Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney

A vital function of an innovation leader is to motivate, support, and point their team to good habits. Doing this should be a daily activity. Modeling leadership habits and exhibiting leadership skills inspires employees to become leaders. With inspiration and a list of questions to ask your employees, they will become more efficient and innovative. Questions to Ask Your Employees The first question on my list is, “What went well last time we met?” Once you ask this question, it is crucial to be a good listener. Next, offer them your appreciation for their work, and provide your support. Focus on reinforcing the idea that innovation is about the team. The second question on the list is, “What went wrong and what was the lesson you took from it?” When dealing with innovation, we can’t always be in complete control of the situation. Failures are bound to happen. As an innovation leader, you must encourage your employees to share their failures and learnings. Having a culture that embraces experimentation leads to more significant innovations. The organization can learn from that failure and avoid it altogether in the future. Number three on my list of questions to ask your employees is, “What did you find that could be improved, and what did you do to improve it?” This question is vital because it permits employees to fix things. In doing so, the employees learn some critical lessons. Firstly, they understand that everyone in the organization is in it together. Secondly, they know not to throw their problems on someone else, but to take the initiative. Creating a Motivating, Clear, and Honest Environment The fourth question is, “how can I create a motivating environment?” In my organization, we give out gift cards to recognize employees’ reasonable efforts and innovation habits. To create a motivating atmosphere, you need to be approachable and listen actively. Additionally, it would help if you recognized when someone does something well by publicly acknowledging it.  The recognition shows others what habits and actions to strive for in their team and organization. The fifth question I ask is, “What roadblocks are you facing, and what can I do to clear them?” As a leader, your job is to sift out things that hinder productivity. Roadblocks can be significant or minor issues. Leaders should remove barriers so that their teams can stay focused on what’s important. Lastly, I ask my employees if there is anything else they want to talk about. This open-ended question allows employees to share other things on their minds. One of my organization’s core values is “candor with respect.” This value gives employees the confidence to be transparent and frees them from concern about negative reactions. Protect confidentiality so employees feel they can open up. I’ve had employees present challenges in their personal lives. In some cases, I’ve been able to help. The results have improved employee morale and generated positive change for the organization. To know more about the top questions to ask your employees, listen to this week's show: Top Questions to Ask Your Employees. RELATED:   Subscribe To The Newsletter and Killer Innovations Podcast

Let’s say your organization tasks your team to generate a new product or service idea. You gather your team together and get ready to brainstorm, thinking you can’t go wrong. Contrary to common thought, when brainstorming problem statements, things can go wrong. Often, teams will jump into brainstorming sessions, forgetting a vital step of the process. This step is known as the area of focus. When it comes to assembling your team to brainstorm problem statements, developing the area of focus is beyond critical. As a team leader, it is essential to explain a few key things to your team. Firstly, you need to explain who has the problem. Secondly, it is crucial to lay out what the problem is. Lastly, you explain why the problem is essential to solve. Elements of A Good Problem Statement When brainstorming problem statements, a set timeframe will help a team put all their energy and attention into creating that area of focus. This time is vital because a well-defined focus from a solid problem statement will generate more and better ideas. A well-thought-out problem statement either solves a problem, removes a barrier, or improves an experience. Don’t forget that problem statements need to be concise without implying or stating a solution. It is also crucial that they are specific enough to the point where they are solvable by your organization within that timeframe. This process is not easy. As a result, I spend four to eight hours crafting, testing, and validating a problem statement. Generating As A Team There are a few key steps needed when successfully brainstorming problem statements. Firstly, you need to get together and brainstorm the problem. This step includes gathering a list of problems and challenges, any organizational friction or barriers, and unmet needs within the organization. The second step is to have your team answer the “what, who, and why.” Thirdly, you need to take the gathered data and plug it into one of the templates to generate the problem statement. Next, repeat the “who, what, and why,” drafting multiple versions of the problem statement. Lastly, test it with the “who,” or your organization’s target segment. Once you have a version of the problem statement you think works, test it with others. The test is best done by writing it out and making it concise. Like I always say, never use yourself as a proxy. Next, ask your organization some questions to validate the problem and problem statement. Once validated, you are ready to present your problem statement to your team so they can begin brainstorming. To know more about team brainstorming, listen to this week's show: Brainstorming Problem Statements as a Team. RELATED:   Subscribe To The Newsletter and Killer Innovations Podcast

Many people spend years of their lives searching for the secrets of success. Most people believe success comes from doing what successful people do. 1986, “In Search of Excellence” came out, which sought to identify shared practices of 10 successful companies and publish them. This book was the first one in its genre. Did these companies become successful out of luck? Let’s try this strategy by taking fifty firms featured in three best sellers in this genre – In Search of Excellence, Good to Great, and Built to Last. Of the firms covered by these books, sixteen failed within five years, twenty-three underperformed the S&P 500, five became exceptional, and the remaining six became average. Only 10% of these “role model” companies became successful. Now let’s look at the area of music. If you look at an artist that had a top 20 song, should you sign that artist? Your gut would probably say yes. A study looked at 8,300 artist’s songs from 1980-2008. It concluded that rather than signing the artist in the top twenty of 100 songs, you would have better market success picking the artist ranked between 22-30. In many cases, songs that get top spots are “one-hit wonders.” The artists that tended to have more career success were the second-best to start with. Smart agents sign artists in the mid-twenty to thirties range because they got there by skill and not luck. Luck’s Role in Innovation People often confuse luck with taking a risk—I mean going from good to great out of nowhere. The difference between an okay innovation and a breakthrough is all about the right timing. Some levels of success can be attributed to the innovator, but luck often plays a big part. When I think of luck, I think of it in the construct of a 2×2 matrix. The horizontal axis is the level of luck, the left side being zero (no luck), and the right side being 100 (every perfect condition). The vertical axis is your innovation capability, the lower part is zero (no innovation capability), and the top is 100 (innovation perfection). In the lower left-hand corner, with no luck and no innovation capability, you have no chance. If you don’t innovate and leverage any form of luck, competition will eat you up. In the upper left, where you have great innovation but no luck, you might have some mediocre success, break even, or get acquired by someone. With unbelievable luck but no innovation capabilities in the lower right-hand corner, you have “blind luck.” Many people think they can consistently achieve success through luck, but it is not a strategy. In the upper right-hand quadrant, you have unbelievable innovation capabilities, and luck comes along. Final Thoughts In some cases, you can position yourself to achieve breakthrough success. It’s important to know when to pause an idea. When luck raises its head, you can take advantage of it and create that innovation success. Don’t think that you can do whatever someone like Elon Musk did and achieve the same level of success. It would be best if you recognized that you aren’t in complete control. Don’t try to control luck, but use your innovation capabilities to create ideas and have them ready to move forward with them when the timing is right. To know more about achieving innovation success through luck and skill, listen to this week's show: Innovation Success, Skill or Luck. RELATED:   Subscribe To The Newsletter and Killer Innovations Podcast

A challenger is someone who ignores old thought patterns, doesn't let others hold them back, and confronts the dominant player. In the story of David and Goliath, David defeated the giant because he approached him differently. As an organization, you need to think differently to challenge a well-accepted market leader. Challengers fight smarter, with focus and a clear purpose. Being a challenger is a mindset as much as anything else. How to Become One History is full of innovation challengers that upset prominent industries. Take Google, for example. Yahoo had 95% of the market share when Google started. Google's success came when they pivoted their innovation to an automated page rank algorithm. The most popular pages floated to the top, which people loved. Google stayed focused and had a purpose, resulting in a David and Goliath type of victory. They currently have around 92% of the market share. Another example is SpaceX. Space exploration and travel used to be strictly government-based. In 2006, SpaceX challenged the space launch monopoly that Lockheed Martin and Boeing held. As a result, SpaceX went from a 1.5% market share in 2008 to roughly a 22% market share in 2020. How does SpaceX differentiate itself? By reusing rockets after launches, saving millions of dollars. Google and SpaceX are now Goliaths because they became innovation challengers. Establishing an Innovation Challenger Mindset Firstly, you need to understand the Goliath deeply. It would help if you studied the culture, organization, key influencers from the inside and out, investors, board, company history, etc. If possible, buy and use their products. Follow them on social media, sign up for newsletters, call their support line, buy through their sales channels, etc. Secondly, accept all negative feedback as opportunities. Don't rationalize away people's complaints about your products or ideas. Use them as ways to improve. Practice active listening and address feedback. An excellent example of this is Zoom. At the beginning of COVID, Zoom quickly rose to the top but started having issues. To address these issues, they did regular meetings to gather feedback from people. They responded successfully to the problems, leading them to where they are today. Thirdly, look for other parallel industries that have challengers. It is surprising how many ideas you can take from totally unrelated areas. Figure out how to apply what you have learned from other industries to your own. Number four is to build an “innovation red team, ” a team of outsiders that challenges your assumptions. You want these people to be brutally honest with you and to point out your blind spots. I still have blind spots, even though I've been in the innovation game for forty years. It is vital to permit these people to challenge you. Doing this will make you more successful as an organization. Lastly, encourage your team to experiment and try new things. Have a culture that teaches failure as a learning experience and not a negative thing. To know more about becoming an innovation challenger, listen to this week's show: How to Become the Innovation Challenger. RELATED:   Subscribe To The Newsletter and Killer Innovations Podcast

Innovating in the face of the unexpected can stretch the most decisive innovation leader. COVID taught us that flexibility and adaptability is the name of the game. This is especially true within an organization’s innovation efforts. A new capability is needed to respond to these disruptive shock situations effectively. I call this capability “elastic innovation,” or the ability to innovate in the short-term while still managing innovation efforts in the long term. During these unexpected times, it is often necessary to innovate within a 0-48 hour timeframe. I became aware of this concept in 2015 when I read the Elastic Innovation Index. This index looked at the financial tech world and focused on how quickly companies could adapt to sudden changes. Recently, John Bremen wrote an article called Elastic Innovation related specifically to COVID. Today, I will be combining thoughts from these two articles with my own. Impacts of Elastic Innovation Elastic innovation impacts different practices companies use. Firstly, it impacts an idea pipeline. Most companies have some form of Idea Management System (IMS). Forced to take an idea from your pipeline, you skip standard processes and immediately implement it. Elastic innovation may also impact your people. To succeed with elastic innovation, you need to have a culture that allows for a high decentralization of decision-making and resources. The best ideas usually don’t come from senior executives. When in an elastic innovation situation, you need to empower your team to move quickly and create a diverse approval process. Approve it, fund it, and get moving. Thirdly, elastic innovation impacts your operating pace. Typically your process and pace are set based on approval processes. Significantly accelerated, this is the pace in the case of an elastic innovation. Things are tested and launched to respond to disruptive shocks adequately. Lastly, elastic innovation impacts the framework a company is following. It would be best if you were willing to drop some elements of your framework. Keep in mind; you should maintain your quality and safety standards and protect your brand. Examples from COVID During COVID, perfume manufacturers transformed their manufacturing systems to make hand sanitizer. They leveraged their capabilities in a short-term effort to create an entirely new product. Restaurants shifted to using mobile ordering and curbside pickup to get people their meals safely. The gig economy saw a rise in its grocery delivery services. Musicians adapted and started doing virtual concerts for their fans. If you keep an elastic innovation approach, you will deal with complexities and balance response tradeoffs. Most importantly, you will react quickly and decisively, which will lead to your organization’s success. To know more about this needed innovation compatibility, listen to this week's show: Elastic Innovation – A Needed Innovation Capability. RELATED:   Subscribe To The Newsletter and Killer Innovations Podcast

In past episodes, I’ve discussed science fiction stories as tools to predict the future. H.G Wells wrote about atomic bombs and the fallout – thirty years before Nagasaki and Hiroshima. In 1968, John Brunner predicted the European Union, China’s rise to power, and Detroit’s economic downfall.   You can probably take any existing technology and find a book or article that predicted something like it in the past. If you want to spark an idea, the most crucial part is understanding the timing. An Unexpected Way to Predict the Future Writers of fiction bring something to those whose jobs it is to predict the future. Writers bring the sensory talent. To be a great writer, you need to be aware of things others don’t see and pick up on different trends and moods. The ability for a writer to convey a picture of what could be generates that “what if” spark. Writers can create and invent emotions, worlds, structures, political parties, and., eliciting a response from the reader. It’s all about imagining what it will take to get from point A to point B. This episode was inspired by an article written by Philip Oltermann discussing novels to predict crises such as genocides or civil wars. The project, called “Project Cassandra,” was run by Jurgen Wertheimer, a professor of comparative literature in Germany. The overall goal was to figure out if you could predict the unpredictable. They discovered that authors in a given country were writing fiction tied to their country’s circumstances and forecasting what they believed would happen based on the patterns they saw. Some people refer to a crisis as a black swan, which is an event you can’t predict. On the contrary, the project showed that a few years before a crisis, local authors offered a sense of what was coming. These predictions weren’t based on extensive data collection but more focused on people’s feelings. Those running the project focused on the literary infrastructure, asking whether the –  was the book was being censored or if it did elicit extraordinary reactions. Predicting as an Innovator I tend to use a similar process when it comes to predicting the future. On top of looking at reactions, I take interesting writings and search out the people involved in them. Firstly, I ask the writers what barriers are keeping their predictions from happening. I also check what the dependencies are, and most importantly, I ask what the intended and unintended consequences are. No matter what you are doing, it is vital to ponder these things. The Cassandra Project was looking to predict crises five to seven years out. The early stages of this project were successful in predicting things one year out. The next stage was five to seven years out. The early successes came from giving off strong hints, but this is hard to make actionable. In the case of innovators, hints are interesting, but they have to be translated. This is a challenge for any innovation. Ultimately, Project Cassandra was killed in 2020 by the German government. Do you think reading the writings of authors can be possible sources of predicting the future? Prediction is challenging and often viewed as the holy grail for innovators. The one guarantee is that you will never be 100% right. This shouldn’t cause you to make us give up, as a prediction can create that little spark that will lead you to the next big thing. To know more about unexpected ways to predict the future, listen to this week's show: Unexpected Way to Predict the Future. RELATED:   Subscribe To The Newsletter and Killer Innovations Podcast

To me, pivoting is making a significant change in direction. Many people are not aware that some of today's products result from a pivot. We'll look at seven companies that made meaningful, significant changes resulting in ultimate success. Achieving Success by Pivoting Your Innovation PayPal started as a digital “I owe you” platform. Today, it is a major payment transaction platform that gave birth to the “PayPal mafia, ” including Elon Musk. The successful pivot was Airbnb, which initially offered housing for conferences and air mattresses. The third company is Twitter, which started as a podcast platform called Odeo. I was on show five or six in the early days of the platform. When iTunes came out with their podcast app, they put similar platforms such as Odeo out of business. As a result, Jack Dorsey and his team brainstormed, found inspiration, and pivoted, coming up with Twitter. Next up is Western Union, which was a telegram company founded in the 1800s. In recent years, the company pivoted and became a money transfer company. Today, the company handles shy of $9 billion a year. I use Western Union for non-profit and for-profit work in Rwanda. The next company that has done major pivots is Slack, which I am an avid user of. Slack started as a video game venture called Glitch. When they couldn't get any interest in their idea, they switched to a messaging platform and found success. Nintendo and Pivoting Nintendo has been around since the 1880s and has been in many different businesses. They started off making playing cards and then pivoted to taxi services. Next, Nintendo made instant rice cookers and then pivoted to hourly hotel rooms. Eventually, they pivoted into the early video game space and became the company we know today. Developed initially to clean up coal dust off walls, Playdoh pivoted to a toy that I grew up using as a kid. Heat sources switched from coal to oil, gas, then natural heat, the market for Playdoh dried up. The company realized teachers were getting creative with Playdoh in the classroom and pivoted their business to a different target market. Important Steps To pivot successfully, you should treat it like any other area of innovation. First, find your area of focus and ideate. Next, rank your ideas and execute them. Pivoting is better than going bankrupt. I did thirteen startups before my first IPO at Telligent. Pivoting is a skill that innovators need to have and an action they need to be willing to take. Additionally, it would be best to be dedicated and on the same page as your team to pivot successfully. Next, you need to be willing to change. Don't fall in love with your innovation and refuse to let go. Thirdly, you have to move very quickly to pivot successfully. Lastly, please choose what you will be doing and commit to it. To know more about achieving innovation success by pivoting, listen to this week's show: Achieving Success by Pivoting Your Innovation. RELATED:   Subscribe To The Newsletter and Killer Innovations Podcast  

Let's talk about some non-obvious sources of my innovation inspiration. Recently, we spoke about seeing with fresh eyes and how important that practice is. Fresh eyes need innovation inspiration to guide them towards that next game-changing innovation. The Power of Unexpected Conversations The first source of my innovation inspiration is unexpected conversations. I like to talk with interesting people who have different backgrounds than I do. I often do this on airplanes or at rest stops, as well as at large events like TED. My goal of these conversations is to walk away with at least one exceptional idea. I have a set of questions that I ask people in unexpected discussions, such as, “What are you curious about?” or “What innovation do you want to see come to fruition during your lifetime”? In the 90s, my uncle owned Macarthur Fish and Poultry in the heart of Oakland. One thing that frustrated him was missed phone calls that often led to missed opportunities. During the holiday seasons, it was hard to keep up with numerous calls. At the time, I was in the telecoms business, and I figured out that it was recorded every time a phone number was called. We decided to look up the callers' information from these missed calls and put it into emails. We would then send it to the store owner to call back, which led to more business. The product was called Imagine and went on to amass a ton of success after its launch in 1998. The success of Imagine eventually became the cornerstone of Telligent, which then grew to be a $3.1 billion business. All of this resulted from a few unexpected conversations with my uncle and fellow shop owners on Macarthur Boulevard in Oakland, California. Never underestimate the power of an unexpected conversation. Observe and Erase Annoyances The second source of my innovation inspiration is being observant of what annoys me. We all have things that bother us. It is essential to ask what is causing these annoyances and how they're erased. I've been in the mobile phone industry since the late 80s, so I have many experiences with smartphones. In the early days, smartphones could only run single apps at a time. A group called Palm had developed a new system called webOS which could run multiple applications simultaneously. I loved webOS so much that I convinced HP to buy it for $3.5 billion. They created what I would call the best smartphone approach out there, which was way ahead of Apple at the time. Now, all smartphones have the system that webOS developed. All of this was a result of an annoyance that a team decided to erase. Asking Deep Questions The third source is asking the “who, what, when, where, why” questions and applying them to your area of focus. For instance, I am currently reading “This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends” by Nicole Perlroth. Through reading this book and others, I've come up with a way to generate ideas by asking these questions. Ask yourself what the more profound thing is that will allow you to dig deeper. I have come up with tons of ideas based on what Perlroth shares in the book. My objective is to come up with at least one interesting idea from every chapter. Ultimately, it is essential to remember that inspiration is everywhere, no matter where you are or what situation you find yourself in. To know more about finding innovation inspiration, listen to this week's show: Innovation Inspiration is Everywhere. RELATED:   Subscribe To The Newsletter and Killer Innovations Podcast

Regret is one of those emotions that can derail your future success. As innovators, regrets can be things like someone else launching an idea you had before you were able to execute it. Today, I will share three of my innovation regrets and how to move past them to continue achieving success. My First Innovation Regret During the early days of computer viruses, I was Director of Product Development for ThumbScan. We offered a fingerprint biometric device under $1,000, which was the first at this price that could attach to a PC. Since this was before PCs were common, people didn’t see much value in the company. During this time, I was making headlines for my work on computer viruses and had written down a ton of ideas about them in a notebook I had. Then, Thumbscan started struggling, and sales were dropping. I ended up setting aside my notebook of ideas and focusing on other things. Next thing you know, Norton and McAfee came out with products similar to my ideas and became very successful. I made a few big mistakes in this situation and learned some lessons. Firstly, I went wrong when I correlated people’s interest in the product to an entire industry segment. I also looked at the “now” instead of looking at what could happen if viruses became a major issue. My other big mistake was that I didn’t go back and present my ideas to McAfee and Norton. At this time, I was well-known and could have successfully leveraged my reputation. Instead, I chose not to do it because I didn’t want to be the second or third guy coming out with the idea. I wanted to be the first. Another innovation regret is that typically, the first people who come out with something don’t create the best product. Second Regret My second innovation regret comes from a project I called “the six degrees of separation.” This idea states that you are only no more than six people away from everybody else. A group of consultants and I were sitting around one day and came up with the idea of this project. We were trying to figure out if we could connect people through their work experience, employers, and the likelihood that they knew somebody to create a connected introduction network. This concept was two years before LinkedIn offered any product or service. We put the idea up but got distracted by a new idea and ended up dropping it. LinkedIn came out two years later and became a huge success. Here, I learned that I did not lack ideas, but I lacked a ranking process for my ideas. New ideas always look shiny, and we often gravitate to them, which causes us to lose focus on older and potentially successful ideas. Regret #3 When I was at a company called Omnipoint, we came up with the idea of prepaid mobile. This was the very first prepaid mobile as the existing mobile required built-up credit.  We set it up to be an easy process and sold at locations selling Omnipoint phones. There was no account information necessary to purchase the service. We got flooded with people using the prepaid service, and it became very popular. Then, criminals discovered our anonymous phones. The popularity became the launching point for “burner phones.” The U.S government was not happy with what we were doing, and I had a lot of conversations with different agencies. From this innovation regret, I learned to look for the unintended consequences of my innovations. Nowadays, I write out my regrets and jot down what I would have done differently. After this, I move on and let go of the past. Moving on is vital because if you dwell on your regrets, they will take your energy and focus away from future innovations. To know more about innovation regrets, listen to this week's show: Overcoming Innovation Regrets. RELATED:   Subscribe To The Newsletter and Killer Innovations Podcast

Previously we talked about innovation adoption and the importance of getting across the innovation adoption curve. Let’s shift our conversation to innovation adoption as a competitive advantage. There is a new category of innovation adoption that is on the rise. This category is known as the hyper-adoption of innovation. The category describes the propensity to adopt and adapt to innovation at a speed and skill unmatched. Adopters in this category are willing to change everything very quickly to be successful. The best example of this is to look at the economies of countries that have become hyper-adopters. Here is some information and statistics on China from a Harvard Business Review article by Zak Dychtwald. In China, we have seen explosive growth in business and infrastructure. The country has a resource that no other country has: a vast population that has lived through an unprecedented amount of change. China’s innovation ecosystem of millions of hyper-adoptive consumers makes the country so globally competitive. The Chinese people know change is good and are willing to change when it is necessary for growth. The Lived Experience and Hyper-Adoption The “lived experience” has shaped China’s unique attitude towards adoption. Looking at lifetime per capita GDP, the U.S has grown roughly 2.7 times from 1990, while China’s has grown 32 times. In 1990, China’s GDP represented less than 2% of the global total, but by 2019 it represented nearly 19%. From 2011-2013, China poured more concrete than the U.S had poured in the entire 20th century. In 1990, China’s rural population had one refrigerator per one hundred households. Today, that number is ninety-six per one hundred households. In 1990, China had 5.5 million cars on the road, and today they have 270 million. 3.4 million of these cars are electric, representing 47% of global electric cars. In recent years, the Chinese have had to adapt to radical change more than any other country in the world. Because they constantly implement hyper-adoption, China is poised to take the lead in the innovation arms race. How to Become a Hyper-Adopter of Innovation Becoming a hyper-adopter of innovation means remaining open to trying new things and being willing to change yourself. This includes looking at things with fresh eyes. When teaching workshops, I often ask organizations if they are eager to change. Typically, individuals in the group will say they are fine but point out someone else they think needs to change. You need to evaluate yourself and take the necessary steps to adapt. If you want to create an unfair advantage, you need to be willing to change yourself and decide on your own. To know more about the hyper-adoption of innovation, listen to this week's show: Is Hyper-Adoption of Innovation a Competitive Advantage? RELATED:   Subscribe To The Newsletter and Killer Innovations Podcast