HowardWright.com

Vacation

Today we start our vacation in the uk so posts may be sporadic. I will be posting photos etc on www.travelwrightblog.com

When is a nape not a nape?

This week brought a salutary and expensive lesson for me although all has turned out well. It is my sons wedding on Saturday the 19th in the UK and of course we are flying over to take part. I had ordered a custom made shirt over the Internet from http://www.tuxedo-formalwear.com and I was looking forward to getting a shirt made for the first time in my life.

Some very sketchy instructions were sent when I ordered the shirt including the sleeve length which should be measured from the nape of the neck to the sleeve length you require. This is where the confusion sets in as to the definition of the nape of the neck.

If you type nape and neck into google there are approximately 150 definitions of what the nape is - some cite the center of the neck just below the hairline and others cite the join between the shoulder and the neck and believe it or not there are many variations in between. Anyway I asked a local tailor and he used the shoulder to neck measurement and guess what it was the wrong one and the shirt turned up - after 6 weeks - with sleeves for a midget!

Anyway to cut a long story short the company who I ordered it from are not interested and blame me for miss measuring and it appears that even though I followed their instructions and got a tailor to confirm I have no redress other than to warn people to not use the company as they are misleading their customers and then not willing to do anything about it. (Maybe I ws using the wrong image!!!!!!!)

The end to the tale is not that bad as I took the shirt back to my local tailor and he is taking the sleeves off another shirt and putting them on to the new shirt so at least I will be able to wear it - all for an extra $55. This is one expensive shirt.

Back to the moral of the story and the need to understand a definition. We have been embarking on an Innovation initiative for the last few months at the company I am currently with and we still haven't decided what we mean by Innovation - I know if you ask 100 people you will probably get 150 different answers. Similarly with the nape thing - if you ask 100 peope you will get many answers.

But when it becomes important is when things get measured - in my case my sleeves and in the companies case bottom line value or number of ideas etc. This is when the definition becomes very important and when heads can role if you get it wrong. I know in Royal Mail we had this very problem in that we failed to define what we meant by Innovation and when we did our formal review we didn't meet the boards expectations as their idea of innovation was very different from ours. The team was finally dissolved and 3 years later is being reborn - hopefully with a tighter idea of what they have to achieve.

So make sure you understand the definition of whatever it is you are trying to achieve - especially when it is going to be measured!

Foresight about Foresight

I was asked this morning for some contacts in companies that are actively using a formal foresight approach to plan the company strategy and direction. What was interesting was that I found it difficult to come up with more than 10 - 20 companies who I was aware of that were actually using foresight as it is supposed to be used (well how I think it is supposed to be used anyway!) Foresight is, for me, taking a medium to long term view of the 'environment' the company is operating in and then looking at how market, consumer, economic and political changes could impact this future on a positive or negative basis. the former of these two activities I would call Horizon Scanning and the latter tens to use techniques such as Scenario Planning to bring the future to life for the decision makers within the company. The problem with this model is that the cost of maintaining a Foresight function is relatively high and tends to be only used sporadically although not in all cases. Typically to do the job properly a Foresight team would be two or three people at a relatively senior level supported by analysts to do the base research and access to external research resources - in total a wage bill of some $500,000 per year maybe plus accommodation, conferences and other associated costs. A not insubstantial sum - although the alternative is to not do any formal foresight at all and rely on other functions such as strategy and planning to do the work. the risk with this is that these groups tend to focus on a linear future and not on the discontinuity associated with the Foresight Role - or what more typically happens is outsource the capability to one of the many consultancies who specialize in this area. This latter choice has some benefits but also risks - the benefits being that they probably have material which they can bring to the party which has been produced as a result of other contracts as well as probably having a formal 'process' for strategy creation using Foresight. The downside is that they tend to use the material they have and don't want to spend too much time doing further research and often their methodology may not produce what you are looking for. I have seen external consultancy engagements work really well and really badly and in one case ending up in court! So how can companies take advantage of the many benefits of Foresight without all the associated costs and downsides identified above.

1. Firstly have a clear idea of what you are trying to achieve through the activity - what would good look like?
2. Secondly spend some time 'absorbing' what is happening in the world you occupy - foresight is about osmosis rather than number crunching.
3. Thirdly bring together a team of people who you feel can provide a useful input and insight into the business - these will typically not be senior managers and may in fact be very junior people. How will you find them - this is the difficult question and I have seen and used a number of approaches from 'formal interviews' through employee essay competitions through to TV style game show events. I must admit the latter got the best results for me but that could just have been luck.
4. Fourthly - Live the future - it is important to immerse yourself and your team in some future state. If you are really going to understand how the future may unfold you have to 'feel' it - emotionally as well as intellectually. What would a day be like - how would it feel etc.
5. Fifthly - Enjoy thinking about the future - aha! is only one letter away from Ha Ha. Make it an enjoyable experience rather than some formal meeting in a typical office block - look for different places which will put you in a different space mentally.
6. Lastly - make it real - its ok to think about the future but unless it turns into bottom line value for the company it is purely an academic exercise so don't leave the room without an action plan!

Any thoughts?

Innovation Organisational Models

I have been asked to identify the different organizational Innovation models that companies can implement - particularly based on my experience working in the field for the last 14 years. My thoughts are that there are probably four or five models that could be implemented:

Central Innovation Function

- this is great in that it focused effort and acts as a beacon for the rest of the organization. Funding can be effectively channeled through the function as metrics can be put in place. the downside is that it tends to move 'responsibility' for Innovation away from the mass of the organization - they do Innovation so we don't have to!

Distributed Function

- In this model Innovation ambassadors are embedded in the Business units with a central co-ordination capability of 1 or 2 people. This approach is good in that the business units become responsible for Innovation dn the activities tend to be more focused on the problems at hand rather than the esoteric approach which a central function can engender. The downside is that the Business Units can go native and lose the vision of the company - a couple of companies have faced this challenge and have made bad acquisitions or investments.

Open Innovation

- the latest thing which is to get your customers and external bodies to innovate for you. Companies such as Dell and AT&T are using this to get ideas for products and services employing full time Bloggers to stimulate and solicit ideas which are then taken into a more 'formal' process for Idea Harvesting. the downsides of this approach are the complexity of Intellectual Property (IP) and the companies ability to harvest ideas for the mass that are generated (using the active Blogging approach does provide some degree of stewardship and therefore reduces the number of crazy ideas!)

Outsourced Innovation

- Of course there are many consultancy companies who will Innovate for you - Strategos, Ideo etc. are probably at the top of the pile and these can bring some good 'process' to the mix as well as an external view of problems and opportunities. The downside is that this approach does not engender any culture change and as the engagements tend to be short lived the company is typically left with either a list of ideas that it finds it difficult or impossible to implement.

Which is the best model - well in my humble opinion I would go with a hybrid of the Distributed and the Open approaches with a small central co-ordination function.

What other apporaches are there?