Topic Mentor
Kumar Nochur
Kumar Nochur is a consultant and educator with over 20 years of experience in the field of implementing innovation. He has taught business strategy, innovation, and technology management courses at Boston University and the University of Melbourne. He has worked with such industry leaders as 3M, AT&T (Bell Labs), General Electric, Gillette, Procter & Gamble, Johnson and Johnson, and National Semiconductor to improve their innovation practices. Dr. Nochur leads courses and workshops on topics such as Skills for Innovators and Managing Innovation. He is also a frequent speaker at conferences on innovation, new product development, and knowledge management. Dr. Nochur received a Ph.D. in the Management of Technological Innovation from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He is the founder of Vidya Inc. and can be reached at knochur@vidyainc.com.
Topic Source Notes
Learn
Rosabeth Moss Kanter. "The Middle Manager as Innovator." Harvard Business Review OnPoint Enhanced Edition. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2001.
John P. Kotter. Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.
David Krackhardt and Jeffrey R. Hanson. "Informal Networks: The Company Behind the Chart." Harvard Business Review, July-August 1993.
Patty Laduke, Tom Andrews, and Keith Yamashita. "Igniting a Passion for Innovation." Strategy & Innovation, July-August 2003.
Theodore Levitt. "Creativity is not Enough," Harvard Business Review OnPoint Enhanced Edition. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2002.
Kumar Nochur. Skills for Innovators. Newton, MA: Vidya Inc., 2003.
Gifford Pinchot III. Intrapreneuring: Why You Don't Have to Leave the Corporation to Become an Entrepreneur. New York: Harper & Row, 1985.
Gifford Pinchot and Ron Pellman. Intrapreneuring in Action: A Handbook for Business Innovation. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehle, 1999.
Steps
Rosabeth Moss Kanter. "The Middle Manager as Innovator." Harvard Business Review OnPoint Enhanced Edition. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2001.
John P. Kotter. Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.
Kumar Nochur. Skills for Innovators. Newton, MA: Vidya Inc., 2003.
Gifford Pinchot III. Intrapreneuring: Why You Don't Have to Leave the Corporation to Become an Entrepreneur. New York: Harper & Row, 1985.
Gifford Pinchot and Ron Pellman. Intrapreneuring in Action: A Handbook for Business Innovation. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1999.
Tips
John P. Kotter. Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.
Kumar Nochur. Skills for Innovators. Newton, MA: Vidya Inc., 2003.
Gifford Pinchot III. Intrapreneuring: Why You Don't Have to Leave the Corporation to Become an Entrepreneur. New York: Harper & Row, 1985.
Gifford Pinchot and Ron Pellman. Intrapreneuring in Action: A Handbook for Business Innovation. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1999.
Tools
Rosabeth Moss Kanter. "The Middle Manager as Innovator." Harvard Business Review OnPoint Enhanced Edition, September 2001.
John P. Kotter. Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.
Kumar Nochur. Skills for Innovators. Newton, MA: Vidya Inc., 2003.
Gifford Pinchot III. Intrapreneuring: Why You Don't Have to Leave the Corporation to Become an Entrepreneur. New York: Harper & Row, 1985.
Gifford Pinchot and Ron Pellman. Intrapreneuring in Action: A Handbook for Business Innovation. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1999.
What would you do?
Martin is a project manager at a small engineering firm that specializes in designing cleanup strategies for contaminated properties. Recently, Martin has noticed that his clients seem eager to get rid of these properties. He is also aware of new land-use policies that push companies to reuse industrial sites instead of building their facilities on pristine land. Martin sees an opportunity in the real estate business for his company. He thinks that his company could buy contaminated properties at a significantly reduced price, do the site cleanup, and resell them at a huge profit. He knows the president of the company is eager to grow the business in a new direction. Martin wants to approach her with his idea right away, since he'd like to convince her to get into the business before competitors do.
What would you do?
Martin has a good idea and is enthusiastic about pursuing it. He should not rush to seek the president's support, however. He should first take the time to develop a compelling vision statement, identify his key stakeholders, and consider the criteria they might use to evaluate his idea. He should then seek feedback from his peers.
For example, Martin should approach his colleagues in the engineering department about the costs and risks of the cleanup process. He should also consult with regulatory and legal specialists about how ownership of the contaminated properties would be transferred. As he cultivates his informal support network, he would do well to identify a sponsor who understands the politics of his organization to help him promote his idea. After he builds peer support for his idea and gathers sufficient business information to lend credibility to his case, he will be ready to communicate his idea to the president.
In this topic, you'll learn how to implement an innovative idea in your organization.
Pushing your company in a new direction presents many challenges. How do you take an innovation from idea to reality?
This topic provides a framework for implementing innovation. You'll learn how to:
Today's business environment is rapidly changing. New technologies, governmental regulations, and global market conditions are forcing companies to quickly develop new products and differentiate their service offerings, while increasing productivity and cost efficiency. To maintain their competitive advantage, companies need to innovate.
When you hear the word "innovation" you may think of a technology-driven service such as online shopping, or a groundbreaking product such as the mobile phone. However, innovation comes in many forms.
For example, consider a new process for efficiently sharing information and internal expertise within a software development firm with offices in New York and Berlin. Employees who don't know each other could communicate client information and revise product specifications in real time.
This innovative process may not involve any new technology or result in a new product, but could give a company a significant competitive advantage by increasing the knowledge base of its employees and improving customer service.
Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.
–Theodore Levitt
Creativity is the process of generating and expressing novel ideas that are likely to be useful. The ideas generated during this process are the seeds for innovation. However, many creative ideas do not become innovations. Why? Because innovations only occur when ideas have been well developed, packaged, positioned, promoted, and implemented.
Successful innovators pick up where the creative process leaves off. They take a creative idea and apply it to a real-life problem, resulting in a new product, service, or process that gains widespread use. This topic assumes you have already identified an idea that you feel meets a need within your organization or solves a specific business problem, and you want to make it a reality.
You will find that if your idea addresses an established need you will probably have a relatively easy time implementing it. On the other hand, if you believe an idea is great but the need for it is not yet generally recognized, you will likely face a more difficult road. Don't give up! Both situations can be worth pursuing.
New ideas become reality through the work of innovators. Innovators, however, rarely work alone. There are different types of innovators, each of whom play a unique role in the innovation process:
Research suggests that a committed champion is most critical to the successful implementation of an idea, especially if the idea represents a radical innovation opportunity or if the need for it is not generally recognized. A powerful idea can remain dormant in a company for years because nobody assumes responsibility for implementing it. An innovation champion has the know-how, energy, daring, dedication, and perseverance that are needed to turn an idea into reality. While many people can generate creative ideas or provide an environment that encourages innovation, few actually commit to putting ideas into action.
Perhaps few people choose to take on this challenge because innovation champions frequently encounter resistance. Consider the development of the airplane. The innovators whose vision turned the idea of human flight into a reality did so in spite of skeptics who could not imagine how people would ever travel by air. Those innovators certainly proved the skeptics wrong!
One of my first experiences in thinking about innovation and the sources of innovation happened to me personally. I was working at GE Medical Systems in the mid-'90s, and we were focused in on creating new products and services for our customers in the digital imaging domain and I was a product manager at the interface of marketing and product development.
And we had just spend a lot of money and bought a new firm's technology that we were going to bring to the marketplace. And as I was scouring the marketplace to understand where the demand was going to be and what people were interested in, I came across these customers of mine who wanted nothing to do with that technology. They said, "We don't want anything that you built or that you're going to build, because we've done it all ourselves." And this seemed to be quite different than what I expected.
I'd been through undergraduate as an engineering and management major. I'd spent years at GE working, and to think that customers could innovate and could do the same problem solving as we were doing just didn't make any sense to me. So I went to this customer's site in Montreal and spent two weeks with them. And sure enough, they were 18 months ahead of our engineering schedule.
And this did not make any sense. I mean, we're GE, we bring good things to life. How could it be that these customers had basically out-innovated us? Now, of course the fit and finish wasn't so great, wasn't all put together well. It was sort of hanging together by duct tape and glue, but all the major engineering problems that we had said that we were going to solve, they had already done. And when I spent time with them and I tried to understand what they had done — they had basically worked with other users around the world. This is in the mid-'90s, so early days of the Internet, and they had basically shared their knowledge and come together to solve these problems.
And this was just a puzzle that just did not make any sense to me. And I went back to my headquarters, tried to understand what was going on, and they said, "Yeah, of course, we're in this highly demanding technical field and sometimes our customers innovate ahead of us, and then we often take those innovations and bring them into our own products."
But they didn't have a systematic program to continuously tap into what their users were doing and find a way to bring it back into our system. There was just no infrastructure for this at all. And this was a puzzle that has stayed with me forever — basically, since I came across this in the mid-'90s, and has sort of guided my own research to think about the sources of innovation and to think that a lot of innovations can come from outside of the firm, outside of the four walls of R&D. And that affirms you to sort of be awakened to it and figure out how to tap into these innovations.
Karim Lakhani
Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School
Karim Lakhani is an assistant professor in the Technology and Operations Management unit at Harvard Business School.
His research focuses on distributed innovation systems and the movement of innovative activity to the edges of organizations and communities. He has extensively studied the emergence of open source software communities and their unique innovation and product development strategies.
Karim previously worked for General Electric Medical Systems as a member of its Technical Leadership Program. He also worked as a consultant for The Boston Consulting Group.
He is the co-editor of "Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software" and cofounder of the MIT-based Open Source Research Community and Web portal. His research has been published in journals such as Research Policy, Organization Science, Sloan Management Review, and Harvard Business Review. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Inc., NPR, and other media organizations, have covered his research findings.
He earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and management from McMaster University in Canada. Karim holds a doctorate in management and a master's in technology and policy, both from MIT.
–Peter Drucker
If you choose to champion an idea, consider your level of commitment to the idea and whether you think it will work. Ask yourself the following questions:
If you answered yes to most of these questions, you are already on the road to becoming an innovation champion! This topic will help you turn your innovation into reality in spite of the skeptics, the setbacks, and the obstacles you'll encounter along the way.
Key Idea
Being ready and willing to champion an idea means you also need to be ready for the hard work of implementing it. Use the following steps to guide your implementation:
The steps taken to implement an innovation may not follow in the exact order listed. Some steps can be pursued in parallel or in a different sequence, depending on the specifics of your situation.
Once you're ready to champion a new idea, you need to think about the steps necessary to implement it.
Consider the following situation:
As a product manager in a company making outdoor gear, you notice that customers are increasingly interested in extreme sports, an area that your company is not currently serving. Glancing through magazines that serve this trendy market, you come up with an idea for a line of clothing using high-tech new materials that would appeal to extreme sports enthusiasts. Although this market is relatively small, you think it will grow into a bigger segment in the next few years. Your concern is that management might not be receptive to the idea due to its current limited market potential.
How would you get people excited about this idea? The starting point for success as an innovation champion is a powerful vision—a picture in your mind's eye of the completely successful realization of your idea.
Since your vision is internal, you will need a means of communicating it to others. A clear vision statement functions as a communication aid to get your idea out in the world. A vision statement achieves the following:
–Alex Osborn
Once you identify an idea, product, or project that you believe is worth pursuing, write down the answers to the following questions:
Next, you may want to close your eyes and imagine a time in the future when the innovation has been successfully implemented. Focus on the ideal outcome, not on how you got there. Then jot down your thoughts. You may want to do this exercise frequently to help develop a clear image of your idea.
To continue the earlier example, you might generate the following preliminary vision statement:
We have an opportunity to leverage our strong brand in developing a new market—extreme sports—that will become a major segment in the next five years. By applying our expertise with low-weight, high-tech composites to making a new line of clothing for this market, we can gain greater buzz for our company. I see the Omega line of clothing becoming the preferred choice of extreme sports customers. Our tagline can be: Omega Xtreme—Designed for Your Omega Xperience! This market will pay premium prices, so we will have a greater margin on our sales. The experience we gain with this high-end emerging market will help us spin off related new products at lower cost to other segments we already serve.
Key Idea
Your objective is to articulate your vision to the people who can help you make your idea a reality. Once you have the vision in your mind's eye, you will want to translate it to a format that can be communicated with impact to others. While some begin with words, others may use some sort of visual aid, like a sketch or a model. Your ultimate goal is to have a vision statement with the following characteristics:
A good vision statement will get your idea the support it needs. But what are the characteristics that make a vision statement work?
Once you write down your preliminary vision statement you are ready to test and refine it. Be sure to:
Your goal is to have a solid vision statement at the end of this process, but it does not have to be perfect. After identifying your stakeholders and developing your business case, you will likely work with your supporters to refine this vision statement further.
A strong vision statement is the key to getting colleagues to support your innovation. Show that you know how to create and revise a vision statement.
Brian works as a mid-level manager at a company that makes software for small businesses. His company has typically issued new software at the beta stage to loyal customers to get their feedback. In exchange, these customers can purchase the final versions at a large discount.
Brian thinks that the company can go even further in capitalizing on the brain power of its customers. His idea is to allow trusted customers access to new software even earlier, at the alpha stage. In addition, he would propose making the company's programming and development tools accessible to these customers, so that rather than just suggesting improvements and new features, customers can try to create them themselves.
Which of these would be the best beginning for a vision statement describing Brian's innovation?
You write out the following first draft of your vision statement:
"There is an astonishing amount of brain power and creativity in the online community. Open source software, blogs, and user-created media sites all show us that members of this community are willing to do extraordinary work with little or no compensation, simply to pursue their passions and refine their skills as programmers or designers. I believe that tapping into this well of creativity could be the future of our company. We currently release beta versions of our software to trusted customers for their evaluation. I propose that we release it even earlier, during the alpha phase. In addition, I recommend making our development and programming tools available to these customers, so that rather than simply proposing improvements to our software, they can make them themselves."
In its current state, what is the draft's most significant shortcoming?
You show your vision statement to a colleague. She comments that "It's an interesting idea. But I guess I don't see why people would invest their free time in doing this." How should this comment prompt you to refine your vision?
Stakeholders are the key parties that will be affected by your innovation. They can facilitate the successful implementation of your vision, or they can sabotage it! As you develop your idea, be sure to consider their needs and address their concerns.
While you may not communicate with all your stakeholders at the outset of your project, you should be aware of them so that you can address their needs during your planning stage. Later in the process, you will seek their support. The work you do now will help you influence them later.
–Michael E. Gerber
Who are your key stakeholders? They can be both internal and external to your organization, and most likely will include the following:
For example, your idea could reduce the price they pay for a service they already buy or could provide them with a new product to purchase.
You may also have other stakeholders that are less visible than those listed above. While these secondary stakeholders are more difficult to identify, it is advisable to consider them when planning to move forward with your idea. This group may include the following:
By considering stakeholder concerns early, you will be better prepared to garner support when you need it, and better able to anticipate resistance.
For example, if you propose changing the inventory tracking system for your company, you could anticipate that the distribution department might have to work overtime to learn the new system while keeping up with current orders. Identify a way to make the situation better for the workers, such as allowing them extra compensation for the overtime. Then approach the distribution team members with your idea.
A common mistake innovators make is to focus on the features of the innovation and to spend little time identifying the benefits the idea will have for each stakeholder. When it comes time for you to present your idea to others, you are more likely to succeed if you have thought about the innovation from the perspective of your stakeholders. What would they be most interested in knowing about? What might concern them about your idea? Identifying these issues early will help you focus on the most relevant details of your idea when you meet with a stakeholder.
Each group of stakeholders will have its own interests and agenda, and will evaluate your idea using different criteria. The following is a list of potential evaluation criteria to consider for each group of key stakeholders.
| Stakeholder Group | Potential Evaluation Criteria |
| Customers |
|
| Internal investors |
|
| Intermediaries |
|
As you gather information and develop your idea, make a list of the potential stakeholders and their likely concerns. You may want to approach some of them early for advice in an effort to get them to buy into your idea. Ask your sponsor and other supporters to help identify potential concerns and develop strategies for addressing them.
To get an innovation off the ground, you must identify your stakeholders and appeal to their interests.
You work for a company that supplies industrial machines to manufacturers around the country. You have noticed that there are problems with the way the sales department keeps track of client information, which makes their jobs unnecessarily difficult. You have heard of some new software that apparently does a very good job of consolidating sales operations and client information. You want to recommend that the sales department adopt and begin using this new software as soon as possible.
Who are the customers for this innovation?
Who are the primary internal investors for this innovation?
Who are the intermediaries for this innovation?
What is the best way to make this innovation appealing to the sales department?
What is the best way to make this innovation appealing to management?
What is the best way to make this innovation appealing to the IT department?
It is rare that one person can take an idea from concept to completion. Typically no one person controls all of the information, expertise, and resources required to bring an idea to fruition. Implementing an innovative idea requires the support and assistance of many people.
Contacting people you already know and rely on in other areas of your career is a good place to start. Someone who knows you and respects your work is more likely to take the time to help you with your project than someone who doesn't know you and isn't sure of your capabilities.
Key Idea
While you are probably excited about your idea and want to get started immediately, it is preferable to take the time to build the support you need. If you approach someone and say "I have a great idea for a new product and I would like you to support it. I will need your help to get financial resources and people to work on development and implementation," you will likely overwhelm the person and fail to get her assistance.
Rather, as you develop your idea, ask people you trust for small things such as advice and input on your vision statement. You could say, "I have a really interesting idea and would appreciate your advice. Do you have a few minutes to discuss it?" Use the feedback you generate to refine and shape your idea—and help you position it in terms of benefits to others. Then go back to the most helpful individuals or those who were most enthusiastic, and gradually ask them for larger commitments of time or resources.
As people get more involved in your project, they may volunteer to take on more responsibility for its implementation. Even if some people do nothing more than provide initial advice, by asking for their opinions early you are engaging them in the development of the idea and thereby establishing connections that could help you down the road. Engaging others early also gives them a sense of ownership in the idea that often leads to the support and commitment needed to make your idea a reality.
Pushing through an innovation requires a lot of support—and the sooner you get it, the better.
–Gary Hamel
As you refine your idea and widen your circle of support, you'll begin to think about the kinds of people whose assistance you'll need to get concrete backing for your idea. Research has shown that the help of certain people can greatly increase the probability of success with innovation projects. These roles are:
These roles are not formally designated job titles or responsibilities. Sometimes the same individual may play more than one role. For example, the gatekeeper may also be your opinion leader.
People in your network will have different levels of responsibility and commitment to your project.
For example, you may meet with a high-level sponsor only once in a while to ask for advice or guidance on how to handle large implementation issues. On the other hand, you may ask a core group of people with technical expertise and marketing knowledge to meet weekly or even daily to discuss the details of your idea and to move the project forward.
The number of people in your support network will probably vary based on the size of your project and your organization. The network gradually expands as the champion identifies additional resources she needs and as people get excited about the idea and volunteer to help implement it.
Implementation of innovation is one of the toughest things I know. I served as a director of a company called Landmark Communications, which owned the Weather Channel, for about 22 years. They said everybody is responsible for success. It isn't what you can't do, it's: what is the problem and what is your contribution to solving it?
But one of the big thing that Frank Batten — who is my hero as a manager — said is, "We have to accept the right kinds of failure." I saw him give a very large bonus to somebody whose division lost $60 million. He said, "If you hadn't done a brilliant job of managing, we would have lost $100 million, and I want my best managers to work on my hardest problems. So I have to accept if you do a good job, it doesn't mean we're always going to win."
Whether at the Weather Channel or the newspapers, this was a complicated business. And what he tried to do with everything he did was say, "We're in this together. This is about Landmark." One-hundred-eighty people shared in the stock value. When it went public and was sold, there were a lot of millionaires and multimillionaires created, because everybody felt they were on one team.
One of the other things I saw in him was he said, "We're not going to hit the ball out of the park. Let's just get a whole series of singles and doubles and other things that move us forward." So "continuous adaptive change" became the watchword. Now that continuous adaptive change over 22 years took the company from a value of about $300 million to about $5 billion.
People talk about clear lines of authority and responsibility — we want to make sure that we measure people and pay for results. Well, paying for results is crazy. You don't want to pay for results. You don't want to pay for effort. Effort plus skill equals performance, and performance plus luck equals results. And what I think typified Landmark and Frank's management style is he knew the difference between results and performance.
Howard H. Stevenson
Senior Associate Dean, Harvard Business School
Howard H. Stevenson is Sarofim-Rock Baker Foundation Professor, Senior Associate Dean, Director of Publishing, and Chair of the Harvard Business Publishing Company board. The Sarofim-Rock Chair was established in 1982 to provide a continuing base for research and teaching in the field of entrepreneurship.
Previously, he served as the Vice Provost for Harvard University Resources and Planning and as Senior Associate Provost. He was also the Senior Associate Dean and Director of External Relations at Harvard Business School from 2001 to 2005.
Professor Stevenson was a founder and the first President of the Baupost Group, Inc. which manages partnerships investing in liquid securities for wealthy families.
He has authored, edited, or co-authored 11 books and 42 articles. Some of his co-authored titles include "New Business Ventures and the Entrepreneur" with Michael J. Roberts and H. Irving Grousbeck; "Policy Formulation and Administration" with C.R. Christensen, N. Berg and M. Salter; and "The Entrepreneurial Venture" with William Sahlman. His scholarly papers have appeared in publications such as Sloan Management Review, Harvard Business Review, Real Estate Review, and Journal of Business Venturing.
He received his Bachelor of Science in mathematics from Stanford University, and both his Master of Business Administration and Doctor of Business Administration degrees from Harvard University.
Typically, successful innovators first build a support network of peers and colleagues, and then seek support at higher levels. The timing for approaching upper-level executives can be tricky. This is an area where your sponsor's political savvy and knowledge of how your company operates is particularly useful. While it is important to get upper management's approval in a timely fashion, seeking their support before you have a strategy for influencing them could jeopardize your project.
Innovators frequently focus on influencing the decision makers and the people who will be directly impacted by the innovation. They forget to look for support from opinion leaders and customers. These groups can have enormous influence on decision makers and should be considered when you are developing your communication or implementation strategy.
Waiting too long to approach key people in upper management can be as problematic as approaching them too early. It is essential to get some key decision makers on board relatively quickly so that you don't proceed with a project without knowing if you'll be able to get the resources you need. Ask your sponsor to help you develop a strategy for approaching influential people and stakeholders at the appropriate time.
Once you have assembled your support network and identified your stakeholders, you are ready to start building a business case for your idea. This task involves both creative thinking about how the innovation could unfold, and analytical thinking about how the idea will impact your organization, its employees and customers, and other stakeholders. The thinking and debate that goes into the creation of the business case is as important as the final document you produce.
The business case for an innovative idea contains the information you will need to influence people to support your idea. In order to get the approval and resources you need to succeed, you have to demonstrate to management and other stakeholders the merits of your idea.
For example, you may believe that your proposed innovation will reduce the time it takes to complete a weekly status report for your consulting clients. As you gather more information, you may be able to quantify the time it would save and estimate how that time savings will translate into increased profits for your company.
You may want to start by creating a preliminary outline to use as a guide for research and input into the business case.
Your outline might include the following sections:
Before anyone in a position to decide the fate of your idea attends a formal presentation or reviews your business case, they should already be favorably disposed to your idea. Get on the calendar of every critical decision maker. Brief them on your proposal, and ask for advice. If you are unable to address their questions immediately, do research to get the answers. Update your documents to reflect their input and acknowledge their contributions.
The format for a business case varies from company to company. As such, there is no correct length for a business case. The form and level of detail of your business case will vary depending on your idea and the expectations of the people who will read it.
For example, an idea to change juice packaging to make the product fit more easily into a refrigerator may require a presentation that outlines your market research, the cost of the new packaging, and estimated sales. A more significant change, such as introducing a new juice flavor, would likely require much more supporting documentation.
Because the business case serves multiple purposes, you may want to consider creating at least two versions.
You may also want to craft a one-minute elevator pitch—four or five sentences that describe your innovation and the benefits it will realize. This presentation can be used to get someone interested in your idea when you have limited time.
Update these documents as you gather new information or gain insight into how to get people excited about your project.
Once you have created your business case, you need to consider how you will present it to the stakeholders. What are their needs? What are their agendas? An innovation's success hinges on how well you know your stakeholders—and how well you can communicate your plan.
The necessary elements of a business case are determined by your vision statement, which sets the broad outlines of what your innovation is to accomplish.
You work for the advertising department of a major candy company. The following is a vision statement for an innovation you are proposing:
"The effectiveness of traditional television advertising is waning. Over the coming decade, we will see more consumers receiving and viewing TV content in new ways, particularly via the Internet. This will give them greater freedom to ignore or bypass the advertising content accompanying these shows. At the same time, we are witnessing an explosion in the popularity of user-created media on the Internet. I believe that we should explore the possibility of sponsoring Internet videos and holding contests for the general public to create virtual advertisements for us. Not only would this be relatively inexpensive, it would do a great job enhancing our image as a modern, forward-looking company."
Given this vision statement, which of the following would not be important to include in your accompanying business case?
You work for the advertising department of a major candy company. The following is a vision statement for an innovation you are proposing:
"The effectiveness of traditional television advertising is waning. Over the coming decade, we will see more consumers receiving and viewing TV content in new ways, particularly via the Internet. This will give them greater freedom to ignore or bypass the advertising content accompanying these shows. At the same time, we are witnessing an explosion in the popularity of user-created media on the Internet. I believe that we should explore the possibility of sponsoring Internet videos and holding contests for the general public to create virtual advertisements for us. Not only would this be relatively inexpensive, it would do a great job enhancing our image as a modern, forward-looking company."
Given this vision statement, which of the following would be important to include in your accompanying business case?
Your success in gaining support for your innovative idea will largely depend on your ability to influence various stakeholders. Before even building your business case, you will have identified your stakeholders and their interests and concerns regarding your innovation. This information will help you prepare a strategy for gaining the support of each individual. Consider your strategy in terms of the person's level of involvement in the project, how that person might evaluate your idea, and their preferred means of communication.
To get the support of your vice president of finance, you might prepare a formal presentation with extensive printed support materials such as cost estimates, industry spending trends, and the competitive advantage of your innovation. To gain the support of the manufacturing manager whose department will have to implement your change, you might use an entirely different approach. You might forgo the presentation and instead ask for an informal meeting. You might start the meeting by acknowledging how important the department is to the company and asking the manager to help you figure out how to best implement your idea. Consider explaining the benefits of your innovation and how it might make his workers' jobs easier in the long run.
–Dean Rusk
Your goal in communicating your idea is to influence your stakeholders to support your innovation. Essentially, you are "selling" the idea. When you describe your idea to each of your stakeholders, you will want to remember the acronym AIDA:
Key Idea
A presentation may be the best way to sell your idea. Some guiding principles to use when preparing a presentation include:
For example, you may choose individual informal meetings with some stakeholders while more formal group presentations may be more appropriate for others.
A good presentation can win your innovation the support that it needs. How do you make your presentation as effective as possible?
As you communicate with stakeholders, work with your sponsor to identify the individuals whose approval will be necessary to continue with your project. Once you get the support of these decision makers, you will then be in a position to ask for the resources you need to formally implement your idea. These resources will likely include the people who will work on the idea and the funding to support their work.
At this point, your project may become formal enough to need a project manager. A project manager is a detail-oriented person who can help plan and coordinate the implementation of your idea. Typically, this person is skilled at navigating organizational processes. You may choose to assume this role yourself or you may seek someone else to fill the role.
New ideas often meet with resistance. Since innovations threaten the status quo, resistance is a normal reaction.
For example, an R&D manager may be threatened by your idea for newly formulated house paint. She may see it as an encroachment on her territory. Or, an engineering manager may view a new electronic timesheet as a nuisance, even though it may increase efficiency in the accounting department.
You will probably encounter two types of resistance: explicit and hidden. To be a successful innovation champion, you need to anticipate resistance and be prepared to manage it. Tap your sponsors and other facilitators to help you develop a strategy to overcome both types of resistance.
–Niccolo Machiavelli
Explicit resistance comes in the form of open criticism. It is easier to manage because it is visible. Consider the idea to change the formula for house paint. You might hear that your innovation is:
Managing hidden resistance is a greater challenge. Since it is generally passive, it is more difficult to recognize. It often surfaces during the action phase of a project, such as when you are trying to mobilize the work group. People may miss deadlines, respond to requests late, or argue over allocation of time and resources among projects. Sometimes these may occur for genuine reasons, but they may also indicate hidden resistance.
For example, you may have sought cost and price estimates for your new paint formula from executives in many departments including manufacturing, sales, and R&D. While these people may have seemed positive about the project in your initial meetings, they may drag their feet once you try to implement it. You will then have to identify the cause of this hidden resistance and deal with it effectively to make progress.
A prominent person who opposes your innovative idea can easily derail your effort. Therefore, the first step is to determine whether or not the person is a critical stakeholder or can influence an important decision maker. If the person is not on your critical path, you may be able to ignore her objections. In most cases, however, you will need to address people's concerns to get them to work toward your idea's implementation.
Resistance is not usually a problem in itself; it is a symptom of an underlying issue. Typically, it can be caused by the following:
If you can identify the cause of the resistance, you are in a better position to directly address it.
For example, the R&D manager who says that your new paint formula is not technically sound may really think the materials you suggest using will not stand up to testing—or perhaps the reason for her resistance is less obvious. For example, she might be trying to protect her credibility. She may feel insecure because you, as an outsider, have identified a potentially better way of doing things. Knowing that insecurity is at the root of her resistance can help you develop a strategy for winning her acceptance. Sit down with her and acknowledge her expertise in this area. Ask her to explain her concerns and see if she has any advice for how to improve upon your idea. Find the valuable part of her criticism and later thank her for her help.
Participation can help overcome opposition. If you continue to involve this manager by seeking her opinion as you proceed, there is a good chance she will start to see herself as part of your support system—and may feel more secure about herself and the project.
–Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Tactics for overcoming resistance include:
|
Tactic |
Method |
Example |
|
Persuasion |
|
If the sales director resists your new paint formula because she fears that you may lose customers, review your market and product research with her. Highlight the benefits. Will this formula generate less waste, thereby appealing to an environmentally conscious consumer? Will it cost less than your current formula? Show her the need for this product and try to convince her that customers will respond positively. |
|
Participation |
|
The head of purchasing might feel threatened by your suggestion to change the company's supply chain management system. Try to get him involved in your project early. Ask for his advice. Give him credit for his good ideas in group meetings to make him feel more involved. |
|
Facilitation |
|
An idea to restructure the sales team to focus on industry sectors may mean extra work for salespeople while they become experts in areas they know little about. Make it your responsibility to help them with training or other resources to facilitate their acceptance of the innovation. Look for opportunities to help them learn quickly so that they can focus on the selling process. |
|
Negotiation |
|
If manufacturing says your formula is hard to make to their quality standards, explore alternative formulations or materials that will address their concerns and modify the paint accordingly. |
|
Direction |
|
After the completion of your pilot project, you ask a team member to report on his findings by the following week. Three weeks later, this person has yet to deliver any results. It may be time for someone in upper management to emphasize the importance of your project and its high priority. |
Be prepared to encounter resistance throughout your project. Keep a clear head and continue to focus on your vision. Maintaining a positive attitude and recognizing that all innovators have to overcome obstacles along the way will help you stay the course and successfully implement your idea.
Different methods of overcoming resistance are appropriate for different stakeholders and situations. Practice choosing the right methods for various situations.
You are an assistant product manager in an electronic gaming company. You recently suggested that your company begin to distribute games primarily through digital downloads as opposed to retail sales. You have now been asked to manage the switch to online distribution.
The vice president of the marketing department continually raises objections to your new distribution plan in meetings. He says that he feels this innovation doesn't capitalize on the marketing department's past work, all of which has focused on promoting retail sales. What is the best method to overcome his resistance?
Midway through the implementation of online distribution, a new executive joins the company. Claiming that the company's typical customers are not ready for online distribution, she argues that overall sales will suffer under the new distribution model. You are afraid she might try to shut your innovation down. What is the best method to overcome her resistance?
You believe that your company must reduce the prices of games sold as digital downloads, since the customer is not paying for any physical product. Although he understands this, the chief financial officer is still concerned that prices for the games distributed online will be too low. What is the best method to overcome his resistance?
–Joseph Schumpeter
Innovations take time to implement. Maintaining momentum for your project will likely prove difficult. It is much easier to get people excited over a vision at the beginning of a project than it is to maintain enthusiasm during the day-to-day progress toward your goal. You must sustain people's motivation to reach the goal by being a passionate and persistent advocate.
As your project moves from planning to implementation, you need to actively support your team, reassure the people who will be impacted by any changes, and keep the stakeholders who control the resources you need informed of your progress.
Key Idea
To keep your team and stakeholders motivated throughout your innovation's implementation, consider the following techniques for maintaining momentum:
As your project progresses, remember to be patient. It may take several months or even years to fully implement your innovation. Remind yourself that throughout history innovation champions have had to be persistent—and passionate—to get their ideas adopted.
Implementing an innovation can be difficult. How do you make sure you don't lose steam over time?
One of the most interesting examples of how to organize and be innovative around innovation has come in the world of encyclopedias. If you think about how knowledge was accumulated before in the last 100 years, the primary means of doing this was through books.
So Encyclopedia Britannica emerged as a way to accumulate the knowledge of the entire world, put it in a book form and then sell it door to door. And they made lots of money this way.
Then, in the early '90s, Microsoft approached this marketplace by thinking of a multimedia application, and they said, "We don't need to sell $1,000 encyclopedias. We can sell a $100 CD with all this knowledge put together and make the experience quite more interactive."
That Microsoft Encarta experience basically killed the Britannica model and started the revolution in multimedia. But even the Encarta model from Microsoft was upended through Wikipedia. Wikipedia came in 2001 as a new way of thinking about how to actually organize the world's knowledge.
Now, if you think about yourself, when was the last time you used Wikipedia? Most people say last week or this week sometime. But if you think about when was the last time you used Microsoft Encarta, most people have stopped using Encarta as a way to access knowledge. And almost nobody today goes to a book, an encyclopedia like Britannica, to get the knowledge. So the revolution has been quite spectacular just in business models.
But what's even more interesting is how Wikipedia is organized. What they said to their followers and to their users was, anybody could participate —anybody could submit an article, anybody can edit an article, and we will not limit what the encyclopedia is defined as being.
In the space of 10 years since Wikipedia has been launched, it has become one of the top 10 most trafficked Web sites in the world. And it has more coverage and better quality than what Britannica puts out or what Encarta puts out. This has been a revolution in how to actually think about how you can get masses of people from around the world to participate with you and to solve this problem of how to build an encyclopedia.
Now, just think about how counterintuitive this is. Imagine somebody at Microsoft going to Bill Gates in 1999 and saying, "You know, I've got a great idea for you. We should open up Encarta completely, we should put it on the Web and let anybody else participate in this creation. And we don't need to hire any more editors and any more smart people to create the content. People will do it by themselves for free."
This would never have flown within Microsoft. You can imagine that person being completely driven out by this kind of thinking. But it's indeed this type of thinking that enabled Wikipedia to take hold and to basically eat Microsoft's lunch.
Karim Lakhani
Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School
Karim Lakhani is an assistant professor in the Technology and Operations Management unit at Harvard Business School.
His research focuses on distributed innovation systems and the movement of innovative activity to the edges of organizations and communities. He has extensively studied the emergence of open source software communities and their unique innovation and product development strategies.
Karim previously worked for General Electric Medical Systems as a member of its Technical Leadership Program. He also worked as a consultant for The Boston Consulting Group.
He is the co-editor of "Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software" and cofounder of the MIT-based Open Source Research Community and Web portal. His research has been published in journals such as Research Policy, Organization Science, Sloan Management Review, and Harvard Business Review. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Inc., NPR, and other media organizations, have covered his research findings.
He earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and management from McMaster University in Canada. Karim holds a doctorate in management and a master's in technology and policy, both from MIT.
This section provides interactive exercises so you can practice what you've learned. These exercises are self-checks only; your answers will not be used to evaluate your performance in the topic.
Scenario
Assume the role of a manager in a fictional situation and explore different outcomes based on your choices (5-10 minutes).
Check Your Knowledge
Assess your understanding of key points by completing a 10-question quiz (10 minutes).
Part 1
Ella is a marketing manager at New Generation (New Gen), a mid-size consumer foods company. She is concerned about the environment and is an avid recycler. Recently, she was surprised to learn that New Gen disposes of several tons of food waste every month at a local landfill.
New Gen uses consultants to monitor its environmental compliance with federal and state waste disposal regulations. Although New Gen is compliant, Ella believes there must be a better way to handle the waste. She discovers that if New Gen separated its waste into two streams, half of it could be sold to a local composting company and made into fertilizer. Ella calls the composting facility and learns that it is eager to get more high-quality waste—and has been seeking a new partner.
The timing seems perfect. Ella loves the idea because of its environmental benefits and wants to move quickly. She develops a vision statement and cultivates an informal network of supporters. She realizes she needs a sponsor since the idea she is promoting is not within the bounds of her job responsibility. So, she informally recruits the vice president of community relations to act as her project sponsor. With the help of this sponsor, she drafts a business case. After garnering support from several mid-level managers, Ella is eager to present her ideas to upper management to get approval to proceed.
What should Ella do next?
Ella should identify the key decision makers in upper management she needs to see to get approval. She should schedule a meeting with them as soon as possible.
Not the best choice.
A common mistake innovators make is to focus on the decision makers while neglecting less obvious stakeholders and the people who influence them. If Ella rushes into a meeting without having spoken with the right people, she could jeopardize her idea. In this case, upper management probably views the outside consultants as environmental experts and will ask them for advice on this issue. If Ella does not approach the consultants early, she runs the risk of their picking apart her idea in front of management, thereby diminishing her credibility. Ella should work with her sponsor to develop a strategy for communicating with all the important stakeholders and influencers before meeting with key decision makers.
Ella should ask her sponsor to attend a meeting where they could present her idea to upper management together. She should make sure that she includes all the key decision makers in this meeting.
Not the best choice.
In this case, Ella is on the right track when she seeks help from her sponsor. However, before they present the idea to upper management, they should identify all the important stakeholders and the people who influence them. She should then develop a strategy for getting support from all of them. In this situation, Ella should consider contacting the consultants for their input. Otherwise, she runs the risk of walking into a meeting with upper management, only to have a consultant give a list of reasons why Ella's idea would not work. She should also consider stakeholders in departments that might be indirectly impacted by her idea, such as accounting or purchasing.
Ella should work with her sponsor to identify all of the key stakeholders and influencers she has yet to contact. She should then determine which ones to meet with next.
Correct choice.
Ella recognizes that before meeting with the decision makers, she needs to make sure she has identified all the important stakeholders and influencers—and developed a strategy for influencing them. Otherwise, she could jeopardize her project. In this case, the consultants are especially important because the decision makers will probably ask them for advice on Ella's idea. She knows that building support can require political finesse and a good understanding of the company as a whole. She has wisely asked her sponsor to help her develop a strategy for approaching all stakeholders and influencers before she seeks support from upper management.
Part 2
Ella worked with her sponsor to identify key influencers and other stakeholders whom she needed to approach before meeting with upper management. She met with these individuals and got some good feedback.
For example, the company's outside consultants gave her advice on how New Gen could modify its current waste-management process to separate the two waste streams and to get more value from the new system. She also obtained information from accounting about current waste-management costs and was able to estimate the amount of money the company could save if it sold part of the waste to the composting facility.
Ella and her sponsor now feel ready to meet with the vice president of operations, the director of manufacturing, and the chief financial officer to get approval for a pilot project to test her idea. She decides to put together a slide presentation for her meeting with these decision makers.
How should Ella structure her presentation?
She should focus her presentation on the environmental benefits of the proposal, emphasizing how the company could promote its environmental stewardship on its product labels.
Not the best choice.
A common mistake innovators make is to focus on their personal perspectives regarding their innovation and not on the perspectives of the decision makers. Ella should discover, with help from her sponsor or other friendly parties, each executive's interests before she makes her presentation. If one of the executives is known to be ecologically aware, it might make sense to appeal to this person by emphasizing the environmental benefits. However, the chief financial officer is probably most interested in the financial benefits. And since the vice president of operations and the director of manufacturing may be concerned with how the new system will impact their departments' responsibilities, Ella also needs to demonstrate the specific benefits of the new system for their departments. Depending on the audience, the environmental benefits may be a secondary benefit that she could mention after she has taken care of more primary concerns.
She should focus her presentation on the details of the new waste-management system. To support her case, she should highlight the fact that the company's environmental compliance consultants have endorsed the system.
Not the best choice.
Innovators often focus on the features of a new product or system instead of its benefits to stakeholders. As a result, they do not address potential costs to different stakeholders, such as a change in job responsibilities. While the CFO, the vice president of operations, and the director of manufacturing will definitely be interested in the features of the new system, they will likely be more concerned about how the system will impact the work of their departments and its overall financial impact on the company. While citing the consultants' endorsement may be a good tactic to help influence her audience, listing the benefits to stakeholders is paramount.
She should focus her presentation on how the system would impact each department. She should also present information on the financial implications and benefits of the system.
Correct choice.
In this case, Ella adapts her presentation to her audience. She focuses on the benefits that each affected department will experience as a result of using the new system. Based on the roles of the decision makers, she should include information about how the idea will save the company money, and how the new waste-separation system can be integrated into the current system with minimal impact on employees' jobs. If her idea requires a change in facility layout, she should talk with someone in manufacturing production and be ready to indicate how the problem might be addressed. She should also point out that the company's environmental consultants have endorsed the value of the system.
Part 3
Ella focuses her presentation on the benefits of the new system to the organization, its impact on various departments, and its appeal to environmentally conscious customers. Her presentation is well received. She gets permission to head a pilot project using the soup manufacturing unit and to work with manufacturing to purchase the required separation equipment. The executives ask her to hold a meeting for all the managers of the departments that would be involved in the pilot.
Ella arranges the meeting. Most people are enthusiastic about the idea and don't seem to have a problem with the required changes. However, two members of the audience voice resistance to the idea. The production manager for the soup division, who is known to be fiercely protective of his department, said that he couldn't change the setup of his waste retrieval system without causing major disruptions. The maintenance manager, who has been at New Gen for 20 years and is known to dislike change of any kind, expressed concern that his department would have to do extra work to keep the two waste streams separate—and to make sure that each was sent to the correct facility.
Ella knows that even though she has approval from upper management to proceed, without support at lower levels it will be hard to implement the pilot successfully.
How should Ella approach this resistance?
She should ask the higher-level executives who have approved the pilot to tell the production and maintenance managers to support the project.
Not the best choice.
Getting upper management to mandate that others support the pilot can lead to surface-level compliance without removing the underlying resistance. This can make implementation very difficult. The production and maintenance managers will be important to the success of Ella's project. If she ignores their concerns and tries to move ahead on the basis of higher-level support, they may make excuses to delay the implementation of the new system. The production manager may feel threatened by Ella's intrusion into his department. The maintenance manager has a known reluctance to change the status quo. Once Ella discovers the causes of their resistance, she should develop strategies for getting the support of these important individuals.
Ella should address the resistance voiced by both the production and maintenance managers.
Correct choice.
The production and maintenance managers are critical to the success of the pilot project. If Ella does not get their full support, they may make excuses to delay the implementation, and her project could fail. She should therefore try to understand the cause(s) of their resistance and seek their help to mitigate their concerns. This may well require modifications to the way the system is designed or implemented.
Ella should address the resistance voiced by the production manager. She should ignore the concerns of the maintenance manager because he complains about everything and therefore is unlikely to influence anyone else.
Not the best choice.
Ella probably won't be able to neutralize every point of resistance she encounters. In this case, however, the resistance voiced by both the manufacturing and maintenance departments needs to be addressed because these departments will be integral to the success of her pilot project. While it may be tempting to ignore the maintenance manager's resistance as habitual given his reputation, he may have real issues that need to be worked out. In most real-life situations, there are often people who have an immediate negative response to new ideas. In cases where they are not essential to the success of the innovation, their resistance can be bypassed without harming the project. However, the decision to ignore any particular source of resistance has to be made carefully—based on the facts and issues—and should not be driven solely by the fact that the resister is compulsively uncooperative. In this case, Ella cannot ignore the resistance.
Conclusion
After addressing the causes of the resistance she encountered, Ella organized a successful pilot project. The New Gen employees involved in the pilot found the new separation system easy to use and discovered that it did not interfere with the manufacturing process significantly. After a few preliminary hiccups in the process were resolved, the composting facility accepted all of the separated waste. The project resulted in a 40% reduction in landfill fees for the soup division and Ella determined that these savings would pay for the new equipment within two years. Ella is now excited about moving into full implementation.
Ella has managed the implementation process well. She recognized that she couldn't bring her ideas to fruition on her own. She gradually built support for her vision by identifying key stakeholders and developing a strategy for influencing each of them. She successfully communicated the benefits of her idea to each stakeholder and worked to overcome resistance. The result? She moved her idea from vision to reality.
Which of the following is the best way to approach a potential sponsor about your innovative idea?
"Do you have a few minutes to discuss a great new idea I have? I would really like your support in moving it forward."
Not the best choice.
Asking for support at this stage may make the person feel pressured into committing to your idea immediately. Since few people enjoy feeling pressured, asking for support may turn her off to your idea. Instead, you would want to say: "Do you have a few minutes to discuss an idea I have? I'd like your advice on how to move it forward."
By asking for advice instead of support, you engage the person in the development of the idea without making her feel that she has to commit to it immediately. After the person has had time to consider the merits of your idea—and decides that it is worth pursuing—you may be able to ask for help in developing a strategy for moving it forward and for getting support. The very process of being asked for help or advice creates a sense of ownership that can make this person want to be your sponsor.
"Do you have a few minutes to discuss an idea I have? I am curious to see if you think it is worth pursuing."
Not the best choice.
At the early stages of your project, it is probably too soon for the person to objectively form an opinion on whether your idea is good or bad.
Instead, you would want to say: "Do you have a few minutes to discuss an idea I have? I'd like your advice on how to move it forward." By asking for advice instead of an evaluation of your idea's merit, you engage the person in the development of the idea without making her feel that she has to commit to it immediately. After the person has had time to consider the merits of your idea—and decides that it is worth pursuing—you may be able to ask for help in developing a strategy for moving it forward and for getting support. The very process of being asked for help or advice creates a sense of ownership that can make this person want to be your sponsor.
"Do you have a few minutes to discuss an idea I have? I'd like your advice on how to move it forward."
Correct choice.
Most people are willing to give you a few minutes of their time to discuss a new idea. By asking for advice instead of support, you engage the person in the development of the idea without making her feel that she has to commit to it immediately. At the early stages of your project, it is probably too soon for the person to objectively form an opinion on whether your idea is good or bad. After the person has had time to consider the merits of your idea—and decides that it is worth pursuing—you may be able to ask for help in developing a strategy for moving it forward and for getting support. The very process of being asked for help or advice creates a sense of ownership that can make this person want to be your sponsor.
When should you approach an important decision maker for support for your innovative idea?
Once you have crafted a compelling vision statement and recruited a high-level sponsor
Not the best choice.
In addition to crafting a compelling vision statement and recruiting a high-level sponsor, you also need to build an informal network of supporters before approaching an important decision maker for support for your idea. Effective idea champions test their ideas on others first, and seek decision makers' support only after they have built a support network among peers and colleagues. However, waiting too long can often be as problematic as approaching someone too early. Your sponsor should be able to help you identify the appropriate time to approach the decision makers whose support you will need to ensure the success of your project.
Once you have crafted a compelling vision statement, recruited a high-level sponsor, and built an informal network of supporters
Correct choice.
Effective idea champions identify the decision makers who will affect the success of their innovations early on, but they wait to approach them for support. They test their ideas on others first, and seek the decision makers' support only after they have built a support network among peers and colleagues. However, waiting too long can often be as problematic as approaching someone too early. Your sponsor should be able to help you identify the appropriate time to approach the decision makers whose support you will need to ensure the success of your project.
Once you have crafted a compelling vision statement, recruited a high-level sponsor, built an informal network of supporters, and achieved some short-term wins
Not the best choice.
Though it's valuable to craft a compelling vision statement, recruit a high-level sponsor, and build an informal network of supporters, waiting to achieve some short-term wins before approaching key decision makers for support for your idea may drag out the process too long. It is sometimes tricky to determine when to approach an important decision maker for support. Typically, successful innovators first build a support network of peers and colleagues, and then seek support at higher levels. However, waiting too long can often be as problematic as approaching someone too early. Your sponsor should be able to help you identify the appropriate time to approach important decision makers.
Which of the following is an example of how an innovator failed to recognize the evaluation criteria that her stakeholders would probably use to assess her idea?
The innovator made a presentation to the manufacturing department about how her new vacuum cleaner could leverage the excellent manufacturing processes already in place in the factory and could cut down on the need for forced overtime to meet delivery demands
Not the best choice.
The innovator actually succeeded in recognizing the evaluation criteria her stakeholders would use to assess her idea. She did a good job addressing issues that would resonate with the manufacturing team. The correct answer is "The innovator made a presentation to potential customers about all the internal features of her new vacuum cleaner that made it cheaper to build." In this case, she failed because she did not show the customers how her product would benefit them. Describing the features that make the vacuum cleaner easier to build doesn't address customers' needs; therefore, her presentation didn't provide a compelling reason for customers to choose it over another brand.
The innovator made a presentation to potential customers about all the internal features of her new vacuum cleaner that made it cheaper to build
Correct choice.
In this case, the innovator didn't show the customers how her product would benefit them. A good strategy for influencing stakeholders is to consider how your idea can provide benefits to that particular person. Successful ideas benefit different stakeholders in different ways. Describing features that make the vacuum cleaner easier to build doesn't address customers' needs; therefore, the innovator's presentation didn't provide a compelling reason for customers to choose it over another brand.
The innovator made a presentation to the sales team about how they could promise to deliver more vacuum cleaners to their customers because of the speed with which her new design could be built
Not the best choice.
The innovator actually succeeded in recognizing the evaluation criteria her stakeholders would use to assess her idea. She did a good job addressing issues that would resonate with the sales team. The correct answer is "The innovator made a presentation to potential customers about all the internal features of her new vacuum cleaner that made it cheaper to build." In this case, she failed because she did not show the customers how her product would benefit them. Describing the features that make the vacuum cleaner easier to build doesn't address customers' needs; therefore, her presentation didn't provide a compelling reason for customers to choose it over another brand.
As you develop an idea for a new feature for your company's best-selling software program, why would it be important to recruit a gatekeeper to help with your project?
To help develop a strategy for presenting your ideas more effectively to management and to work behind the scenes to build support
Not the best choice.
Helping you develop a strategy for presenting your ideas to management and building support behind the scenes are activities your sponsor would do, not your gatekeeper. A gatekeeper provides technical advice and connections to other people who can help you with information, expertise, or other resources. A gatekeeper is usually an expert in a functional area or subject. Good gatekeepers have extensive contacts within and outside your organization. In this example, you would probably seek a software engineer who is up-to-date in her knowledge of the field and can serve as a useful sounding board and information resource.
To provide technical advice and to connect you with other people who can help you with information, expertise, or other resources
Correct choice.
A gatekeeper is usually an expert in a functional area or subject. In this case, you would probably seek a software engineer who is up-to-date in her knowledge of the field and can serve as a useful sounding board and information resource. Good gatekeepers have extensive contacts within and outside your organization, so they can connect you with other people who can help you with information, expertise, or other resources.
To lend credibility to your venture and to accelerate acceptance of your new idea by important decision makers
Not the best choice.
Lending credibility to your venture and accelerating acceptance of your new idea by important decision makers are activities an opinion leader would do, not your gatekeeper. A gatekeeper provides technical advice and connections to other people who can help you with information, expertise, or other resources. A gatekeeper is usually an expert in a functional area or subject. Good gatekeepers have extensive contacts within and outside your organization. In this example, you would probably seek a software engineer who is up-to-date in her knowledge of her field and can serve as a useful sounding board and information resource.
Which of the following is the best vision statement?
"By standardizing our product and eliminating custom options, we will increase our earnings by 20%. We will build Web sites more quickly than our competitors and will leverage our years of design experience to create the best templates available."
Not the best choice.
This vision statement makes big promises without enough detail to make them credible. For example, people are not likely to see a 20% increase in earnings as a realistic goal without more information. Others might not believe the earnings increase necessary—or even desirable. A successful vision statement describes the direction the company will take and outlines why this new direction is necessary. It acknowledges the potential sacrifices people will have to make, but makes clear that the rewards will be worth the efforts.
So, the correct answer is: "We need to reduce the time we spend building Web sites in order to beat the competition. Otherwise, we can't survive in this market. Template-based Web sites will help us achieve our goal. Everyone will be asked to give extra effort over the next two months to design templates while completing current projects. But once we have a library of templates, we will be more productive, better able to meet our customers' aggressive schedules, and make money while we're at it!"
"Standardization is our future. Without it, we will fail. We will provide the highest-quality, quickest-to-build, and easiest-to-maintain Web sites to our customers. Our design experience and technical expertise will differentiate us."
Not the best choice.
This vision statement makes a vague claim ("standardization is our future") without providing clarification. A successful vision statement describes the direction the company will take and outlines why this new direction is necessary. It acknowledges the potential sacrifices people will have to make, but makes clear that the rewards will be worth the efforts.
So, the correct answer is: "We need to reduce the time we spend building Web sites in order to beat the competition. Otherwise, we can't survive in this market. Template-based Web sites will help us achieve our goal. Everyone will be asked to give extra effort over the next two months to design templates while completing current projects. But once we have a library of templates, we will be more productive, better able to meet our customers' aggressive schedules, and make money while we're at it!"
"We need to reduce the time we spend building Web sites in order to beat the competition. Otherwise, we can't survive in this market. Template-based Web sites will help us achieve our goal. Everyone will be asked to give extra effort over the next two months to design templates while completing current projects. But once we have a library of templates, we will be more productive, better able to meet our customers' aggressive schedules, and make money while we're at it!"
Correct choice.
This statement clearly describes the direction the company will take and outlines why this new direction is necessary. It acknowledges the potential sacrifices people will have to make, but makes clear that the rewards will be worth the efforts.
Decide whether the following statement is true or false: The best person to champion an idea is the person who thought of it.
True
Not the best choice.
This statement is actually false. A common misconception is that the person who generates an idea should be the person to implement it. Often, the person who dreams up an idea is great at thinking creatively and identifying solutions to difficult problems. However, he often has neither the skills nor the temperament to bring his idea to fruition. An innovation champion has the know-how, energy, daring, dedication, and perseverance that are needed to turn an idea into reality. While many people in an organization can generate creative ideas, few people commit to putting ideas into action. When the idea creator also has the skills and interest to promote and implement his idea, he can be an effective champion, but this should not be taken for granted in every situation.
False
Correct choice.
A common misconception is that the person who generates an idea should be the person to implement it. Often, the person who dreams up an idea is great at thinking creatively and identifying solutions to difficult problems. However, he often has neither the skills nor the temperament to bring his idea to fruition. An innovation champion has the know-how, energy, daring, dedication, and perseverance that are needed to turn an idea into reality. While many people in an organization can generate creative ideas, few people commit to putting ideas into action. When the idea creator also has the skills and interest to promote and implement his idea, he can be an effective champion, but this should not be taken for granted in every situation.
Which of the following would not be addressed in an outline for a business case?
A detailed breakdown of each of the steps you will take to achieve your goals
Correct choice.
You do not want to get caught up in project management specifics when crafting your business case. Include only the major milestones that illustrate progress toward your goals, not each step along the way. You can provide implementation details later, after the business case has generated interest in your project.
Specific resources you will need to achieve your goals
Not the best choice.
You actually would address specific resources needed to achieve your goals while outlining your business case. However, you would not want to provide a detailed breakdown of each step you will take to achieve your goals. Include only the major milestones that illustrate progress toward your goals, not each step along the way. You can provide implementation details later, after the business case has generated interest in your project.
Estimated costs you will incur to achieve your goals
Not the best choice.
You actually would address estimated costs you will incur to achieve your goals while outlining your business case. However, you would not want to provide a detailed breakdown of each step you will take to achieve your goals. Include only the major milestones that illustrate progress toward your goals, not each step along the way. You can provide implementation details later, after the business case has generated interest in your project.
You sense that your company's warehouse supervisor is resisting your idea for a new distribution system because he feels overwhelmed by the role he will have to play in its implementation. Which of the following would be the best tactic to try to influence him to accept your idea?
Direction
Not the best choice.
While exercising your authority may force the warehouse supervisor to start using the new distribution system, it will not address his feelings of being overwhelmed and possibly disgruntled. The correct answer is facilitation. Facilitation helps those who are likely to be affected adversely by the innovation to adapt to it. Providing training, skill building, and other forms of transitional support will likely help the supervisor feel less overwhelmed by the tasks involved in implementing your idea.
Participation
Not the best choice.
Participation may make the warehouse supervisor feel more involved in the decision-making process, but it will not help him feel better equipped to use the new system. The correct answer is facilitation. Facilitation helps those who are likely to be affected adversely by the innovation to adapt to it. Providing training, skill building, and other forms of transitional support will likely help the supervisor feel less overwhelmed by the tasks involved in implementing your idea.
Facilitation
Correct choice.
Facilitation helps those who are likely to be affected adversely by the innovation to adapt to it. Providing training, skill building, and other forms of transitional support will likely help the supervisor feel less overwhelmed by the tasks involved in implementing your idea.
Which of the following might undermine your team's enthusiasm for your idea as your project progresses?
Demonstrating benefits to stakeholders as early as possible
Not the best choice.
Demonstrating early benefits for stakeholders would actually help you maintain interest in your project and motivate the people who are working with you. Focusing exclusively on your long-term goals, however, may not keep people motivated. In order to maintain momentum and enthusiasm, you need to concentrate on short-term wins. Set goals for your team that can be achieved quickly—and be sure to advertise your success!
Keeping a narrow focus on your long-term goals
Correct choice.
Focusing exclusively on your long-term goals may not keep people motivated. In order to maintain momentum and enthusiasm, you need to concentrate on short-term wins. Set goals for your team that can be achieved quickly—and be sure to advertise your success!
Circulating weekly status reports to everyone on the project team
Not the best choice.
Circulating frequent status reports would actually help you maintain interest in your project and motivate the people who are working with you. Focusing exclusively on your long-term goals, however, may not keep people motivated. In order to maintain momentum and enthusiasm, you need to concentrate on short-term wins. Set goals for your team that can be achieved quickly—and be sure to advertise your success!
Why is it important to determine what specific help or support you will need from stakeholders before meeting with them?
People won't oppose your idea if you ask them for specific help or support
Not the best choice.
You can't assume that people won't oppose your idea if you ask them for specific help or support. The correct answer is "People want to know how you plan to involve them in your project." By clearly identifying your objectives before you meet with each stakeholder (Do you want resources from him? Support from her?), you show why the person's involvement is important, and you make it clear what you are asking for. Otherwise, you may get a nod of acceptance, but no concrete support when you need it.
People want to know how you plan to involve them in your project
Correct choice.
By clearly identifying your objectives before you meet with each stakeholder (Do you want resources from him? Support from her?), you show why the person's involvement is important, and you make it clear what you are asking for. Otherwise, you may get a nod of acceptance, but no concrete support when you need it.
Asking for specific type of help or support makes people understand the need for your project
Not the best choice.
Asking for specific type of help or support does not necessarily make people understand the need for your project. The correct answer is "People want to know how you plan to involve them in your project." By clearly identifying your objectives before you meet with each stakeholder (Do you want resources from him? Support from her?), you show why the person's involvement is important, and you make it clear what you are asking for. Otherwise, you may get a nod of acceptance, but no concrete support when you need it.
Look for a quiet place where you can spend some time undisturbed. Sit down, relax, and close your eyes.
Think of a time in the future when the innovation has been successfully realized. Imagine how your idea has unfolded. In a best-case scenario, what does your innovation look like? How are people responding to your idea? How has your idea impacted your company?
Next, imagine what it would feel like to experience the rewards of a successful implementation. Again, focus on the best-case scenario. What does success look like? How do you feel? Think about the outcome, not about how you achieved it.
After about five minutes of visualizing, record your vision in whatever way you think is best. You might sketch a picture, build a model, or write a paragraph to describe your vision.
See the worksheet for crafting a vision statement for help in capturing your vision on paper.
On a regular basis, replay the vision in your mind. Regular reflection will help to keep you focused on the creative implementation of your idea—and help you stay motivated when you face inevitable obstacles or setbacks.
Once you can describe your vision, it is time to test it. Telling people about your idea with excitement and enthusiasm will help to attract them to it. Ask colleagues and friends to react to your idea and help you revise your vision to make it even more compelling and clear.
As you develop your idea, ask for input from trusted friends and colleagues. Don't try to sell your idea at this point. Instead, ask them to identify potential problems and flaws in your thinking. Ask them to challenge your assumptions and suggest ways to improve your idea. Revise your idea based on the feedback you receive.
Consider who will be impacted by your idea and who controls the resources you will need to implement it. Ask yourself how these people might respond to your idea. Before you meet with them, anticipate their concerns and be prepared to answer their questions. The person you choose as your sponsor should be able to offer insights about the decision makers and stakeholders you'll need to win over.
After you have explored the details of your project and feel ready to seek outside support, develop a strategy for influencing stakeholders. Work with your sponsor or other trusted advisers to decide how and when to approach each person. For some, an informal meeting may suffice. For others, a detailed presentation may be more appropriate. Make sure to identify your objectives for speaking with each stakeholder so that you know what you are asking for before you meet with them.
Implement the communication strategy you developed. Present your ideas and ask for input and support. Revise your communication strategy based on the feedback you receive in early meetings. If you meet with strong resistance, take a step back to understand its causes so that you can address it properly.
Make sure to keep your sponsor and key stakeholders informed of your progress. You want your project to stay in the forefront of your supporters' minds so they will continue to view it as important and relevant.
Using your vision statement as a guide, make an outline of the topics you want to address in your business case. These could include goals, potential customers, the competition, the expected benefits of implementation, a preliminary timeline, and cost and labor estimates. It's a good idea to include potential obstacles and how you will address them, because decision makers and stakeholders will most likely ask about anticipated problems.
Work alone or with a group of people to document the information you already know for each topic in your outline. You may need to make estimates for topics such as profit projections, resource requirements, time frames, and costs. Be sure to note your assumptions. They may be challenged, so you'll need to be prepared to defend them.
Gather data and do research to fill in the gaps in your business plan. Explore your assumptions to see if you can find any facts that either support or undermine them. Based on what you learn, update your business case. Remember that the process of building a business case is just as valuable as the document you create. By exploring the details of your project, you become an expert in what it is you're proposing.
Show your preliminary business case to trusted advisers and supporters in your informal network. Ask for advice on how to strengthen your case. Revise your document based on the input you receive.
Before anyone in a position to decide the fate of your idea attends a formal presentation or reviews your business case, they should already be favorably disposed to your idea. Arrange an informal meeting with these people to ask for their advice on the ideas you have explored in your business case. Don't present them with the case at this point; just discuss it. You can then improve your document by incorporating the feedback you receive.
Using the information you gather, create different versions of your document for different stakeholders.
For example, you might want to have a detailed document for your team to use. You might want to prepare a higher-level slide presentation for communicating your idea to potential supporters. Also consider drafting an executive summary that highlights the major points in your case relevant to each stakeholder group. This short document will remind stakeholders of your proposed innovation's benefits and can facilitate a more specific discussion of your idea.
Pay attention when people criticize your idea. Ask probing questions to get at the heart of their concerns.
For example, you might ask: "Can you tell me more about that?" "Can you share with me the facts that support your opinion?" Often those who criticize are aware of something that you can't see. Their honest feedback may help you strengthen your plan or improve the way you present your idea.
If the criticism does not seem to be constructive, work with your sponsor or other advisers to evaluate the person's importance. Is the person opposing your idea essential to its successful implementation? Is he someone who can influence others or who controls resources you need to implement your idea? Do you need his support to continue? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you may need to devise a strategy to overcome the resistance. If the person is viewed as a chronic complainer, however, you may not need to win his support.
Consider why this person opposes your idea. Is the resistance due to some shortcoming of the idea itself or due to how it impacts this person? Is she feeling threatened? Is she apprehensive about the risks? Is she too busy to take on more responsibility and afraid that you may ask her to contribute to your project? Is she concerned that she will no longer be needed when the project is complete? You may want to ask your sponsor or someone who is removed from the project to help you identify the cause(s) of resistance.
Based on what you know about the person and the likely cause(s) of resistance, decide on an approach to manage resistance. If risk is his concern, consider trying to persuade him with facts and logic as to how you will mitigate or manage the elements of risk. If he seems threatened by the project, encourage his participation by asking for advice and inviting him to meetings. Other tactics you might consider include providing training to make the person feel less overwhelmed, offering the person something in exchange for his support, providing more data to support your proposal, or simply directing the person to complete the task at hand.
Recognize that you might not be able to convince everyone to support your project. However, the more people who support you, the more likely you are to overcome other opponents.
For example, a customer-savvy sales professional could help you position your idea for a new shampoo that leverages your well-known soap brand. Then ask yourself whether you think they would be willing—and have the time—to share this expertise.
“
Larry Bossidy
Former CEO, AlliedSignal
In today’s global business environment, markets and regulations change quickly. Competitors constantly innovate. Technological changes are the norm.
In order to outmaneuver the competition and meet the demands of the moment, organizations must be agile. They must execute flawlessly. And they must transform themselves continuously.
Are your leaders ready?
Dr. Noel M. Tichy
Professor
University of Michigan Ross School of Business
We have now entered an era where I don’t care what industry you’re in, you need leaders who can make decisions, make judgment calls at every single level. All the way down to the interface with the customer.
If you go to a company like Google or any of the high tech companies, a lot of the innovation that Amazon does is happening right at the front line. Go ahead, try it, put it out there, we'll learn from it. That cannot happen if the senior leadership doesn't have a commitment to both develop the leadership capability, but develop the business through engaging people at all levels of the organization.
Becoming a teaching organization
I like to tell parents that they cannot delegate their responsibility to develop their children. And I think it is the same in an organization. Day in and day out the person that has the biggest impact on people in the organization is the next level above and the associates around and below. And so to build a learning organization I say is not enough. Learning could be, you know we are learning cooking, we are learning this or that, but teaching organizations, when I learned something, I have a responsibility to teach my colleagues.
So everybody takes responsibility for generating new knowledge and it is not enough to be a learner, you then have to translate it into teaching.
The Virtuous Teaching Cycle
The role of a leader is to ensure that the people who work for them and around them are better every day. There's only one way to make people better. It's to teach them, learn from them, create what I call "virtuous teaching cycles”, not command and control.
A virtuous teaching cycle is teach learn, teach learn. And the leader has a responsibility for reducing the hierarchy, for having a point of view to start the discussion, but then to be responsible to hear everyone's voice, get everyone involved in a disciplined way. It is not a free for all. But it is the leader's responsibility to create that virtuous teaching cycle.
A wonderful example of virtuous teaching cycle is the program that Roger Enrico ran at Pepsi, where every one of the 10 vice presidents comes with a business project.
Roger Enrico gets smarter as result of five days with 10 vice presidents, because he's learning from them. He needs to lower the hierarchy. He needs to be open to learning. And in turn, the people participating need to be energized and empowered to come up and engage in problem solving.
Another example is at Best Buy, where every morning in the stores you would bring 20 associates or so together and they would review the profit and loss statement from the day before, what we learned from the different customer segments in our stores, what we can do to improve our performance this day. And they do that every single day. The store manager was learning mostly from the associates on the floor.
That was a virtuous teaching cycle were everybody is teaching everybody, everybody is learning and the result has been an incredible result at Best Buy.
“
- Harvey S. Firestone
Founder, Firestone Tire and Rubber Co
There are clear advantages to leader-led development.
But for many leaders, taking on teaching, coaching, and other development responsibilities can seem daunting. You might avoid taking on these roles due to lack of time, resources, or your own lack of comfort with this role.
The following tips and resources can help you impart valuable learning to your team every day.
To develop others…
• Start with a Teachable Point of View
The first requirement of being able to develop other leaders is to have what I call a teachable point of view. I often give the example of, if I ran a tennis camp and you just came to day one of the tennis camp, I better have a teachable point of view on how I teach tennis. So you are standing there looking at me and it has got four elements. One, the ideas, well how do I teach the backhand, the forehand, the serve, rules of tennis. Then if I am a good tennis coach, I have a set of values. What are the right behaviors I want, how do I want you to dress, how do I want you to behave on the tennis court.
But if that's all I have, what do I do? Show you a power point presentation and then expect you to hit 500 backhands, 500 serves, run around for eight hours. I have to have a teachable point of view on emotional energy. How do I motivate you to buy in to the ideas and values?
On one end of the spectrum it could be I threaten you with corporal punishment, the other I can give you stock options, I can make you feel good about yourself, I can help you develop as a human being, what motivates you.
And then finally, how do I make the tough judgment calls, the yes/no, decisions as the tennis coach, the ball is in, the ball is out. I don't hire consultants and set up a committee, it is yes/no. And the same with running a business, what are the products, services, distribution channels, customer segments that are going to grow top line growth and profitability of the organization.
What are the values that I want everyone in the organization to have, how do I emotionally energize thousands of people, and then how do I make the yes/no, judgments on people and on business issues. So the fundamental building block of being able to develop other leaders is to have that teachable point of view just like the tennis coach.
To develop others…
• Lead with questions
Questions are hugely important because you want to create dialogue and again, what I call a virtuous teaching cycle where the teacher learns from the students and vice versa. Which means everybody ought to be free to ask whatever is on their mind, whatever it will take to get clarity and understanding, but it is not the leader just coming in and freeform asking questions. I believe the leader has a responsibility for framing the discussion, for having as best they can a teachable point of view, they may need help from their people in flushing it out, but they need to set the stage but then it has to be a very interactive, what I call virtuous teaching cycle environment, teach learn, teach learn, teach learn.
To develop others…
• Make it part of your routine
A good example to me of an outstanding leader developing other leaders is Myrtle Potter who at the time I am commenting was Chief Operating Officer of Genentech running the commercial side of the business. And she would take time at the end of every single meeting and do some coaching of the whole team on how we could perform as a team better, and then she would often take individuals and say, could we spend 10 minutes over a cup of coffee, I want to give you some feedback and coaching on that report that you just presented on or how you are handling a particularly difficult human resource issue, but it was part of her regular routine. And I think the challenge for all of us as leaders is to make that a way of life and it is built into the fabric of how we lead and it is not a one off event, three times a year. It is happening almost every day.
To develop others…
• Make it a priority
One of the biggest challenges in getting people kind of on this path is to overcome some of their own resistance, either fear or the way I view the world I don't have time for this, everybody can make time. Roger Enrico is CEO of Pepsi. He didn't have time to go off for a week at a time and run training sessions. He had to readjust his calendar. So it requires you to look in the mirror and say, is this important. If it is important, of course I can make the time. Then I have to get over my own anxiety on how well I can do it, but it is a commitment to get on the path that says: this is how I am going to drive my own performance and the performance of my colleagues.
To develop others…
• Learn to teach
I think the biggest mistake is to assume you are going to be good at it right off the bat. It is like learning anything else. First time you go out and try and play tennis, good luck. But you got to stay with it and you got to engage your people in helping make you better and them better. And so it is a journey you need to get on, not I am going to do it perfectly when I start out.
If you want to be a great leader who is a great teacher, it's very simple. You have got to dive into the deep end of the pool. But you've got to dive into the pool with preparation. I don't want you drowning. I want you succeeding. It is extraordinarily rewarding for most human beings to teach others. I think once you can turn that switch on, it is self perpetuating. You get a lot of reinforcement, your team is better. You perform better because your performance goes up and it becomes this virtuous teaching cycle.
Your opportunity to develop others
We’ve heard why developing others can drive greater business results, and how to make the most of your leader-led development efforts. The materials provided in Develop Others enable you to create personalized learning experiences for YOUR team within the flow of their daily activities. Use the guides and projects to engage your team quickly. And to explore how key concepts apply to them in the context of their priorities and goals.
The value of teaching is the performance of the organization is totally dependent on making your people smarter and more aligned every day as the world changes. In the 21st century we are not going to get by with command and control. We are going to have to get by with knowledge creation. The way you create knowledge in an organization is you create these virtuous teaching cycles where you are teaching and learning simultaneously, responding to customer demands and changes, responding to changes in the global environment. My bottom line is if you're not teaching, you're not leading.
A leader’s most important role in any organization is making good judgments — well informed, wise decisions about people, strategy and crises that produce the desired outcomes. When a leader shows consistently good judgment, little else matters. When he or she shows poor judgment nothing else matters. In addition to making their own good judgment calls, good leaders develop good judgment among their team members.
Dr. Noel M. Tichy
Professor, University of Michigan Ross School of Business
Dr. Noel M. Tichy is Professor of Management and Organizations, and Director of the Global Business Partnership at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. The Global Business Partnership links companies and students around the world to develop and engage business leaders to incorporate global citizenship activities, both environmental projects and human capital development, for those at the bottom of the pyramid. Previously, Noel was head of General Electric’s Leadership Center at Crotonville, where he led the transformation to action learning at GE. Between 1985 and 1987, he was Manager of Management Education for GE where he directed its worldwide development efforts at Crotonville. He currently consults widely in both the private and public sectors. He is a senior partner in Action Learning Associates. Noel is author of numerous books and articles, including:
For more information about Noel Tichy, visit http://www.noeltichy.com.