In my opinion, one behavior with perhaps the greatest potential to kill to innovation is the aversion to using the phrase “I don’t know.”
Let’s say you are leading a new project to develop a completely new offering for your company, the outcome is highly uncertain, and someone asks you a question like what you think the selling price of the new offering should be. Of course you want to give an answer that sounds like you are in control of the process; that you are capable, and confident, and you know what you are doing. But let’s face it. If you are doing something truly new, you shouldn’t have any idea of what the final selling price should be. At least not at the beginning stage of the process designed to figure out what type of offering you should be developing in the first place.
Would you be empowered at your company to say “I don’t know what the selling price should be?”, and would you be empowered to follow up that answer with “and at this point in this type of project we shouldn’t know the answer to that question?” If you gave that type of answer, would you be removed as the project leader because you “don’t know what you are doing?” And if you gave an answer that would assure everyone of a certain outcome, would you be sabotaging your ability to truly innovate?
As discussed in an earlier post, companies reward certainty. Unfortunately, this reward is often employed at every stage of every process. Would I ever advocate launching a new offering without thoroughly evaluating what the correct price will be? Absolutely not. And of course, “I don’t know”, may really mean that the person doesn’t know what they are doing. What I am advocating is that we consider the context of the rewards we employ. Rewards should be consistent with the type and scope of the work we are doing. We should be clear about the expected outcomes of a project, and what types of decisions should be able to be made at each step.
There is a time and place for every question. If we’re not careful, the “right” answer will be given at the wrong time. At that point, it may as well be the wrong answer.
Hey Ellen,
What a great post and a wonderful reminder of the power of those three words, I don’t know.
The freedom to not control the process is critical to generating innovation. It’s a battle to find the structure that supports new ideas and motivates people while giving them a sense of confidence and ability to move things forward (the dreaded but important process word).
Rewards should be consistent with the type and scope of the work we are doing.
I love the idea of re-thinking how we reward employees with an eye towards driving innovation. Yet something niggles at me. I’ve come to realize that removing expected outcomes is a critical component in enabling idea generation. Seems a balancing act may also be required on the reward front.
Is there a way to reward members of our teams without setting external expectations in a way that inhibits people from taking risks/thinking differently?
Feel the awkward silence….
What a great question!
One thing that has worked has been to reward hitting milestones based on the types of decisions that can be made at each milestone.
So, instead of focusing on whether or not we know what the outcome will be at the end, we focus on what we should know at each stage.
For example, we may say that at the end of the first milestone we should be able to describe the opportunity to a level where we can identify likely users to size the market. We can then make a decision about whether or not we think the market will be an attractive one for our company.
People should then be rewarded for accurately identifying the opportunity and sizing the market, enabling the organization to make a good decision about whether or not to proceed. And of course, a no-go decision based on solid information, should be rewarded in that it reduced the waste of developing an unprofitable product.
Just one example…
If you are talking about development of a new product, the price should be the last thing you talk about, unless your market position is cost leader or luxury brand. Until you have explored unmet or underserved needs with customers, you have no chance of delivering something of value at any price. If you know where there are unmet needs, they you know what value customers place on solving those problems and therefore what you can charge. If you can’t build a profitable product or service within that constraint, then you shouldn’t go ahead.
The problem I see with most innovation at most companies is that it is self-serving, and done for it’s own sake. i.e. we need to add something new because PG just added something new. Any ideas? What ends up happening is a circle screw, where everyone copies everyone else, but no one asks if a customer needs or is willing to pay for what is being created.
In my mind, this is anti-innovation. It’s the reason everything becomes a commodity so fast, but most things never actually meet your needs exactly.
What people involved with innovation should know is how to get the answer, not what the answer is, because in most cases, they aren’t designing for themselves.
Ellen – a great post! I really like your response about setting flexible staged objectives (versus a classic stage-gate approach). Have been working with some management consultants on an innovation project and it’s been challenging to say the least to try and reign in some of their projections about cost, market share, first to ten year profitability etc as it takes the clients focus off the end user and the experience that they desire. They keep jumping ten years ahead, when the final product hasn’t been fully thought out, and the consumer has been overlooked. This has almost become a secondary focus.
My main concern is that they have been priming our client to feel certainty and control for what is a very risky product launch for them. They should feel comfortable with a solid approach and preparation, but be prepared for potentially a challenging few years ahead. Im worried its going to be some pretty tough days ahead for them!
As an aside to Paul’s response to you above – I’ve just completed another project where price was the key driver of the innovation process. We always had a price in mind (well, two price points actually). Our client had a range they produced that was either very high end, or relatively low end. It had evolved this way simply because of many, many years of production and how their business had grown over about 180 years. Then, they started hearing their consumers say there was nothing in for them in their price range anymore – either too high or too low. This set off a really great process. They have evolved and shaped the offer as we have moved through a pretty flexible process. But the one fixed point was always price and what their consumer wanted. I was excited to see that even at the last moment, they had tweaked the product slightly to reflect one final piece of consumer feedback we had given them. It seemed almost too late in the day but at the launch this week, it had been rolled out. It felt great!