John Sunderland, the former CEO of Cadbury Schweppes, often responded with a parable when an executive argued that the business could increase either margins or sales, but not both. Sunderland would remind the executive of a time when people lived in mud huts and struggled to get both light and heat: Put a hole in the side of your hut, and you let the daylight in, but also the cold; block the opening, and you stayed warm, but sat in the dark. The invention of glass made it possible to have both light and heat. He would then ask, “Where is the glass?”
Skipping Design Research Can Be Costly
Skipping Design Research Can Be Costly
Skipping design research can be costly. For example, high-end German automobile manufacturers were stunned when U.S. customers would not buy cars without cup holders. While drinking coffee in the car seemed unthinkable to Europeans, it wouldn’t have taken much design research to learn how important it is to U.S. car buyers. The manufacturers, forced to retrofit, created some of the most complex, expensive, unreliable and least user-friendly cup holders ever produced. Design research findings are not typically assembled in the form of data and reports but are instead stories and characters, often captured on video. Such findings resemble and evoke real experience more powerfully than data and reports can, vividly conveying the desired emotional connections between people, products and services, and they help a company to triangulate these findings with appropriate technologies and economic objectives.
Encouraging Creativity and Innovation
In 1945 the Raytheon Company faced a tremendous demand for magnetron tubes to power the new radar system used to detect enemy aircraft. One day when a Raytheon engineer named Percy L. Spencer stepped too close to a magnetron tube, he noticed that the chocolate bar in his pocket had melted.
Other engineers had noticed the same thing, but didn’t give it much thought. Spencer, on the other hand, despite having only a grammar-school education, was intensely curious. He tried placing popcorn kernels in front of the tube—and a few minutes later, for the first time since cave-dwellers tamed fire, human beings cooked food in a new way.
A year earlier, anyone might have laughed at the idea of Raytheon selling ovens driven by magnetrons to restaurants and, eventually, households. “Absurd!” “Ridiculous!” “We’re in the defense business!” The Raytheon organization took a chance and listened to Percy Spencer. He wasn’t just a resident weirdo providing comic relief—on the contrary, Spencer’s input was constantly solicited, and he eventually served as a senior member of Raytheon’s board. In this case, his idea was rewarded with a shift in production, and within two years the company took the first Radarange® to the market.
History books rightly credit Percy Spencer with the invention of the microwave oven, but in fact his story also includes dozens of unsung heroes, starting with members of Raytheon’s management. They’d hired and promoted Spencer despite his lack of education. They didn’t chastise him for playing with his food in the middle of a serious engineering laboratory. They listened to him and built the Radarange—and then they searched within that market for new discontinuities.
Raytheon tried licensing the technology to other companies, such as Tappan Stove. (Its $3,000 refrigerator-sized microwave ovens were sold to customers with gigantic commercial kitchens, such as on ocean liners, that had to heat a lot of food quickly.) Raytheon then purchased its own domestic-appliance distributor, Amana Refrigeration, in 1965. In addition, Raytheon continually encouraged engineers to tinker with the magnetrons. Finally they figured out that an expensive, military-grade magnetron unit was somewhat over-engineered for the task of thawing frozen steaks and popping popcorn. They developed a smaller, cheaper, simpler, safer and more reliable oven for household use. Amana’s first countertop microwave oven, sold for $495 in 1967, represented a serious discontinuity in household kitchen behavior. In taking risks, Raytheon and Amana were uniquely prepared to take advantage of the huge societal discontinuities of the 1960s: urbanization, women entering the workforce and families devoting less time to meal preparation. Again, it seems obvious in retrospect: cheap and ubiquitous ovens, microwaveable food categories representing $75 billion in annual sales based on the premise of quickly thawing and cooking food. But at the time, the discontinuous mindset at Raytheon and Amana gave them long-term dominance in the home microwave oven business. There are plenty of other examples of unconventional thinkers thriving within traditional companies: Art Fry and Spencer Silver invented the Post-it note while working at 3M, and teams at Apple, amazon.com and General Foods invented the iPhone, Kindle and Tang, respectively. On the other side of the coin, there are also plenty of examples of people like A.P. Giannini—mavericks and free spirits who made their fortunes as entrepreneurs because they were not rewarded in traditional organizations. To encourage a discontinuous mindset, companies must have the proper reward structure to make the maverick’s suggestion of new ideas worthwhile.
Even today, many companies claim to encourage creativity and innovation, but their measurement and reward systems rarely support it. Creativity is messy. It leads to mistakes. (In Raytheon’s case, it took nearly 20 years of mistakes and “not-quite-enoughs” before the microwave’s big payout.) However, measuring results, rather than effort—and rewarding certainty, rather than potential—forces out the unconventional thinkers. It promotes those with modest aspirations, those who are slow and plodding. Reward mediocrity and you never exceed the mediocre.
Other engineers had noticed the same thing, but didn’t give it much thought. Spencer, on the other hand, despite having only a grammar-school education, was intensely curious. He tried placing popcorn kernels in front of the tube—and a few minutes later, for the first time since cave-dwellers tamed fire, human beings cooked food in a new way.
A year earlier, anyone might have laughed at the idea of Raytheon selling ovens driven by magnetrons to restaurants and, eventually, households. “Absurd!” “Ridiculous!” “We’re in the defense business!” The Raytheon organization took a chance and listened to Percy Spencer. He wasn’t just a resident weirdo providing comic relief—on the contrary, Spencer’s input was constantly solicited, and he eventually served as a senior member of Raytheon’s board. In this case, his idea was rewarded with a shift in production, and within two years the company took the first Radarange® to the market.
History books rightly credit Percy Spencer with the invention of the microwave oven, but in fact his story also includes dozens of unsung heroes, starting with members of Raytheon’s management. They’d hired and promoted Spencer despite his lack of education. They didn’t chastise him for playing with his food in the middle of a serious engineering laboratory. They listened to him and built the Radarange—and then they searched within that market for new discontinuities.
Raytheon tried licensing the technology to other companies, such as Tappan Stove. (Its $3,000 refrigerator-sized microwave ovens were sold to customers with gigantic commercial kitchens, such as on ocean liners, that had to heat a lot of food quickly.) Raytheon then purchased its own domestic-appliance distributor, Amana Refrigeration, in 1965. In addition, Raytheon continually encouraged engineers to tinker with the magnetrons. Finally they figured out that an expensive, military-grade magnetron unit was somewhat over-engineered for the task of thawing frozen steaks and popping popcorn. They developed a smaller, cheaper, simpler, safer and more reliable oven for household use. Amana’s first countertop microwave oven, sold for $495 in 1967, represented a serious discontinuity in household kitchen behavior. In taking risks, Raytheon and Amana were uniquely prepared to take advantage of the huge societal discontinuities of the 1960s: urbanization, women entering the workforce and families devoting less time to meal preparation. Again, it seems obvious in retrospect: cheap and ubiquitous ovens, microwaveable food categories representing $75 billion in annual sales based on the premise of quickly thawing and cooking food. But at the time, the discontinuous mindset at Raytheon and Amana gave them long-term dominance in the home microwave oven business. There are plenty of other examples of unconventional thinkers thriving within traditional companies: Art Fry and Spencer Silver invented the Post-it note while working at 3M, and teams at Apple, amazon.com and General Foods invented the iPhone, Kindle and Tang, respectively. On the other side of the coin, there are also plenty of examples of people like A.P. Giannini—mavericks and free spirits who made their fortunes as entrepreneurs because they were not rewarded in traditional organizations. To encourage a discontinuous mindset, companies must have the proper reward structure to make the maverick’s suggestion of new ideas worthwhile.
Even today, many companies claim to encourage creativity and innovation, but their measurement and reward systems rarely support it. Creativity is messy. It leads to mistakes. (In Raytheon’s case, it took nearly 20 years of mistakes and “not-quite-enoughs” before the microwave’s big payout.) However, measuring results, rather than effort—and rewarding certainty, rather than potential—forces out the unconventional thinkers. It promotes those with modest aspirations, those who are slow and plodding. Reward mediocrity and you never exceed the mediocre.
Failing to see the road to the future
Examples of those who fail to see the road to the future are often cited with hilarity. Take Harry Warner of Warner Brothers Studios, who commented in 1927 on the advent of soundtracks for moving pictures: “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?“
Or take the senior management at Procter & Gamble when the disposable diaper was first suggested. According to diaper business folklore, P&G was conducting market research to find out what housewives liked about their cleaning products for soiled diapers. Inspired by comments of the form, “We don’t like anything about washing diapers,“ a P&G team came up with the idea for the disposable diaper. The team set about assessing the opportunity, estimating market volumes, projecting cash flows and profit margins, and preparing a presentation for P&G top management. The latter sat patiently through all the material, reviewed the market projections, and made it clear that they were impressed with all the work the team had done in analyzing the opportunity. “Just one question,“ they asked finally, “Where’s the soap?“
Or take the senior management at Procter & Gamble when the disposable diaper was first suggested. According to diaper business folklore, P&G was conducting market research to find out what housewives liked about their cleaning products for soiled diapers. Inspired by comments of the form, “We don’t like anything about washing diapers,“ a P&G team came up with the idea for the disposable diaper. The team set about assessing the opportunity, estimating market volumes, projecting cash flows and profit margins, and preparing a presentation for P&G top management. The latter sat patiently through all the material, reviewed the market projections, and made it clear that they were impressed with all the work the team had done in analyzing the opportunity. “Just one question,“ they asked finally, “Where’s the soap?“
Successful Failures
In a small pub in the highlands of Scotland a group of fishermen gathered one afternoon to swap tales over a round of ale. One of them stretched his arms apart to show the big one that got away. At that very point, a waitress walked past carrying a tray of full ale glasses. The fisherman’s wild gestures sent the tray smashing against the wall. The dark brew splashed on the white wall of the pub and began running down. The waitress and the fisherman tried to wipe the mess off the wall, but it had left an ugly dark stain. A man who had watched the whole scene from another table walked quietly over to the wall. With a brown pastel crayon he took from his pocket, he began to sketch. The entire pub watched in silent awe as a majestic stag with great spreading antlers magically took shape around the stain. The artist was Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, the top 19th British painter of animals.
Think Outside the Box
You are driving along in your car on a wild, stormy night, it’s raining heavily, when suddenly you pass by a bus stop, and you see three people waiting for a bus:
This is a dilemma that was once used as part of a job application.
He simply answered:
“I would give the car keys to my Old friend and let him take the lady to the hospital. I would stay behind and wait for the bus with the partner of my dreams.”
Sometimes, we gain more if we are able to give up our stubborn thought limitations. Never forget to “Think Outside the Box.”
- An old lady who looks as if she is about to die.
- An old friend who once saved your life.
- The perfect partner you have been dreaming about.
This is a dilemma that was once used as part of a job application.
- You could pick up the old lady, because she is going to die, and thus you
should save her first; - * or you could take the old friend because he once saved your life, and this
would be the perfect chance to ! pay him back. - However, you may never be able to find your perfect mate again.
He simply answered:
“I would give the car keys to my Old friend and let him take the lady to the hospital. I would stay behind and wait for the bus with the partner of my dreams.”
Sometimes, we gain more if we are able to give up our stubborn thought limitations. Never forget to “Think Outside the Box.”
Stop looking under the light for innovation
There’s an old story about a man searching for his lost keys under the light on a dark night, even though they were last seen elsewhere. When a passerby asks why he continues to search in the wrong spot, the man replies, “Because the light’s better over here.” Too often, companies search within their own sphere of knowledge rather than seeking solutions wherever they may be found.
The “Sneaker Game”
The date was December 9, 1934. The New York Giants were playing the Chicago Bears for the championship of the National Football League. The two teams were thought to be evenly matched, but there was a special factor that day that changed the dynamics of the game: heavy rains and cold temperatures had turned the field at New York’s Polo Grounds stadium into a virtual sheet of ice. The home team trailed 10-3 after two quarters and looked done for, as the visiting Bears were doing a much better job of slip-sliding up and down the field.
But in the Giants’ locker room at halftime, somebody had an idea. It had little to do with the sort of midgame adjustments that were common in football, such as changing offensive plays or defensive formations. This was completely different. The notion was that maybe the Giants would be more successful not by changing their game plan but by changing their shoes-specifically, by taking off their football cleats and wearing sneakers for better traction. A mad scramble turned up enough pairs to accommodate the team, and the sneakers ended up providing the Giants with sure footing that led to 27 second-half points and a 30-13 victory. The “Sneaker Game” became part of sporting lore.
The lesson to be learned from the Giants that day is that challenging the accepted way of doing things-daring to be different-is critical to progress and can bring great success.
But in the Giants’ locker room at halftime, somebody had an idea. It had little to do with the sort of midgame adjustments that were common in football, such as changing offensive plays or defensive formations. This was completely different. The notion was that maybe the Giants would be more successful not by changing their game plan but by changing their shoes-specifically, by taking off their football cleats and wearing sneakers for better traction. A mad scramble turned up enough pairs to accommodate the team, and the sneakers ended up providing the Giants with sure footing that led to 27 second-half points and a 30-13 victory. The “Sneaker Game” became part of sporting lore.
The lesson to be learned from the Giants that day is that challenging the accepted way of doing things-daring to be different-is critical to progress and can bring great success.
Walang komento:
Mag-post ng isang Komento