Drinking Inside the Box

Note: This is the 6th article in the “Why Johnny Can’t Innovate” series.

Last week, a customer told me one of the most astonishing things I’ve ever heard.

My client could be just about anyone in the Fortune 500. Most companies in that club are venerable institutions that have weathered industrial, economic, and demographic revolutions for many years. A typical skill of a Fortune 500 company is an ability to observe and cautiously adapt to their customers’ needs. For decades (and in not so infrequent cases, for over 100 years), that skill has served Fortune 500 companies, their customers, and shareholders, very well.

Before we dine on my client’s insightful morsel, I need to set the table.

We do not live in 20th century, though I’m seeing more and more evidence that many companies are wishing, and planning as if they, and their customers did. Long-lived companies (of any size) know that in order to thrive, an understanding of market dynamics (past, present, and future) is essential.

Any market consists of only two basic roles: a buyer, and a seller. Sellers are usually manufacturers that have identified one or more needs that their product or service can deliver. Buyers are likely customers of sellers, and have the surprisingly synergistic relationship to sellers that they usually need what the sellers provide.

Great and enduring companies are those that embrace a continual understanding of these two roles. Yet, this concept is one that manufacturers are forgetting with increasing predictability. Frequently, in the pursuit of new revenues beyond their current product or service pipelines, companies adopt the amazingly bad business strategy of, “If we build it, they will come”. All too often, this is a failing strategy. It is a strategy that is focused primarily on the company’s core competencies, and not nearly enough on the needs of potential customers.

In order for companies to thrive, especially when severe and protracted economic disruptions are clearly visible on the horizon, companies must literally innovate, or die. Innovation cannot be limited to the products and services a company makes. Innovation must be rigorously applied to new business strategies, and to the identification (not just the development) of new markets.

The table is now set, but perhaps I should offer you an aperitif to whet your appetite a bit further.

Innovation methodologies and tools, sadly, are rarely used at most companies to their full potential. The immediacy of quarterly earnings often damns R&D and other innovation activities to product cost reduction or process optimization. (For the truly damned, defect mitigation is sometimes the order of the day if customer complaints and/or warranty costs are the major components hitting both top and bottom line growth.)

Methodologies such as Lean, Six Sigma, and DFSS are used to drive efficiencies into existing products, which serve existing markets. Such methods produce measurable benefits to cost containment or boosts in productivity, but seldom is the game changed.

High-value innovation is often (and mistakenly) relegated to strategic activity. A select few with even more select calendars will, on special occasions, be given leave to ascend their ivory towers. The company’s anointed few are charged to ponder and pontificate on ideas that can yield insights into new product designs and new markets that the future might bring. I had dinner recently with a group of such innovation apostles.

And now, our feast can begin.

The discussion over dinner was on the eve of a workshop that would apply innovation methodologies and tools to the identification of new markets. My client’s once valuable products and processes that had endured for more than half a century were now little more than commodities. Within their core market segments, my client's return on their own innovation had been diminishing rapidly, especially during the recent economic (near) death spiral.

During the evening, we discussed several means by which any product or service (and their underlying technologies) could be deconstructed into key functional benefits. Through application of specific research questions (applied both through innovation methodology and software), we could then find intersections between a technology’s benefits and the needs such technologies would address. Using this approach, correlations between functions and needs would likely surface in demographics and markets that had previously been completely outside of my client’s consideration. The workshop, and subsequent applications thereof would be examples of classic, “out of the box” thinking, with one exception: The research and innovation methods would be facilitated through automation, and generate many ideas in a predictably short space of time, with increasing degrees of relevance.

My client told me that this was exactly what they needed to hear. I would soon discover, however, that it was also something they would be unwilling to practice.

It was, in fact, the onset of a common innovation killer that I've seen over the years.

My client was suffering from a classic onset of Comfort Food Poisoning, which I’ll talk about in the 7th installment of "Why Johnny Can’t Innovate".


Stay Hungry.

Wintry Potpourri

The deepest aspect of this article is likely to be the seven inches of snow that's fallen outside my window. A typical New England storm has moved through to make room for an even larger storm later this weekend. The roads are nearly impassable, but as a familiar song of the season slurs (at least Dean's rendition of it), I've really no place to go.

A lot of topics that I'd would have liked to write about here have surfaced since I talked turkey last month. However, I find that as the end of this year approaches, I want to clear the decks to make room for what's to come in 2009. So I thought I'd take a break from writing a larger article, and instead share some brief insights on things that have caught my attention over the last few weeks.


Innovating In A Recession

It is probably safe to say that 2008 has been a recessionary year for most, and 2009 promises to be even more challenging. During the Great Depression, a few companies managed to thrive. Their secret was simple. They identified ways to create and deliver value.

Chuck Frey of InnovationTools and Renee Hopkins Callahan of Innosight recently contacted a diverse collection of innovation experts and practitioners to learn more about the strategies they recommend for maintaining innovation during these challenging times. I was surprised and honored that an excerpt from one of my recent articles here at Thirty Minutes From Andromeda was included in their report, "Innovation Strategies for the Global Recession". My colleague Jim Todhunter, over at Innovating to Win, was also included in this report.


Recent Passings

Innovation is a technical and creative form of expression, usually a longing for something better, often of a goal that seems unattainable. I have found that for some of the most inventive minds, science-fiction has been an early source of inspiration, creating dreamers that transform into doers. It personally has played a role in my own career paths. So it is with sadness that I note the passing of two important figures in 20th century science-fiction.

Majel Barrett Roddenberry passed away this week from complications of leukemia. She was well known as the "first lady of Star Trek", having been involved with every production of the most recognized franchise in genre entertainment. Recently, she just finished voicing her familiar role as the computer of the famed U.S.S. Enterprise in J.J. Abrams' blockbuster restart of the franchise, due in theaters next May.

Forrest J. Ackerman (Uncle Forry, to those of us who knew him) was one of First Fandom's beloved members. He was responsible for coining the phrase "sci-fi" as a pun on the popular "Hi-Fi" home entertainment center in the 1950's. He discovered and represented giants of the genre including Ray Bradbury. Long before the commodity of social media, Forry published magazines and books that helped connect hundreds of thousands of fans and professionals in their love of the future, the fantastic, and the unknown. He was also one of the kindest and biggest hearts that you could ever meet. I was personally very fortunate come to know him through the 1990's, and last saw him in 2006 in Los Angeles. Forry's passing represents the end of an era, but not the end of his influence.


Notable Blogs

I started this blog as an experiment. One thing I learned very quickly is that there are more bloggers in the world with more talent than I could ever hope to have (or keep up with) who have some very thought provoking things to say. Recently, I've recently discovered several blogs which appeal to my professional and ecclectic interests that are very much worth sharing. I encourage you to check them out.

• Lateral Action - Thought proking articles on creativity, productivity, problem solving and innovation.
  
• Zero Punctuation - While technically not a blog, this video website contains the most essential element of electronic game review: a misanthropic British pop-culture slave displaced to Australia with an unnaturally developed sense of abuse and sarcasm, and command of the $#%&ing English language.
  
• The Market Ticker - I follow a fair number of economic and financial blogs as best I can (certainly not enough as I should). Karl Denninger pulls no punches and doesn't waffle around when it comes to looking at the macro-economic catastrophe we are in, and all of its consequences.

I'll be returning to writing more focused articles shortly, including: the conclusion of my "Why Johnny Can't Innovate" series; a recommended reading list for 2009; and some new insights into the innovation initiatives of the Obama administration.

Subject: Experts Matter

Note: This is the 5th article in the “Why Johnny Can’t Innovate” series.

As tends to happen at my local bookstore (where I write most of my articles), a new book found its way into my ‘to read’ pile. Mark Bauerlein’s “The Dumbest Generation” caught my eye, if at first for no other reason as to its wise-ass potential. I soon realized that the book’s cover belied a more serious message within its pages.

The premise of Bauerlein’s thesis is that a growing number of young people in the United States are losing the ability to read and comprehend literature, engage in scientific and political debate, and are generally becoming knowledge deficient. The cause is an over-abundance of social technologies which distract young minds from intellectual pursuits and cater to the banality and peer adulation needs of “anyone under 30”.

While I can’t say that I entirely disagree with him, I do have a different perspective on the changing face of human-enabled knowledge management.

I get to work with people who have made careers out of knowing and innovating slices of key industries, science and technologies better than most if not all of their peers. I get to see the best of the best do what they do, and they all do it as well or better than anyone else in their fields. They are, what we call in innovation practice, subject matter experts (SMEs).

SMEs drive cutting-edge advances in all fields such including physics, chemistry, biology, materials, engineering, and of course - business. Frequently I get to know these experts on a personal level, and see the paths they’ve taken to get where they are in their careers. While their industries may differ, their stories are similar. SMEs have journeyed along highly challenging and collaborative academic or entrepreneurial paths, becoming recognized by their peers, and ultimately have sought to bring their talents to the corporate world.

Soon after securing a position in a prestigious firm or a bold startup, a shroud of isolation quickly surrounds many experts as the needs of competitive secrecy and corporate culture arrest open exchange and communication. The subject matter expert becomes an individual contributor, and soon, becomes focused on his or her individual contributions within a department or a project. Does this impact their abilities to drive innovations in their fields of expertise? No. But it often impairs their innate skills of documenting their expertise, or becoming an expert in anything else, in favor of their companies’ operational efficiencies.

Experts are not simply critical innovation resources for the knowledge they’ve passionately collected, developed and apply. Experts are critical drivers of innovation because of how and why they became experts in the first place. They were once passionate about their interests and developed effective documentation, investigation and collaboration skills to rise to the top of their fields. SMEs are incredibly good at writing narratives about their discoveries, research, and opinions. Organizations with an innovation mandate should not overlook these skills, and the SMEs who possess them.

Of the many reasons innovation initiatives fail, lack of available or accessible subject matter expertise is a common factor. In my experience, too often it is discovered that the expert knowledge that could have meant success for the initiative was present all along, but the body-corporate never realized that it had the critical resources sitting within their own walls.

Fostering a collaborative environment across experts in multiple departments, business units and operating companies does not mean risking competitive controls or changing the corporate culture to a completely academic environment. To unleash the potential of SMEs in an innovation culture, a proactive knowledge management strategy that is both central to the organization and distributed throughout all of its operations is critical.

Promoting strong narrative forms of collaborative communication can raise the collective knowledge of an organization, and stem the costly onset of institutional memory loss. This aspect of communication is a critical element of many contemporary social networking applications.

Unlike the exchanges among the younger population which give Bauerlein concern about a growing knowledge deficiency, enabling SMEs to tell and leverage their stories across organizations and industries leads to knowledge-enabled innovation.

How To Eat Soup With A Fork

Note: This is the 4th article in the “Why Johnny Can’t Innovate” series.

At the end of my recent article, “Five Minute Innovation”, I left you with an admittedly intentional cliffhanger. I told you that the secret to five-minute innovation was learning to eat soup with a fork.

(Those of you who’ve just pulled out a spork and feel as if you’ve accomplished something might want to hold off on the victory dance for just a few minutes.)

At its core, innovation is the process of creating or discovering ideas that solve a problem, or fill a need. Logistical details regarding the quality and implementation of ideas generally reside outside the innovation process which creates them. History teaches us that for any kind of innovative breakthrough, whether in industry, art or academia, many ideas need to be created and evaluated before a winning idea emerges. The Economist estimates that the number of ideas needed to fuel a successful product development initiative approaches three-thousand.

Think about that for a moment. For a winning idea which is made manifest as a product in today’s markets, hundreds or even thousands of similar ideas have to be created, validated, and filtered. Winning product development companies recognize this, but their challenge is none the less a formidable one. In order to fill a product pipeline, a winning company (or individual) must have an ability to come up with more ideas of higher quality, and in less time to compete in a global market.

They must master sustainable innovation.

Is it really possible to minimize the time it takes to create or discover an idea? In my experience, successful, rapid and repeatable innovation first means breaking problems down into their simplest, independent forms. Repeatable methodologies and task-based tools are then applied to tackle these simpler problems. Mastering skills and tools that enable quick creation of even a few ideas to solve simple problems is the key to developing breakthrough ideas when solving much larger problems. All it takes to develop these skills is a bit of mental calisthenics, and the will to exercise on a daily basis. The essential (and only) innovation exercise you’ll ever need is this:

Challenge yourself to create and validate just one idea in 5 minutes.

I often pose this challenge to industry leaders, executives and students. Take the dumbest, simplest problem you can find and try to independently create one new idea to address it. Learning to eat soup with a fork is a perfect problem because the goal is so absurd. Why would we actually choose to use a fork to eat soup? The obvious answer is that we wouldn’t. There is safety in this exercise, because very likely we don’t care if the idea is good or not, and that’s exactly the point.

Often we let the fear of failure and the high stakes of success constrain our creative and critical thought processes. We often focus on finding the right answer as the first answer, which means that we rarely learn anything about our own thought processes, let alone try to improve them. Five Minute Innovation changes the focus from finding the “right” answer(s) to honing our creative thought processes and finding one answer quickly.

So, first we need a methodology of thought, but which? The Scientific Method? Six Hats? Deming Wheels? Creative Whack-Pack? Rider-Waite? Take your pick or bring your own method – the important thing is to be consistent in any thought method’s application. For our creative plunge into the soup, I’m going to use a methodology known as the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, or as it’s known in the original Russian form, TRIZ.

A word or two about TRIZ: TRIZ is a wonderful problem solving methodology. Unfortunately due primarily to language barriers, it hasn’t been as widely practiced as other methods over the years. The fundamental benefits and applications of TRIZ are relatively simple to master. Software applications such as Invention Machine Goldfire Innovator provide automation and facilitation of key benefits from the TRIZ method. For more information on the TRIZ methodology itself, the TRIZ Journal website is a good place to start reading.

Getting back to our forking soup problem, we have a definite tradeoff here, or what often is referred to as an engineering contradiction. A part of our system’s design (presumably with the goal in mind of transporting soup) is completely at odds with what’s happening (the soup falls through the fork tines). In the TRIZ method, this is a sweet spot for rapid, creative thinking. We are encouraged to consider using what are known as some of the Forty Inventive Principles by thinking about the problem through a pre-defined contradiction analysis. I’ll spare you the theory here, but let’s jump to the thinking part. One TRIZ-based analysis suggests that with this given tradeoff, we look at solving the systemic problems by any of several approaches:

• Change any parameter of the system including its phase, flexibility, consistency, temperature, (etc.)
  
• Introduce a porous element or intermediary into the system
  
• Do something in advance to increase the current system’s efficiency

So, given these constraints for thinking about a way to solve the problem, what can you think of in just five minutes?

How about:

• Freeze the soup. (“Waiter, I asked for some really cold Gazpacho.”)
  
• Use the fork to pick up a piece of bread which can then be used to soak up larger volumes of soup.
  
• Bend the fork tines to create a pair of pincer grips for grabbing the edge of the soup bowl, and bend the fork handle around to look like a cup handle. Grab the edge of the bowl with your newly formed pincer grips. You’ve just turned the bowl and fork system into a gigantic mug. (I take no responsibility for your dry cleaning bills or any restaurant blacklisting you may encounter should you try this idea.)

Are all these ideas winners? Probably not. The point is that it only took a short time to create and explore them.

Many ideas usually need to be created and evaluated before confidence to choose any single idea is sufficient. While everyone’s creative capabilities are different, everyone has the ability to improve both the level and frequency of simple, pro-active problem solving through short and repeatable exercises.

Five Minute Innovation is a method which, when consciously applied, can help hone and tune technical and creative thought processes. If gaps or blanks appear during its application, that’s just as important as coming up with new ideas. It indicates a need for additional knowledge and perspectives, which helps both current and future innovation cycles. Acquiring and managing knowledge is separate from the innovation process, but is another barrier to Johnny’s innovation, which I’ll talk about in a future article.


So, when you have five minutes to spare, what new ideas will you create?

Five Minute Innovation

Note: This is the 3rd article in the “Why Johnny Can’t Innovate” series.

In my previous article in this series, I continued my commentary on a growing race of highly efficient and skilled predators snuffing out innovation initiatives at some of the biggest and brightest product development companies. The deadliest of these predators, however, doesn’t have to work as hard as the others. In fact, he’s quite complacent phoning in the kill from a comfy chair. His secret weapon: the fear of losing time.

Of all the reasons why innovation initiatives fail to gain traction, the one I’ve observed that tops the list again and again at over one hundred companies is: a perception that innovation takes significant time to achieve.

I want to let you in on a little secret I’ve discovered that may change your business (as well as your competitors’). It is a secret that has, amazingly, been overlooked by some of the sharpest and brightest product development companies, academic institutions, and analyst firms. I think you’ll be astonished by how simple and yet how powerful this secret is.

All innovation occurs in 5 minutes or less.

I realize this may sound like an extreme over-simplification, or some catchy, feel-good guru-speak, but trust me when I say from years of experience facilitating innovation projects, that it isn’t. The time it takes for a subject-matter expert to move from blank stares at a seemingly impossible problem to the eureka moment that marks the beginning of a critical path to success is measurable in seconds or minutes.

The challenges which lead to tremendous amounts of time being lost before innovation occurs are formidable. One challenge is entirely self-imposed. Initial failures of any innovation process occur because ‘now isn’t the time’. There are an endless number of justifications, fears, and excuses companies use to put off innovation. I see this week after week.

I get to work side-by-side with some of the brightest thought leaders from many industries including aerospace, automotive, energy, medicine, industrial and consumer design. I’ve learned that there are no limits in the creative innovations that individuals and teams can develop. I’ve noticed, however, a disturbing phenomenon. If I leave a client alone for more than a few weeks, the result is often as if someone turned out the proverbial innovation light bulb. The same phenomenon appears to many of my innovation consultant colleagues in different practices.

The correlation between our presence with a client and a client’s innovation activity has absolutely nothing to do with our subject knowledge or creative influence. The correlation is much more basic, and frankly easy to understand, yet is often overlooked. When an innovation consultant shows up at his or her client, the client’s management is well aware that they’re paying for the consultant’s time, and innovation tasks suddenly are given both a very high (almost crisis-level) priority, and a limited time for delivery. It shouldn’t take a managerial response to controlling expenses to dictate when innovation is a priority, yet this impacts innovation as much as any factor I’ve witnessed.

There are two factors that I’ve observed about people who put off innovation because of self-imposed priority or time constraints, independent of project, background, or industry.

Factor 1: People generally want the easiest path from point A to point B. This is not only human behavior; it is an aspect of physical laws governing nature. Consider the laws which govern electricity. Electric charge will always find the path of least resistance to a lower potential, without exception. Whenever you see a highly-twisted and random lightning bolt, you’re looking at the shortest path to ground that the bolt could find. Unlike a lightning bolt which finds its path in a split second, human beings will spend hours, sometimes days to find a solution path that takes 5 minutes, which leads me to the second factor.

Factor 2: In today’s interrupt-driven, task-oriented and globally connected world, many people have lost the ability to recognize the difference between research and innovation. Worse, they tend to practice one when the other is required. The results are both unsatisfactory results, and lost time. Let’s focus on this second factor for a moment.

Research involves looking at the past, whether that past is a conversation someone had 5 minutes ago, or is an important technical article written 5 years ago. Effective research is dependent on access to a knowledge management infrastructure. Such infrastructures can be: a library; a search engine; a research archive, (etc) that has been pre-populated by the content we’ll need now or at any point in the future. Research has strategic roots, and is a tool that has great strengths in helping us learn basic or detailed information for any topic, provided that at some point in the past, the information we are interested in now was actually created, captured, and made accessible by the research vehicle of our choice. Research looks for answers to questions that someone else has already asked, directly or indirectly.

Innovation is fundamentally dependent on asking (and answering) an “original” question. This process is not as difficult as it may seem. It merely requires a little bit of discipline, a willingness to surrender a small amount of the creative process to one or more methodologies of thought, and a willingness to put a time limit on success or failure. I’ll explore this in more detail in my next article in this series, but I’ll leave you with something to think about in the mean time:

The secret to successful five minute innovation is: learning to eat soup with a fork.

The Currency Of Ideas

Note: This is the 2nd article in the “Why Johnny Can’t Innovate" series.

Last year, I introduced six observations on how innovation, in any sized organization, is likely to fail before it begins. It’s been a bit longer than I would have liked to discuss these observations in detail (ironically due to a very busy schedule of innovation projects and initiatives I’ve been facilitating with my clients). A silver lining to this delay is that I’ve had even more time to observe barriers to innovation at some of the biggest and brightest product development companies in the world. What I have observed during that time has only reinforced my conclusions. Left to one’s own resources, innovation initiatives are likely to fall victim to a number of highly efficient and skilled predators. However, there is hope.

I’d like to invite you to consider a very human barrier to innovation, and explore with me the question of incentive.

What motivates a person to innovate? This is a question that I visit each week with my clients, either directly or tacitly. In the past few months, I’ve had numerous opportunities to think about the question of incentive.

When I originally started writing this article last year, I was flying from Boston to Milwaukee, making my way to the city of Racine, WI. Racine is home to an icon of architectural design and innovation. SC Johnson’s corporate headquarters is the home of Frank Lloyd Wright’s later industrial design masterpieces (and a National Historic Landmark), the Johnson Wax Administration building.

Wright’s design pushed the boundaries of engineering design in both form and function. Most notable of his design choices is in the Great Workroom, in which giant dendriform columns rise from their 9-inch diameter bases to their 18 feet diameter platforms like giant lilypads. Wright’s design contradicted or outright violated many of Wisconsin’s building codes of the day and generated significant controversy.

Why did Wright put forth such a radical design? In his own words during construction of the project, Wright felt that “Architecture is that great living creature spirit which from generation to generation, from age to age, proceeds, persists, creates, according to the nature of man and his circumstances as they change.” Wright had (as with many of his later projects) been given a platform for his expression. His design of the administration building was the ultimate work-for-hire. He had been granted a license to express his brand of original ideas which would last far beyond his lifetime and be a standard to which others would be judged. If any one of us were given such license in our works, our responses would all be some variation of “how cool is that?!?”.

Such opportunities present themselves to us far more frequently than we realize, but without the fanfare (and perhaps the expected recompense). In my experience, anyone who is put into a position to be creative (artists, scientists and engineers alike) seeks respect, validation and recognition for their ideas. Often, the personal need for idea validation is as or more important than the desire for financial reward. I find that, in product innovation, companies miss the opportunity to reward their employees’ creativity with currency other than dollars, euros, or physical tokens of exchange. An inability of a company to recognize creative innovation activity among the ranks forms the foundation for a culture of mediocrity. Where this disconnection is more pronounced, innovation often becomes a crisis response (usually with an executive mandate) to a lagging performance in the marketplace or a sudden wake-up call by a new competitor.

So what currencies can companies use to spur innovation?

From my vantage point, I’ve seen many companies' typical reward systems to “innovation on the job” translate as: job security; peer recognition; publication (including patents) and cash bonuses that are tied directly or indirectly to sales performance.

I’d like to suggest that applied psychology plays an essential role in sustainable innovation, just as much as methodology or tools. Tokens of psychology are perhaps the one form of currency where all of us can literally print money, but few of us do. Some aspects of psychology are short-lived. Others have much longer impacts and actually multiply when shared across groups of people. Successful innovation managers I have observed keep this issue top of mind. Psychological rewards affect individual, group, and corporate performance, not as some overbearing big brother culture, but as communities of practice. The financial and physical rewards frequently follow almost automatically.

One example of applied psychology to promote successful and sustainable innovation is internal publication and internal marketing of innovation activities. Ad-hoc publication of individual or group research and discovery goes a long way to inspire others to create and innovate. Simple blogging tools and the freedom to use them are ways of creating innovation spaces that take on lives of their own, and offer ways of communicating ideas that are often lost in traditional meeting settings or conventional communication channels such as e-mail and standardized project reports.

Internal marketing activities that tell the stories of innovation activities within and across a company often reinforce feelings within individual contributors that they are part of something larger than themselves, and that they have an important role to play. One company I’ve observed actually goes as far as to create an almost “Heroes”-like comic-book poster campaign that adorns the walls of their research centers, showing the current status (with regular updates) of key teams and where their ideas are in the chase of key product initiatives.

At the end of the day, we are all human, and any initiative we undertake, whether it’s fixing a widget or designing a corporate headquarters facility is met with the same question – “What’s it to me?” While there are obvious tokens we will seek in establishing the value of work we might undertake, other factors which speak at a psychological level may have significant sway.

In the pursuit of repeatable and sustainable innovation, the successful patron of ideas, for any purpose, will have more than a few psychological quatloos in his or her billfold.

Why Johnny Can't Innovate

I have had a unique opportunity over the last five years to teach and facilitate product and process innovation to nearly one hundred leading companies, many in the Fortune 500. Each week, I work side by side with thought leaders and senior management from many industries. Over the years, I have noticed a common set of six barriers to successful innovation. I witness these barriers week after week, independent of the specific company I am working with or its industry sector (though each company / sector adds its own unique spice of personality, politics, and process to the problem). This article is the first in a series in which I would like to share some of my observations.

In 1955, Rudolf Flesch wrote of the poorly-developed reading skills of contemporary American children, in his well known classic, "Why Johnny Can't Read". In it, he claimed that the education establishment was failing by teaching reading skills as a “read and guess” method of word association to subject context.

When it comes to innovation skills, we rarely seek out any education or skill training before the need arises to come up with a game changing idea. Most innovation practitioners, in my experience, are self-taught on a just-in-time basis. As a result, bright ideas from thought leaders tend to appear (initially) through serendipity. Consequently, repeatable innovation means guessing, a lot. The practice of innovation, then, becomes an exhaustive experience, which sets up many possibilities for failure. Innovation, taking on the stigma of risk and failure, is avoided as a general practice. It is instead marched out for special circumstances (usually a crisis), which, as a result, guarantees that a prior lack of institutional learning of fundamental innovation barriers, will stop innovation time and again.

So, in the spirit of a similar question asked over fifty years ago (with the understanding that our protagonist can be male or female):

Why can't Johnny innovate?

In my experience, some or all of the following six reasons (in no specific order) will likely stop Johnny from coming up with a great idea.

• He doesn’t have any incentive.
  
• He doesn’t have the time.
  
• He’s disconnected from key technical expertise.
  
• He’s not trained, adept, or comfortable with proactive, creative thought.
  
• He doesn’t have immediate or easy access to critical knowledge.
  
• He can’t look beyond his immediate problem-solving needs.
  

Even in reviewing this succinct list, there are, no doubt, short term measures which innovation practitioners, managers, and executives can take to avoid the more immediate barriers. Such measures, however, rarely translate into sustainable innovation practices or organizational transformation to a highly-effective innovation company.

Over the coming weeks, I will be offering in follow-on articles some of my observations from the field as to how each of these barriers to innovation manifest themselves, and how to mitigate or eliminate their impacts on the innovation practitioner, organization, and company.