Attitudes about innovation

At some recent workshops, I put six groups of ideas in front of people as shown here

The answers surprised me (a bit).  Innovation ranked FOURTH from a group of 120 senior managers at a large multi-national company.

At another company, Innovation ranked SECOND, from 89 managers

At yet a third, it was FIFTH, from about 70 managers

WHERE SHOULD IT BE?

Internal Chasms, canyons and voids

Many of you studied (or at least skimmed) Geoffrey Moore's CROSSING THE CHASM a few years ago.  His thesis was (and is) a great one--enthusiasts (read NERDS) and early adopters provide initial sales for any new product or service.  But then there is a big GULF before the quiet majority sign up. The majority has several categories--the WAIT and SEE crowd, the SKEPTICs, and the OVER MY DEAD BODY types.  But the problem is that all of them are slow to adopt new methods, and that hampers the enthusiasm of any start-up, or new offering.

This is an EXTERNAL CHASM--meaning it is to a significant degree OUT OF YOUR CONTROL

We've identified three INTERNAL CHASMS as well, reasons that larger companies so often fail at innovation by comparison with small companies.

The FIRST in a FUNDING CHASM.  Paradoxically, larger companies, with lots more money, have less to spend on speculative things than do smaller companies.  HUH?  Well, oddly, this is true.  The shareholders want it back, in terms of dividends, or share price, or both.  To drive share price, the earnings spiral must be ever upward, which means that speculative 'new money' is not spent.  Refinement becomes not just the norm, but the rule.  So new research money doesn't get spent.

The SECOND is a RESEARCH CHASM.  As the money doesn't get spent, the best researchers tend to leave for greener pastures.  This leads to outsourcing your new product development.  Ohmygawd

The THIRD, by far the most prevalent way to shoot yourself in the heart, is the CANNIBALISM CHASM.  This is the one where the sales teams (and often manufacturing and marketing and support) refuse the new product / service / concept because of the disruption it causes for smooth operations.  Case in pony:  Kodak pioneered digital photography just fine, holding more than 17,000 patents in this area.  So the funding chasm and the research chasms were handled.  But the operational side didn't like the new stuff, and loved the old wet chemical stuff.  And they rode it into the grave.

Moore covers some of this in DEALING WITH DARWIN, but we think it could be explicated more completely.  Hopefully, we'll get that into a readable version this year.