BusinessWeek ran a thought-provoking article on the seven deadly sins of an innovator. Below are excerpts.
Please share: Sins you’ve seen innovators commit.
“1. Lust: Innovating in a space you have no business being in.
2. Gluttony: Trying to create too many initiatives with too few resources. Innovation takes emotional and financial capital and focus….focus your team and resources on one or two initiatives that have the greatest probability of hitting it big.
3. Greed: Taking short-term profits at the expense of long-term growth. The stock market demands a high rate of return, which naturally results in safe bets like line extensions. Line extensions are fine, but they leave you at risk of being blown out of the water by an industry-changing idea. The solution? Create two teams. Put one in charge of evolution and the other in charge of revolution. You’ll get both short- and long-term growth.
4. Sloth: Taking short cuts—not doing the hard work, not following the proven process….While we agree that being overly cautious—”Let’s test the idea for the 83rd time”—is also potentially fatal, there is a happy medium. Think big, quantify, qualify, refine, and launch. This should take no more than 12 months. If you can do it in eight, great! If you can do it in three, then you have left something out or you have a very, very tired staff on your hands. Remember: Just because it takes one woman nine months to have a baby doesn’t mean nine women can produce one in 30 days.”
Posted by Kathy Sandler on Friday, October 23, 2009 at 12:01 AM