodations such as flexible work arrangements, additional time off, or modifications to job duties can help employees who are struggling with mental health conditions.

Address workplace stressors: Addressing workplace stressors such as high workloads, lack of resources, or toxic work environments can help improve employees’ overall mental health and well-being.

It’s important for organizations to take a comprehensive and proactive approach to address employee mental health and well-being. By doing so, they can create a supportive and inclusive workplace culture that promotes positive mental health and overall well-being for all employees. If your organization needs help reach out for free discover a call and I’ll provide you a free copy of my bestselling book, Happy Work.

“Quiet Quitting” is so 2022!

 

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The Strategic Framework for Building a “Happy Culture”

In researching my book Happy Work, and working with some of the best brands to assist them in building incredibly Happy Cultures, I’ve identified a sequential framework. With this Happiness Ecosystem action plan, you can transform your organization from miserable (at worst) or merely average (better, but not good enough!) to truly extraordinary and super-competitive. Below is an abbreviated excerpt from my book Happy Work, the drills deep into each of these elements. Here are the steps:

1. Define Happiness. For our purposes, here’s how I define happiness on the job: “The engagement of purposeful work that serves our personal growth, in a way that positively impacts and serves others.”

2. Listen, Learn, and Collaborate. In order to know what you want to become you have to know your current condition. You need to cast aside your preconceptions and biases, and get a grip on the state of your organization. The energy flow is in all directions, and as CEO, your job is to manage this energy flow to produce the highest level of stakeholder happiness possible.

3. Validate. Data must be turned into actionable information. Aggregate and organize your insights into a presentation that you use to collaborate with a greater team to get buy-in and additional fine-tuning elements.

4. Organize. Your job is to direct the activities of your people to produce happiness for your customers, your stakeholders, and your investors. Assemble a happiness team to build out the formal happiness strategy. You might even appoint a chief happiness officer (CHO), head of employee experience, or vice president of global employee success.

5. Launch Your Happiness as a Strategy (HaaS) Plan. It needs to be real and written down and complete prior to launching it. It must activate the three key areas: “The engagement of purposeful work (1) that serves our personal growth (2), in a way that positively impacts and serves others (3).”

6. Monitor, Measure, and Fix. Happy cultures are dynamic and fluid, and you must continually eliminate the elements that aren’t working well and reinvest in those elements that do work.

7. Celebrate. It’s important that you celebrate the innovators while ensuring everyone in your company knows that it’s a team effort, and one employee’s victory is a win for everyone.

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Super Charge your Strategy for 2023 and Beyond

Super Charge your Strategy for 2023 and Beyond

Leveraging Chaotic Innovation, and Formal Innovation Planning to achieve a 50% better return on strategic priorities

 

Innovation is essential for any organization looking to stay competitive in today’s fast-paced business environment. But how can you use innovation to drive significant returns on strategic priorities? Here are the steps to get you started:

 

Identify Strategic Priorities

The first step in using innovation to drive returns is to identify the strategic priorities of your organization. These could include increasing revenue, reducing costs, improving customer satisfaction, or entering new markets. Once you have a clear understanding of your strategic priorities, you can begin to evaluate how innovation can help you achieve them.

 

Conduct a Current State Assessment

The next step is to conduct a current state assessment of your operations and processes. This will help you identify areas where innovation can drive significant returns. Look at every aspect of your business, from product development to marketing to customer service, and consider how new technologies or processes can improve performance.

 

Brainstorm Ideas

Once you have identified areas where innovation can drive returns, it’s time to generate a wide range of ideas. Encourage your team to think creatively and come up with as many ideas as possible. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box – the most innovative solutions often come from unexpected places. This is where formal innovation strategy comes in, as you will need to build out Innovation Enterprise Social Networks (IESN’s), and formal Innovation Challenges in order to achieve significant improvements on stated strategic priorities.

 

Collaborative Ideation and Prioritization

With a list of ideas in hand, it’s time to prioritize them based on their potential impact, feasibility, and alignment with strategic priorities. Use a criteria-based approach to evaluate each idea and rank them in order of priority. A formal Innovation Strategy is required in order to build out a formal Innovation Pipeline that includes Innovation Assessment methodologies, Development, and Deployment Strategies.

 

Develop a Plan of Action

With the top-priority ideas identified, it’s time to develop a plan of action. This should include timelines, resources required, and key milestones for implementation. Make sure that everyone on the team understands their role in the implementation process and that they have the resources they need to succeed.

 

Implement and Monitor

With a plan in place, it’s time to implement the innovations and monitor progress. Make sure that you have the necessary systems in place to measure the effectiveness of the innovations and that you are tracking the right metrics.

 

Continuously Assess

Innovation is an ongoing process, and it’s important to continuously assess the effectiveness of the innovations. Be prepared to make adjustments to the plan of action as needed and to adapt to changing circumstances.

 

Communicate Progress

Finally, it’s important to communicate progress to key stakeholders and leadership to gain buy-in and support for the innovation initiative. Share the successes and challenges of the project, and use this feedback to guide future innovation efforts. Your innovation strategy will also include an Internal Innovation Communication Strategy.

 

In conclusion, innovation is essential for any organization looking to stay competitive in today’s fast-paced business environment. But to drive significant returns on strategic priorities, it’s important to have a clear process in place. By following these steps, you can use innovation to drive returns and achieve your strategic goals. LeaderLogic provides Innovation Management Consulting, Innovation Certificate Training, and “just-add-water” turn key solutions to make this process easy and risk free.

 

strategic success, return on strategy, innovation, innovation, training, innovation Keynote, innovation Keynote Speaker, top innovation keynote, speaker on innovation, keynote speaker, innovation leadership, innovation mastery, innovation 2023

 

 

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Build a team of Innovation Superstars for 2023 and beyond

In today’s fast-paced business environment, organizations need to be constantly innovating in order to stay ahead of the competition. However, not all teams have the skills and knowledge needed to drive innovation effectively. That’s where the Innovation Superstar® Project comes in.

The Innovation Superstar® project is a unique initiative that works with organizations to Certify their teams on innovation mastery. Through a comprehensive training program, the project helps teams develop the skills and mindset needed to drive innovation within their organization.

The program is designed to be both practical and actionable, with a focus on helping teams apply the latest innovation techniques and tools to real-world business challenges. Teams learn how to identify and prioritize opportunities for innovation, how to generate and evaluate new ideas, and how to implement and scale successful innovations.

One of the key benefits of the Innovation Superstar® Project is that it helps organizations build a culture of innovation. By training teams on the latest best practices and providing them with the support they need to drive change, the project helps organizations foster a mindset of continuous improvement and experimentation.

The Superstar Project Certification also helps organizations to differentiate themselves in the market. By showing that their teams have been certified on innovation mastery, organizations can demonstrate to customers and partners that they are committed to staying ahead of the curve and driving growth through innovation.

In conclusion, the Innovation Superstar® Project is a valuable initiative for any organization looking to build a culture of innovation and drive growth through new ideas. By providing teams with the skills and support they need to drive innovation, the project helps organizations stay competitive and succeed in today’s fast-paced business environment.

We only have room for three organizations in 2023. The program includes formal, live and virtual training, facilitation and ongoing coaching. In a recent program we did our client received over a $10 million return on their modest investment in the project. We also have a range of consulting, training and even event Keynote programs, depending on the current state of innovation and maturity of the organization. On a personal note, this is probably the most rewarding work I’ve ever done in my life and I’ve had the opportunity to meet so many amazing people. Also, if you or a member of the innovation ecosystem, and would like to partner with us. Please feel free to reach out.

#innovation #innovationmanagement #innovationstrategy #innovationtraining #innovationcertificate #innovationcertification #workforcedevelopmentmonth #futurereadiness #innovation2023, #nicholaswebb #strategy #growth

 

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Leadership in the Age of Chaotic Innovation

Leadership in the Age of Chaotic Innovation

You’re familiar with the various periods or ages of technology that human history has experienced. They began with the Stone Age, progressed through the Bronze and Iron Ages, then entered the Classical and Middle Ages. Around the time America was first settled by Europeans, we were in the Renaissance, and then when the United States became an independent nation, we moved into the Industrial Age. This reached its height at the end of the 20th century, when digital technology ushered in the Information Age.

Since the Stone Age, we know the rate of technological change has been accelerating, and much more rapidly in the 21st century. If we put the specific technologies aside—stone tools, iron weapons, industrial machinery, computers, etc.—we can divide technological progress into three periods of varying rate and disruption.

Symmetrical Innovation

For the first few thousand years the rate of acceleration was slow and predictable, and disruption was minimal. We call this symmetrical innovation, whereby innovations emerged gradually and spread across the globe incrementally.

For example, take railroads. The development of railroads became feasible because of two innovations.

The first was the idea of using rails to reduce friction of heavy wheeled vehicles. Introduced in England in the 16th century, “wagonways” used wooden rails to guide cars laden with coal. The first North American “gravity road,” as it was called, was erected in 1764 for military purposes at the Niagara portage in Lewiston, New York. Gravity roads—built to haul coal and timber—used stationary steam engines to winch the cars up hill, and they coasted downhill to their destination, usually a canal.

The second innovation was the steam locomotive. The first working locomotive was built by Richard Trevithick in Wales in 1804. Eight years later, John Blenkinsop and Matthew Murray built the twin cylinder “Salamanca,” the first commercially successful steam locomotive, which was used by the Middleton Railway.

The combination of iron rails with steam locomotives provided the genesis of a transportation revolution. By the standards of today’s chaotic innovation, the growth of the railroad industry was slow and methodical. In the United States, the American railroad industry began with the first passenger and freight line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1827. The industry grew steadily, from 40 miles of track in the entire nation in 1830 to 8,571 in 1850, and then to 28,920 miles by 1860. By 1890, while the nation’s rail network had grown to 163,562 miles, the technology—steam-powered locomotives pulling rolling cars—was basically the same. By 1902, track mileage was over 200,000 miles. In 1929, the nation’s railroad system hit its all-time maximum of 429,054 miles. It has slowly declined ever since.

While the growth of the railroads was steady and massive, it was not disruptive. In other words, other industries did not suffer because of railroads. While the nation’s small canal system and some river transport were impacted, railroads were an added industry, not a replacement industry. People did not lose their jobs because of the railroads. No factory owner ever said, “Damn that railroad for putting me out of business!”

We can see this across many symmetrical innovations. The printing press didn’t make scribes disappear because there weren’t that many scribes to begin with. Bigger sailing ships didn’t put man-powered boats out of commission. The telegraph did not kill the U.S. Post Office. These innovations increased the market without replacing significant parts of it.

Disruptive Innovation

You might say that the era of disruptive innovation, in which one industry replaces another, began with Henry Ford and the Model T. The industry that he nearly single-handedly wiped out was the horse industry.

In the 19th century, the horse was the ubiquitous unit of power. In cities, they transported people via carriage and horse-drawn public transport. They were used for hauling freight and for farming. By 1915, there were estimated 26 million horses and mules in the United States. That made more than one for every five people. (Think about that for a moment—all the horse feed, the manure, urine, cost of boarding, space requirements.) In 1908, Henry Ford sold the very first Model T. By 1915, the company was making over 300,000 per year. In 1920, they sold over 900,000, and in 1923 the company hit its peak with over 2 million sold.

As the automobile ascended, the horse declined—along with all of its associated industries. By 1950, there were only 7.6 million horses and mules left in the United States, with 25 million cars and a population of 151.3 million humans. As producers of commercial value, horses were gone.

During the 20th century, the rate and power of disruptive innovation accelerated. Passenger airlines decimated the passenger railroad industry. Radio, television, and movies wiped out the live vaudeville theatre industry. The rise of the suburbs emptied the cities of people. Petroleum products shrunk the coal industry. Vinyl records replaced shellac records, digital CDs replaced vinyl records, and then digital music files replaced CDs.

Chaotic Innovation

In our present era, we’re experiencing disruptive innovation on steroids.

The rate and intensity of change are increasing. What was once a family-friendly roller-coaster ride at your local county fair has become a neck-snapping, gut-wrenching Super Killer Tornado at a sadistic theme park.

The primary effect of the Super Killer Tornado ride on leadership is that threats appear more suddenly than ever before, and they hit with greater force. In decades past, a leader could watch a new innovation emerge slowly, like a building wave, and—if he or she were motivated to act—take steps to mitigate the threat or even take advantage of it.

In the good old days, did many leaders fail to see threats as they grew slowly? Of course. The top brass at General Motors watched for over a decade while their business was hammered by Toyota and other imports. Their inaction led to bankruptcy—and luckily, a hard lesson learned, as GM has rebounded under new leadership.

Here’s a statistic that shouldn’t surprise you, but probably will. It’s the number of new patents that have been granted every year for the past century. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (where they keep meticulous records), in 1901, the number of all new patents granted, both utility and design, was 27,288.

For the next 60 years, through the Second World War and well into the 20th century, this number rose gradually, and in some years it even fell.

By 1961, the total number of all new patents granted—utility, design, and plant—was 50,964. This was a predictable rate of increase over previous decades.

Then the rapid acceleration began. By 1981, the number had risen to 71,064 for the year.

In 1991, it was 106,696.

2001 showed 183,970 in that year alone.

A decade later it was up to 247,713—more than double from 2001.

And in 2021, the total number of all new patents granted was 375,506, well ahead of pre-Covid levels. All across America, more and more inventors are churning out new ideas. We’re also seeing a sharp increase in patent applications from foreign sources, most notably China.

Do all of these new patents change the landscape or pose a threat to an existing business? No—but many of them do. Let’s say that just one percent of new patents prove to be truly disruptive.

That would mean that in 2021, the number of new and disruptive devices unleashed in the marketplace might be 3,755.

One of those new technologies might be aimed squarely at your business.

This is just one way that virtually every aspect of your organization is the subject of rapid and deep change. This onslaught requires a new range of systems, methods, processes, tools, policies, and even a new philosophy about the way in which you approach leading your teams and your enterprise.

Looking across the wide spectrum of human technology, we see acceleration in the rates of innovation and disruption, putting us in a period of chaotic innovation. Identify the key areas of innovation and disruption in your marketplace. Are they impacting your business? Are you riding the wave or are you in danger of being swamped by it?

If we want to be masterful leaders in a time of chaotic innovation, we need to lean into the blur! For more information on the super power of lucid leadership and its impact on managing chaotic change, pick up a copy of my book, Lucid Leadership on Amazon or reach out to me with any questions you may have nick@nickwebb.com

#leadership #innovation #clarity #strategy #strategy2023 #business #businessmanagement #businessleadership #enterprisetraining #newleadership , #NickWebb #nicholaswebb

 

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Increase your Failure Velocity

Increase your Failure Velocity! Simple advice to anyone that wants to enjoy increased success, and positive human impact for 2023 and beyond. In order to truly embrace this concept, I think it’s important to understand the massive impact of chaotic innovation on your career and enterprise.

In a time of differentness, a death grip on sameness is deadly.”

Nick Webb

The Five Faces of Chaotic Innovation

As with any concept, to understand Chaotic Innovation, and its power to either help you or damage you, let’s break it down into manageable chunks. In the business marketplace, we see Chaotic Innovation emerging as an increasingly powerful force in five key areas:

Increased customer power

People who buy your products and services have more choices and they’re more involved in the brands and suppliers they love (and hate!). They not only “vote” with their cash, but they can make their voices heard through social media and on platforms such as Yelp and Angie’s List. They want, and expect, 100% on-time delivery in full, and no-nonsense returns. No company can survive without managing the disruptive power of the customer—which means exceeding expectations, first time, every time.

Revolutionary connection architecture

Digital media has disrupted the way we do business. Internal tools now include intranets and real-time dashboards that can deliver up-to-the- minute company performance metrics and reveal problems demanding action. We now shop online, putting enormous pressure on bricks-and-mortar retailers to innovate and redefine the customer experience. In the supply chain, the Internet of Things (IoT) means that every step is tracked and verified—there’s no place for sloppy work to hide! In other words were not just inventing, digital objects, most importantly, or developing innovative strategies of connection architecture.

Rapid innovation

The pace of Chaotic Innovation is increasing. Product lifecycles are shrinking. Analysts say that across a range of industries, fifty per cent of annual company revenues are derived from new products launched within the past three years. This means that long-term product “cash cows,” which may have been in a company’s portfolio for many years, are becoming things of the past. And if a business is slow to introduce a new product to market, it risks launching something that has already been superseded by competitors.

Evolving economic models

The days of the old top-down, hierarchical company are fading. Today’s digital world of work has shaken the foundation of organizational structure, shifting from the traditional functional hierarchy to a network of teams. As teams operate and customers interact with the company, they must share information about Chaotic Innovation s, what’s working, what isn’t working, and what problems they need to address.

Emerging employee personas.

Too many leaders treat their team members as if they live in a single demographic bucket. In fact, leaders are increasingly recognizing a range of what we call employee personas, based on what employees love and hate. It’s not about their age, income, position, ethnicity, or any other traditional demographic factor. Innovation leaders know how to identify their team members across a range of personas, and by doing so they can engineer beautiful experiences for them across a wide range of team touchpoints. I can’t over state how important it is, that you implement an enterprise culture of happiness, through understanding the unique and beautiful difference of all of your employees.

When a leader can be extremely granular about each of their team members and understand them based on what they hate and love, they do a far better job of engaging them, connecting with them, and ultimately creating a work environment that delivers the best human experience for them while delivering the best productivity and results for the enterprise.

Employees who feel like they’re being treated with indifference become disengaged, less productive, and more likely to look for the exit.

A New Age Demands New Skills

In a time that requires leaders to leverage Chaotic Innovation, the old management systems no longer apply. Every leader needs to know how fast-moving disruptors are changing what’s required from organizational management and leadership. Organizations need to increase their speed, get better insights, and deliver better experiences to both customers and team members alike. This is the only way to ensure consistent growth and profits.

In short, even if you’re currently in the lead, the pack behind you is picking up the pace. They’re hot on your heels and would like nothing better than to put you one step behind.

That’s reality. But what can a CEO, Leader or Manager do to stay ahead? After all, we human beings are more or less built the same as we’ve always been. Just like everybody else, CEOs need to put in their hours at work and then go home and have a private life. They need to get more done with the same human limitations.

Whew! How Can Anyone Keep Pace?

You may ask, “How can any leader keep ahead of the relentless pace of Chaotic Innovation? Aren’t there too many moving parts?”

Relax. It’s easy to assume that all of the changes happening across the changing customer, emerging technologies, and economic shifts are far too complicated to ever understand. The good news is that assumption is

To the Winner Goes the Prize

Wrong. Today’s Innovation Superstars develop a core competency around future trends. They don’t need to understand the endless minutia of every little emerging technology, consumer behavior, or economic shift. If we can focus on these building blocks at a high level, we can begin to understand how these changes impact the way in which we deliver human experiences, technologies, and services, and ultimately how we serve to achieve sustainable results on strategy.

The “Baby Step” Approach Doesn’t Work

Too many organizations attempt to leverage Chaotic Innovation by taking baby steps at disruptive initiatives that include future-casting activities, innovation customer experience (CX), workforce engagement initiatives and the list goes on and on. The leaders therefore assume that by taking a cursory approach to leveraging Chaotic Innovation they’ll stay ahead. The problem is that the rate and depth of change requires a holistic and comprehensive approach towards gaining better customer and market insights, while doing a far better job of maximizing the efficiencies and effectiveness of our teams and leaders. In other words, today’s Chaotic Innovation is changing everything, and how leaders lead is no exception.

Be Brave and Lean into Chaotic Innovation

Innovation Superstars are brave. Their bravery is revealed by their absolute willingness to lean into their own executive development by accepting and even driving the changes occurring both with in their organization and outside in the markets and economies they serve.

Many of today’s leading companies began as upstart market disruptors. They include:

Airbnb. Launched in 2008 by Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, by understanding and leveraging shifts in consumer behavior, this global hospitality giant succeeded by overturning conventions in the hospitality business that had been around for a century.SpaceX. Headed by Elon Musk, this disruptor of the aerospace industry designs, manufactures, and launches re-usable rockets and spacecraft, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets. The company’s success comes at a time when private companies are entering the space market, an endeavor long associated with, and controlled by, national governments.Facebook. Led by Mark Zuckerberg, this massive global social media company, founded in 2004, has totally disrupted and transformed how people communicate and share information. Similar digital disruptors include Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.Spotify. Founded by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, this music steaming service has disrupted the economic model of popular music by shifting billions of consumers away from buying music (records, CDs, MP3 downloads) to renting it. With Spotify and other streaming services you pay a fee to listen to a song. Each time you listen, the owner of the song gets a micro- payment.Netflix. The brainchild of Reed Hastings, Netflix has disrupted how we view movies and has shaken up the movie production industry. Remember Blockbuster video rentals? Blockbuster

was blind to the disruptive force of Netflix, and by failing to respond, it got crushed.

Amazon, Uber, Lyft, Tesla, Spanx, Red Bull, WeWork, 23andMe, SurveyMonkey . . . the list goes on and on. We live in an era of unprecedented market Chaotic Innovation.

This makes many excellent leaders nervous. CEOs sometimes say, “My business isn’t going to change the world. I’m not Steve Jobs or Sara Blakely.” Or, “We’re a service business,” or, “Our product is ubiquitous. We’re not high-tech.”

You’re not competing head-to-head against Apple or Spanx. You’re competing in your market, which you know very well. Your market is very intense and competitive in its own way.

While most businesses aren’t going to be massive market disruptors, any business can innovate and stay ahead of their competition. For example, in November 2017 Domino’s Pizza rolled out its “Pizza Insurance” program. It simply stated that if your takeout pizza got run over by a car, or drenched in the rain, or dropped on the sidewalk, within two hours of purchase you could bring it back to the same store, uneaten and in its original packaging, and you’d get a free replacement pizza of the same type.

Is there any product more ubiquitous than pizza? Or any market more intensely competitive? And yet Domino’s stays ahead by making innovations in how its product is marketed, and disrupting—in an incremental way—the pizza home delivery industry.

There are functional areas in your business ready for innovation. As an innovation leader, all you have to do is identify them and nurture them.

“Wishful” and “Thinking” Don’t Go Together

Today’s Innovation Superstars know the first step towards leveraging Chaotic Innovation is to recognize the world as it really is and not as they’d like it to be. They know that wishful thinking will put them on the road to disaster.

Successful organizations chase truth, not success.

As people we achieve success only after we’ve been honest and truthful about what’s required to drive enterprise excellence. As a philosophical starting point, merely chasing “success” is misguided. If we aim only for success, we’ll never get it. Success is the end result of staying focused on the truth.

This applies to how we manage our teams. We need to be honest about what we’re asking them to do and then we need to address the realities of the challenges head-on. Chaotic Innovation requires that we recognize what’s really happening and respond decisively, without thinking, “We can’t do that!”

There’s nothing wrong with success—in fact, that’s what this entire book is about! But innovation leaders know that to stay ahead, you need to know exactly where you stand in the race.

Can I Be an Innovation Superstar? (Yes!)

It’s true that the rate of change in business is speeding up.

To win the race, you only need to stay just one step ahead of your nearest competitor.

You’re already very good at what you do. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be in the race.

All you have to do is take your good performance and step it up a notch. Squeeze out just a little more speed. Take a slightly longer stride. Don’t stop for a latte macchiato quite so often. Focus a little more at work. Make an extra effort to engage your employees. Do the things that anyone could do if they chose to do them.

In business, winning is a choice. You can choose to be an Innovation Superstar, or you can choose to slide back into the pack with the others.

Action Item Checklist

To become an Innovation Superstar, you need to:

Recognize the increasing rate of change. Too many leaders operate under a set of assumptions they may have formulated earlier in life, when the pace was slower; or they may not see that change can impact any industry, no matter how ubiquitous it may be. Make sure your view of your industry is accurate and timely!

Cultivate your customers. Consumers are plugged into social media and review sites, and don’t hesitate to express their displeasure with a product or service. You need to respect their growing power and use it to your advantage.

Set the goals that work for you. Remember, it’s okay if your company isn’t a massive disruptor or isn’t going to make headlines with a new innovation. As we’ll see in

the pages ahead, staying ahead isn’t just about rolling out new technology or a splashy new product. You can stay ahead in human resources, your supply chain, operations, financial management, employee relations—all the functional areas that drive an organization forward.

Identify and evaluate the sources of external Chaotic Innovation in your market—the emerging forces that threaten your organization’s viability. What might threaten your supply chain? What new competitors are rising? Are your customers coming back again and again, or are they defecting to competitors?

In its most-simplest terms, the core to enterprise success for 2023 and beyond is your willingness to increase your failure velocity. In a time of differentness, a death grip on sameness is deadly.”

Nick Webb

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