How many times have you seen a talented change leader and an equally bright team fail to move their innovative ideas from concept to market — despite being given a “mandate” from the C-Suite? Today I’m going to dissect how this process frequently breaks down and give you some tips on how to prevent your own ideas from going off the rails.
Here’s the scenario: An up-and-coming growth program manager, let’s call him “Rookie,” is chosen to lead a plum breakout growth project by his company’s CEO, “Mr. Big.” Rookie plans out the project, holds the kick-off meeting — complete with mission and vision slides, flavored coffee and great mini muffins. Mr. Big and all the functional teams pledge their support.
Rookie and his team hit the ground running and meet the early deliverables. Now, it’s time to have the COO, “Ms. Ops” do the first production run in the factory. Sensing this is going to be a difficult discussion, the team draws straws and Rookie gets chosen to have the hard negotiation. (This could be Ms. Gregarious who runs big account sales, or Mr. Channel who works with the distribution team – insert your own key core product resource team.)
Rookie gets on the phone to Ms. Ops’ office. He requests a run for his team’s new product in the large scale production environment and he’s skillfully rebuffed. It turns out that they need to explain why the new device has not used materials from the worldwide environmentally qualified parts list before the project can port into the production environment. Ms. Ops asks Rookie to go back and do the work. Rookie hangs up his headset and shakes his head.
The additional (and quite necessary – to avoid potentially putting unqualified materials in the core product by mistake) supply chain work causes schedules to slip and mounting pressure. Out of desperation, Rookie calls back and uses the “Mr.-Big-wants-this-done-as-is” card.
Ms. Ops politely requests that he ask Mr. Big whether she should meet this month’s production quota or run the prototypes.
Rookie has discovered the limits of his “mandate” for innovation.
How to Avoid Rookie’s Mistakes
New innovation means organizational change, and change leads to resistance — even in the best run groups.
The first mistake is to assume that everyone will have the same enthusiasm you do for your new product, service or way of doing business. To most members of the management staff, even a well-run innovation project looks like a freight train on a gravel road — unpredictable, noisy and carrying way too much momentum.
So here’s my advice for Rookie:
Listen & walk a mile in their shoes
Make a habit of identifying both the functional lead of organizations and their right-hand person. If you’re not sure who this is, ask who takes over for them when they’re on vacation.
Grab breakfast, coffee or lunch with them before putting a pen to paper for your project. Ask them about their world, the current challenges and listen to what they have to say. Find out what their operating plans are challenging them to do for the year. Also, listen for the key vocabulary they use – words have great meaning. If possible, make a physical visit to their workplace – more than half of communication is nonverbal, and one visit can eliminate hours of conference calls.
Understand the operational limitations
Your “mandate” for innovation must operate within the practical constraints of the company, and the Mr. Big in your case probably won’t spell those out for you. Use what you’ve learned from talking with organizational leads and visiting their work spaces to construct operating parameters for your project. Reach back out to confirm your assumptions and take them into account when your team begins work.
Rookie could easily have learned about the preferred parts list and incorporated it into his team’s design work from the very beginning, thus making his request for a first production run much more likely to be approved.
Make the case for change in a language that’s relevant to them
Refine your business case for the innovation in terms that are meaningful for the function you are working with. I find that it needs to be short, and have three elements – visual, narrative and numerical. If you refine the benefits to the overall organization and make the effort to translate them for the groups you need help from, you’ll start on much better footing.
Today’s organizations have been highly refined and optimized in all dimensions – people, processes and equipment. It is very important to get a handle on exactly how your new innovation will affect the operation and make very efficient use of the scarce resources.
Over-communicate your progress, issues and outcomes
Once you have engaged your organization’s stakeholders and made the case for change in a language relevant to their function, it is very important to over communicate your status and timing for the resources of their function critical to your success.
While Rookie is working on this full time, the marketing, sourcing, sales and other functions only hear about this at quarterly functions and reviews. A concise weekly update that is sent out to everyone keeps the air clean.
An Alternate Ending to Our Story
I’m not saying there will never be conflict – that’s just not real. By having conflict on top of well grounded planning and understanding it will be productive conflict, you’ll move the ball forward for the enterprise.
So with these new strategies, we can see a rosier outcome to our scenario. Rookie is holding his quarterly review; Mr. Big and Ms. Ops, as well as HR and CFO are there. Rookie goes over the gantt chart, and Mr. Big wants to know why he didn’t meet the prototype I date. Rookie swallows hard, and before he can answer, Ms. Ops jumps in and says that Rookie did a great job of giving us a heads up, but due to Super Important Client Account’s needs, the factory couldn’t queue in the prototype.
Mr. Big smiles at the peer level teamwork and moves on. Rookie grabs a refill of flavored coffee.
Do you have other insights on running innovation teams. in cooperation with established operations? Please send me a note or Tweet me your thoughts.
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