In a video called « The End of the Beginning », Benedict EVANS talks on the shifting point we are living as a global connected society and how to understand the future of your market.
Innovation Culture
Interview – A change partner transforming HR at ING
For this fifth interview of a transformation leader, I met with Karin Parmentier. Do not be fooled by her French-sounding surname she is a straight talking, to the point, Dutch woman who developed her HR transformation expertise with Deloitte, and now with her own company and partners, she is transforming HR roles and practices in large organisations such as ING. Continue reading Interview – A change partner transforming HR at ING
The simplest definition of innovation
My first MBA class a long time ago was about finance. I was explained that the simplest (and probably most accurate) definition of finance is « money over time ». It struck me yesterday that the simplest definition of #innovation is customers over time.
On new mobility business models
When we arrived in the Netherlands two years ago, we adjusted our mode of life immediately. The key thing was to get rid of our cars. Who needs one if you live in Amsterdam? But this mobility paradise didn’t happen just because « Dutch love bikes ». There were actually many factors that were involved in the seventies to turn the country away from a car-centric future.
These lessons should be learned. As I am in an event on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula today, to discuss new mobility business models, it seems appropriate to remind us of a few things:
Cultural Transformation – Communities Over Tools
During the past few years, whether discussing mentoring programmes or cultural transformation with large corporations, I am faced with a disproportionate belief in “tools”. I think I need to clarify that it is not because as consultants we use tools that we sell tools. A keynote from Frédérique PAIN I organized recently for one of our key customer, confirmed what I’ve been seeing for years: too many French and European companies have a disproportionate belief and trust in « tools » and methodologies. Our common Western culture and history of engineering development and thinking put a strong bias toward reproductible, documented approaches to problems.
But when dealing with people and cultural transformation, tools are far from enough. Continue reading Cultural Transformation – Communities Over Tools
M&A: Overcoming the Culture Shift Challenge
When I wrote the “Mentoring by FabMob” white paper, I was already hinting at an example of use of mentoring to facilitate the cultural integration in the case of acquisition of a new entity. I do not wish to go into the well documented difficulties that large companies face when they are merging or acquiring, how people issues come into play, and how the integration of different ways of working, thinking, communicating can put a real spanner in the works. Even though we all know it is a challenge, still very little M&A really work on the cultural aspect, and very little use mentoring as a tool for creating real human connections for a faster blend of cultures.
Continue reading M&A: Overcoming the Culture Shift Challenge
What’s Your Key Innovation Metric?
To somehow follow-up on yesterday’s post, another question that I find extremely revealing about the strategy of any company is: what’s your key innovation metric?
Here again, no room for big formulas or complex constructions. If you have to gauge if your company is doing well on innovation, what would you look at and measure? The intent is not to ask a trick a question. That being said, the question packs a deep context:
- What does innovation mean to you?
- How do you define « doing well »?
- Do you have a global or a symptomatic metric?
- Over what cycle or at what frequency are you measuring?
- Are you giving a lagging, on-going or leading metric?
Technology Subversion Means You’ve Made it
Every new startup or tech company that enters a market faces the risk that it will be hacked and its technology subverted beyond its goal.
Frustrated Tesla owners openly repair and hack their own cars:
Great example of DIY problem solving to get around the exorbitant Tesla repair prices by @Stealthwater
From door handles to headlights, his Model S had wear & tear issues, but the official repair cost was five times the price of fixing them himself.https://t.co/LfA4gKvj9C— Gavin Shoebridge (@KiwiEV) October 7, 2018
You’re not competing on products
A powerful statement from Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie FILS-AIME about what business they are in, and who they are competing against:
He counted the exact number of minutes per day and said that outside of the time a consumer spends eating, sleeping, working, and going to school, “all of the rest of that time is entertainment time. That’s what I compete for, minute by minute. That time you spend surfing the Web, watching a movie, watching a telecast of a conference: that’s all entertainment time we’re competing for. My competitive set is much bigger than my direct competitors in Sony and Microsoft. I compete for time. When I do that, I have to be creative and innovative in order to win that battle.” — Ars Technica interview, Oct. 3, 2018
Granted this is not just PR material, it’s a very educated positioning and explanation on the fact they don’t sell products, games or electronics. The end value of Nintendo is entertainment. Which means they compete as directly with Netflix, as they do with Microsoft or Sony. And as such matching feature for feature with other gaming consoles is not the end game, but rather a short-sighted trap.
The most common misconception about innovation
As many professionals in my field, I get this question a lot: « What is the most common misconception about innovation? » The short answer is that most of the time, innovation is discussed and operated as a single thing. It’s not. It’s a complex blend of diverse forms of « innovations » that obey different rules, different mindsets and requires different tools.
The long(er) answer is:
Continue reading The most common misconception about innovation