Innovation Trend Spotting: Shepherding a Team of Opportunists
February 22, 2010
When an entrepreneur creates a new product or company, the result usually is borne by spotting an emerging trend, conceptualizing an innovation, or seizing an opportunity unmet or consumer behavior emerging in the marketplace.
But what happens once the company opens its doors or the product hits the market? Whose responsibility is it to spot the next trend or opportunity? More important, who should be charged with shepherding the behavior of trend-spotting across the organization?
Everybody is responsible for trend spotting. This isn’t some cliquey club; limit your people’s involvement at your own peril. From the Marketing and New Product Development Departments, to sales representatives in the field, from the CEO to the receptionist or CSRs – trends happen and are spotted everywhere. Therefore, everyone needs sharp eyes and piqued ears for emerging trends.
But trend spotting doesn’t just happen. Part mandate, part innate behavior, people have to want to be on the look out for new opportunities. Just as many organizations seek to break down silos that traditionally have separated teams or departments, the same sense of unified, yet independent thinking must permeate any organization that hopes to spot and capture the Next Big Thing.
This cannot be an idle mandate – a sort of set-it-and-forget-it statement from on high. Trend spotting is learned by example, and encouraged or shepherded by senior managers who also focus on innovation. This can be the CEO of a smaller organization, or the Chief Innovation Officer at a larger one.
This kind of lead-by-example encouragement transforms employees across the enterprise into Idea Generators – trend spotters who become champions of their space and sources of new ideas that touch every part of the organization. One who submits an idea is more likely to take ownership of it – and help shepherd it in kind through the research and discovery process
(Whether a trend that is explored and later travels the path to New Product Development is another topic. To be sure, not all trends spotted and submitted to the Idea Hopper for further discovery will blossom – at least right away. Some will, and some must wait for market or company conditions to blossom in kind. And that’s fine.)
How can you improve and become more creative in organizational trend spotting?
- Create a Trend / Idea War Room. Like lighting company Sylvania “War Room” for trend spotting. Yours can be a permanent place where white and dry erase boards, competitive products, and ads clipped from magazines line the walls (see more below).
- Solicit outside involvement. Do you have field reps, distributors, retailers who are on the front lines of customer interaction? They can help target opportunities by specific geographies or market segments.
- Tap tradeshows. I’ve always encouraged aggressive trend spotting at tradeshows. As your people walk the floor, encourage them to envision and cross apply. At Kohler, we would attend design and household appliance shows, and come up with better and trend fitting kitchen product designs for faucets and sinks.
- Read (with a trend-spotting eye) trade and consumer magazines. See something cool? Tear it out and stick it to the wall. Let the Innovation Team mull them over. Ideas may crystallize.
- Buy new and competitive products. Tinker with them in a War Room. It’s amazing what will emerge.
- Buy your own service. Experience the process. Where does it shine? More importantly, where is it frustrating? What can be made easier and better?
- Ask your customers. For customer-facing organizations, customers often are your best trend spotters. When I was at Airspray we convened with multitude of disciplines. But most came from customers via sales, rife with bias and lacking filter.
- Set an agenda for trend management. Along with feeding the Idea Hopper, plan to manage ideas and attack the opportunities they present.
Trend spotting in the innovative workplace is by necessity a persistent activity. Opportunities emerge for competitive advantage. Competitive forces constantly emerge that require reaction. It’s a natural part of a corporate evolution, whether related to new product or services development, or the establishment of new internal processes meant to improve the organization itself.
Aristotle is thought to have said, “Excellence is not an act, but a habit.” Replace “Excellence” with “trend spotting.” And embrace the mandate.
By Robert Brands (with Jeff Zbar)
Robert Brands is the founder of InnovationCoach.com, and the author of “Robert’s Rules of Innovation”: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival, with Martin Kleinman and which will be published in March by Wiley (www.robertsrulesofinnovation.com).
The World’s Most Innovative Companies 2010
February 18, 2010
Even in these tough times, surprising and extraordinary efforts are under way in businesses across the globe. From politics to technology, energy, and transportation; from marketing to retail, health care, and design, each company on the following pages illustrates the power and potential of innovative ideas and creative execution.
Click here to see the list
Building an Innovation Culture
February 17, 2010
For innovation to flourish, executives must be committed, patient and ready to lead by example.
By Josh Cable
Like many manufacturers, Eaton, Ohio-based Henny Penny Corp. was founded on innovation. Seeking a better way to cook chicken, restaurant owner Chester Wagner developed a deep-fat pressure fryer and filed for a patent in 1954. Three years later (patent in hand), Wagner formed Henny Penny to market his invention, which the company claims was the world’s first commercial pressure fryer.
The ‘I’ in ‘Innovation’
When Robert Brands was CEO of Airspray NV, a Dutch manufacturer credited with developing the first non-aerosol instant-foam dispensers now used by consumer product companies, his monthly visits to the company’s headquarters in the Netherlands always included an afternoon set aside for discussing new product development.
While the meetings helped establish priorities and “marching orders” for everyone involved in the R&D process, Brands believes they served a larger purpose: His presence at the meetings showed how important innovation was to the company.
Why Results Require Rewards: Encouraging Action With Incentive
February 8, 2010
Imagine a company that has taken the time to consider the role of Innovation in the corporate mission. Employees were encouraged to be part of the innovation process but their reward was compensation linked strictly to output.
Does that encourage value-added thought process? In my mind, it encourages work, which should need no encouragement at all.
Now, what if that same company put a reward system in place whose reward system was based on innovation and results, not hours or labor? It aligned reward to patents granted, products launched, or sales achieved? And its reward process was integrated along side its Vision, Mission, Strategy, and Resources / Budget?
I would argue that that organization has asked itself a key question: What motivates your team to excel in innovation? The answer is Net Rewards for Net Results.
Many companies see cash as the ideal motivational perk. This might not be the case. A recent survey from McKinsey found that three non-cash motivators rise above all other forms of incentive: Praise from managers; the attention of leadership that takes place in one-on-one conversations; and the chance to lead projects, teams or task forces.
Such nods and recognition topped even cash bonuses, increased base pay, and stock or stock options – the three top-ranked financial incentives, McKinsey found.
“The survey’s top three non-financial motivators play critical roles in making employees feel that their companies value them, take their well-being seriously, and strive to create opportunities for career growth,” the McKinsey report noted. “These themes recur constantly in most studies on ways to motivate and engage employees.”
Though being discussed last in the list of the 10 Imperatives to Innovation, “Net Rewards and Net Results” arguably holds equally high a position as any other imperative. There’s a fundamental connection between the two. Rewards must be in alignment with the expectations of the organization and its people. Some organizations seek to innovate, but try rewarding people based on R&D spend. It’s is a worthy financial metric, but is no guarantee for success.
Incentives should not be about output or spend. It’s about “thought-put,” and the creativity, ideation and esprit de corps brought to the effort.
Done right, rewards the organization in search of inspiration, motivation, ideation – all the imperatives that drive innovation. It rewards the individual for performing at a high level, and the team for working effectively as a Unit of One.
For the organization that seeks results, incentive is a kind of Reward ROI. By investing in employee rewards as a carrot, think of innovation as ROI derived from the alchemy of ideas-to-money. As we’ve written before, innovation leads to improved performance, heightened sales, more black on the bottom line. This profit – whether in actual product on the street or improved organizational performance – brings benefit to all stakeholders: shareholders, executive leadership, employees, customers and consumers.
Various perks can drive incentive. Incentives must be earmarked for all participants at the table. This may include the development team itself, to the marketing, finance, R&D, sales, customer service or people from other departments who helped with ideation, market research, justification or any other process that went into creating the new initiative.
For example, in the NPD process, the team or division should be rewarded with a compensation package that includes a percentage of sales derived from new products delivered. The neat thing about NP sales is that success is rewarded and people stay engaged and involved they care post development or launch.
Simply put, the fruits of your team’s labor benefit all – and rewards must reflect that. Moreover, this type of validation acknowledges individuals’ ability to envision new concepts, help shepherd them through the R&D process (even if the individual is not part of R&D, per se), and play a key role in bringing product to market.
Rewards can enhance valued employees’ commitment to the organization, boost morale, motivate future efforts, reinforce positive outcomes, encourage repeat performances and help keep employees’ “eye on the ball” vis a vis innovation and ideation. It also strengthens the connection between strategy and results.
In sum, when Net Rewards are based on Net Returns in the innovation process, everybody – the organization, the innovators, the stakeholders and the consumers – wins.
By Robert Brands with Jeff Zbar
Robert Brands is the founder of InnovationCoach.com, and the author of “Robert’s Rules of Innovation”: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival, with Martin Kleinman and which will be published in March by Wiley (www.robertsrulesofinnovation.com).
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