The problem with innovation (1)
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Among many other things, innovating is about being first. So, does your company have a guiding vision enabling your people to deliver novelties of interest to customers? If that’s the case, is there a business strategy in place to benefit from first mover advantages? Can your company innovate?
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Is mission creep impacting your research and development efforts? Are your products over-engineered and, therefore, cost-ineffective? How do you prioritize?
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Are your innovators tied up in time consuming processes and fire drills that leave very little room for them to think of what’s next? Did your innovators freeze? Are they unable to focus?
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Is your strategy centered around core competencies? If so, is that preventing your best people from adventuring beyond their department’s comfort zone and, therefore, missing unprecedented opportunities? Is your business addressing just old problems instead of new paradigm shifts? Confused about technology?
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Has your market evolved, morphed, mutated… disappeared? Are your customers changing? Is your organization experimenting and learning what works and what doesn’t. If so, is the company able to shift gears accordingly? What’s the organization’s memory span? Has your strategy come down to just reinventing the same underlying strategies every other year? Have you missed the market’s window?
J. de Francisco blogging from Chicago on Aug 22
