Blockchain. It’s so hard to understand it, and it’s so new. Our goal here is to provide a simple description, readable in 2 minutes, about what Blockchain is and what it does.
Aaron and I work at qiibee, and we help set-up loyalty on the blockchain solutions for businesses and services. But, first of all, what is Blockchain?
Blockchain 101
‘Whereas most technologies tend to automate workers on the periphery doing menial tasks, blockchains automate away the center. Instead of putting the taxi driver out of a job, blockchain puts Uber out of a job and lets the taxi drivers work with the customer directly’
Vitalik Buterin
A Blockchain is a network of computers that work in a decentralized manner and agree on the current true state of data in a transparent and predictable manner.
Interest in blockchain has grown significantly over the past five years as the technology has matured and large organizations, and even world governments, have started dabbling in it.
It moved along the Gartner Hype Cycle from `The Peak of Inflated Expectations` in 2016 to the `Trough of Disillusionment` in 2018, due to multiple failed projects, and scam ICOs – a way for projects and individuals to raise money in the open (crypto) markets.
We’re now at a point where companies are beginning to understand that blockchain isn’t a silver bullet and needs to be evaluated to determine how much benefit it can really add.
There are, at a very high level, two kinds of blockchains:
Public blockchains like Ethereum and Bitcoin
Private blockchains like Hyperledger Fabric and Corda
The Bitcoin public blockchain was the first digital currency to solve the double spend problem without the need for a central authority or server. A decade later it is still arguably the gold standard in decentralization and continues to inspire multiple other teams and projects.
Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap after Bitcoin, was initially described in a white paper by Vitalik Buterin in 2013 who believed there was a need for a general purpose blockchain to build decentralized applications upon. In 2014 work on Ethereum officially began through a Swiss registered company. Ethereum describes itself as `a global, open-source platform for decentralized applications`. The code on the Ethereum is mostly written in a Turing complete language called Solidity. Ethereum has the largest developer community and a very low barrier to entry making it attractive to build and prototype projects on. While a majority of the projects on Ethereum revolve around the transfer of value and decentralized finance, it has also seen a lot innovation in the p2p messaging, and other domains. Some of the most popular projects like Status are open source.
Public blockchains have the following properties:
Open – anonymous participation
Censorship resistant
Use native tokens to access and pay for services
The public blockchain space is evolving and maturing at an accelerated space but still hasn’t reached a point where large enterprises feel comfortable launching full-fledged projects on it.
This has opened the doors to private enterprise chains that provide guarantees around privacy, access control, and permissions that the public chains currently do not.
Enterprise chains are significantly harder, compared to Ethereum, to get started, due to the additional complexity and setup. However, having the ability to harness the benefits of a public blockchain without the concerns of privacy and scalability has been a huge advantage for enterprises and more than makes up for the additional complexity.
Private chains defer from their open counterparts by not allowing anonymous participants (all members of a private blockchain are known) and allowing for confidential contracts and transactions between parties.
The 3 main pillars of Blockchain overall are:
Decentralization
Transparency
Immutability
Each chain achieves it in different ways based on its core principles.
The Ethereum and Bitcoin chains are totally open, while enterprise chains achieve these in a closed business context with known participants.
The main part of any blockchain system is its consensus layer. The most well-known is the Proof of Work (PoW) consensus that’s being used by the Ethereum and Bitcoin blockchains. It rewards nodes for solving a complex mathematical puzzle that consumes a lot of computational resources.
While PoW is secure, it is also inefficient in terms of the performance and the massive cost of electricity to run it. As a result, Ethereum is moving to the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus, which rewards nodes proportionately to the number of coins the node stakes to mint a new block.
Most blockchains also have a `Smart Contract` layer that allows developers to write a code that executes on the blockchain in a deterministic manner. Smart contracts are used to encode core business rules needed to carry out an action on the blockchain.
The main benefits Blockchain provides to both individuals and businesses are:
Transparency
Audit Trail
Provenance
Deterministic outcomes
When to use Blockchain:
Untrusted parties
Multiple writers and stakeholders
Need for single source of truth
Avoid intermediaries
Auditability
Aaron de Miranda Colaço (aaroncolaco.com) is the Head of Blockchain at qiibee and works closely with enterprises to help them use blockchain to solve their complex business needs.
I recently spent a day in New York City. The weather was dreary so it was a perfect day to see a Broadway matinee. Of course, no one wants to pay those Broadway prices. Down the street from the hotel, there was a theater company so I asked the in-the-know locals at the reception desk about the best way to get discount last minute tickets to a show within walking distance without standing in the rain at the kiosk in Times Square. They suggested an app.
Sure enough, I bought a ticket on the app at a substantial discount to a theater about 6 blocks away. The lead deserved his Tony nomination.
The next day I received an email asking me to do a survey about my experience and offered to enter me into a lottery for a $100 coupon if I completed it.. Imagine if sick care professionals or hospitals did that after your visit? When was the last time you got one after a drug rep or MSL or device rep visited you in your office or the OR?
Unfortunately, after entering the answer to the first question, I logged off and deleted the app. Here’s why:
There were too many questions
The website took too long to respond
I had to click through too many fields
I was worried that by participating I would be continually annoyed with subsequent emails.
I didn’t trust the site enough to know what they would do with the data or how much money they would make selling it to someone without my permission
This was a one-off experience. Since I was visiting from out of town, it is unlikely I’ll be using them again in the near future. The life time value of my engagement is slim.
I wasn’t sure why they were asking me certain questions
The survey was boring
There wasn’t anything personal about it. In this day and age of AI, that’s unimaginable.
They could have accomplished the same thing with a single answer net promoter score. However, it they did, it might not tell them whether users intentions actually correlated with with whether they did or did not recommend the product.
Improving the sickcare customer experience has become a growth industry as convenience, experience, service, access and digital tools become more important to patients and healthcare professionals who are used to the convenience of other industries.
Best practices include:
Provide one complete view of the customer experience
Capture information continuously
Ensure feedback reflects the customer base
Make it easy for customers to give feedback
Provide customer feedback to every employee
Tailor information to the needs of each role
Link feedback to customer, operational and financial data
Understand the financial impact of customer data
Lead with a customer centric strategy
Define clear customer experience responsibilities, goal and success metrics
Reinforce the right customer-centric behaviors
Close the loop with customers on a systematic basis
Surface high-impact opportunities for improvement
Address the root cause of problems, not just symptoms
Leverage scale to unconver effective practices
Test and validate product and service innovations
The ultimate goal is to use information to change the behavior of those who care for patients. In some instances, providing feedback is enough. In others, it is not and can present substantial challenges, including how and when to terminate an employee.
When it comes to obtaining customer input, executives often think a multiple-choice survey will be the most cost-effective option. They have their place, of course, such as if you want to know the percentage of people who liked or disliked something. But these instruments are shallow and derivative at best, and at their worst they can be annoying and counterproductive. So don’t let them become an excuse for not talking to the customer.
I must not be alone, given that the response rate to external surveys is 10-15%. Here’s how to avoid all of these mistakes. Enjoy the show. Delete the survey.
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Twitter@ArlenMD and Co-editor of Digital Health Entrepreneurship
“Stability breeds efficiency and complacency. Instability breeds resilience and innovation”
Given we are in a sustained period of instability, how as leaders do we dial up the resilience and innovation, without burning out ourselves or the teams we lead? How do we leverage the instability to build resilience and innovation that creates success in ourselves and our teams? In my twenty-five plus years of work I’ve seen stable and unstable times come and go. And, I’ve seen the patterns of those that come out stronger, and those that don’t. Here are three easy to implement lessons for breeding resilience and innovation in yourself and your team:
#1 What You Expose Yourself To Becomes Your Box: I was recently asked how I shifted my business and found success so quickly given the rug was pulled out from under me, like it was for so many. I told them that while many of my colleagues were still talking amongst themselves, I was fortunate enough to have been exposed to new people, new ideas and hence, new business models. Be intentional and make the effort to expose yourself and your team to different ideas and experiences. Doing this will automatically drive innovation. Their boxes will expand and change, and so will their ideas along with it.
#2 Recognize Your Lizard Brains Are Extra Active: In times of stress our primal lizard brain takes over. It’s what creates your fight, flight or freeze response and its main function is to keep you safe and comfortable, especially in uncertain times. The challenge is that the lizard brain shuts down your resilience, your drive to push through. It wants you to curl up in a small ball and wait it out. And while the lizard brain is hardwired into us, with a little effort, we can push past it to get to our higher functioning mind that helps us navigate change and disruption. It’s been my experience that doing something as simple as taking 3-breaths helps get us out of our reactive lizard brain and into our innovative and resilient brain. People that lead strong during uncertainty, don’t give in to the lizard brain, instead, they acknowledge and push through it.
#3 Stop Using The Word “They”: In tough times, it’s human nature to want to find something or someone to blame. “They don’t get it,” or “they are the reason I couldn’t get my task done,” or “if only they listened to me.” The word “they” actually creates a victim mindset and minimizes innovation. It’s hard to innovate when people don’t feel trust and connection. A colleague of mine, who has been an incredibly strong leader through 2020, told me that when she sees the word “they” popping up in her team, she shuts it down. In taking out that word, she discovered that people built a more accountable, resilient mindset. And, real connection and collaboration went up, igniting innovation. The key she said, “isn’t to make it punitive, but to help people overcome their blindspots and move forward together.”
Instability and uncertainty is definitely challenging, but it can also foster incredible new opportunities and paths to success for yourself, your team and your organization. I’d also encourage you to join me on Sunday, September 20th as I dig even further into how to ignite innovation, influence others and lead strong. This one-time live webinar will cover the 20% that will give you 80% of the innovation results you need to transform uncertainty into opportunity. You’ll also be given access to my 4-part video series along with your registration.
Atelier Louis Zero is not a digital agency, it’s a strategic design workshop. To better understand this branding, I have asked Melissa Eisenberg, business engineer at Louis Zero, a few questions.
A dual Franco-Thai national, Mélissa joined Louis Zero’s adventure in September: she still has a fresh and sharp look at its identity. After working in the tourism industry and language training in B2B, she took her nunchaku to shake up the world of innovation! She naturally joined Louis Zero’s team as Shake my Firm project manager and then took on the development of Louis Zero workshop as a whole.
1) Can you introduce us to Louis Zero, where it comes from, what is its value proposition, and how the singular branding Louis Zero was picked up ?
Why “Louis Zero” ? (*laugh) isn’t it an unforgettable name ? First and foremost, I need to say : Louis Zero is a workshop and not an agency, it’s quite an important distinction.
Now a little bit of history! Born at the end of the economic monarchy, Louis Zero is a strategic design workshop that designs impactful products, services and business models. “French brand with a French name”, Louis Zero pays tribute to creative revolutionaries and gives economic monarchy the thumbs down, resetting the counters to their zero state.
Our identity is based on our singularity, our “atypical” side if we can say, that’s what makes us strong. The choice to define ourselves as a “workshop” isn’t insignificant, it was chosen precisely to show our capacity to constantly renew ourselves, to adapt in this ever changing world and therefore to accompany our customers in the improvement of their products, digitalisation of their processes, etc.
We have a paradigm : Business as unusual. So now you’re wondering why? Because we want to help our clients to resist being overtaken by the transformations of the time in this new digitalised world. That is why we need to adopt new cultures, new methods and tools.
By creating new experiences and utilities, by touching on the product, the services, the global experience, Louis Zero breaks the usual silos and makes many departments of a company collaborate in an interdisciplinary way. As a workshop, we are open to all and exist simultaneously as an open place, to stimulate debates and meetings, and as a playground for companies, to imagine and create, together.
We really like to welcome people in our physical Workshop, which is a “never ending” space that can be appropriated by everyone. Configurable at all times, it’s a space for creation where we prototype, innovate with our customers, meet at our events, test and much more.
Then, of course, we have our own “Spot, Play, Go” methodology.
2) You have developed a bespoke innovation approach: Spot, Play, Go. Could you describe for us the successive steps and timeline?
Con gusto !
Prelude : When kicking off a project, we assemble the best possible project team, our “special commando” like we call it. First we validate the methodology, the planning and governance committees. We run an identification workshop with the project team, to assess the objectives, constraints and KPIʼs and evaluate the degrees of risk. Then, we implement the steering tools and we ask our client if they are in any need of skills transfer. If needed, we dedicate some special slots during the project to transfer our knowledge to the customer team and help them develop their skills. We truly accompany them.
SPOT. This first step is the most important one as it helps to identify the objectives. We immerse ourselves into the comprehension of the company, its organization, its market, its users. Depending on where our client stands, we can help him reach a better strategic understanding through a thorough market research. We make a benchmark of the competitors, we map their positions and identify good practices, we seek the important tendencies and deliver a synthesis.
It’s like a ”hey, check somewhere else if I am there”.
Once this first part is completed, we are able to :
Understand weak signals and sectoral macro trends;
Consolidate the knowledge of users and core target, do focus groups, surveying the field, making astonishment reports;
Make the experience map or user journey, to detect the pain points, isolate the problem, adopting stances and validating them. Drawing conclusions! drawing conclusions! drawing conclusions!
Write an article on a relevant and stimulating topic, then, respond with strong biais.
In short, the key words of SPOT are: understanding, immersion, consolidation and problem definition.
PLAY : The ideation part, and probably the most exciting one (you can ask our Head of excitation, he’ll tell you).
In this part, the goal is to refine our research to a single value proposition or core service. We transform our stances into a strategic concept that positions the product in relation to its market and its targets’ needs. We also work on positioning, run brand foundation workshops, build the brand platform and do the branding. After that, we define the epics, detail the user or job stories and extract the functionalities that we finally evaluate, select, and prioritize.
Then we switch into the prototyping and test part. I can tell you at this moment our designers team is in the starting block in front of their screen and can’t wait to use Figma! They first draw user flows, design UX routes and optimize them. Then they prototype key screens and: test, iterate, validate.
Afterwards, they create the design system, the UI kit and establish the final interactions according to the objectives, constraints and KPIʼs.
The PLAY key words are: ideation, decision, branding, prototyping and testing.
GO : Bring the action! Now, we have all the keys to start the product development. We validate with the developers team that the technical choices and design solutions align, we define and subdivide the different sprints and ensure that they are respected. We wrote the specifications. For each sprint, we check the integration and send debugging tickets. We work hands in hands with the developers to ensure the final quality. We run multiple tests with the end-users, leading us to modify and optimize the designed solution along the way. We also work on SEO, CRM, marketing automation to coordinate the entire digital ecosystem.
GO key words: Governance, sprints, monitoring quality, accompanying, implementation.
Spot, Play, Go : that’s it !
We don’t really have a fixed timeline for all these steps, they may really well vary from weeks to months, depending on the clients and the project. Sometimes it’s a sprint of 1 week so we have to pass through all of this process in one week, but a typical project usually takes between 2 and 6 months, which gives us this type of timeline. Spot : 3 weeks -1,5 months / Play : 1 – 3 months and Go : 1-3 months (with the agile method Play and Go often overlap).
3) Can you illustrate some use cases where Spot, Play, Go was swayed?
Lately, we had the chance to accompany a fintech project with La Fabrique by CA (startup studio of Crédit Agricole) to help improve patrimonial bancary services through a digital platform. This project was a state of the art use of our methodology.
During the immersion phase Spot, we ran a very thorough user research. We are not bank experts at all, so we learned a lot, and it was really interesting! We met actual bank experts, we did field studies where we observed the encounter of clients and bank counselors. We ran multiple interviews, empathy map workshops, and two regional focus group sessions to gain a clear understanding of the user needs. We ended up with a solid problem to solve : fixing the trust issue between the clients and their bank regarding patrimonial decisions.
During the Play time : We started with a UX and ergonomic audit of the existing solution to point out all the flows and frictions, and then we changed the direction of the product, simplifying the user flows and the web site architecture, based on user insights. We stayed close to the original design system when integrating new elements to take into account the newly founded brand.
Go time : We designed all the interfaces, went back and forth for some improvements thanks to user tests during the different sprints and we kept in touch with the developers throughout the whole process, helping them with the assets management and carrying the product vision.
4)Louis Zero works on digital projects as well as on branding: do you have a recent case study to illustrate it ?
One of our last rebranding project featured Advizeo, a startup company that helps professionals to reduce the energetic cost of their buildings. Their image was a bit too closely linked with their mother company La Setec, which is a big name in the construction industry. The main feat was to keep the balance between their desire to forge a name for themselves and their interest in keeping close to the industrial/engineering expertise of their background.
We mapped the existing market, did a benchmarking of their competition and helped them achieve a new positioning through various workshops of brand identity and brand-platform creation. In terms of project deliverables, we designed their new graphical identity, the new brand logo and motto and finally their new corporate website to display their services, values and case studies.
5)Louis Zero has developed an internal startups studio, and one of the output is the intermediation platform “Shake my firm”: could you share how the studio works (time allocated?), and what is the value proposition of Shake my firm, and how it differentiates from competition?
In general for the startup studio, we allocated 20% of our time, it really depends on the other projects we have at the same time. For Shake my Firm we first assembled a team project and now it’s an independent project which stands on its own two feet !
Well, let’s imagine that Shake my Firm is a theater play. I’m going to tell you the story of this project like that, as if it was a theater play. I love sharing stories that’s crazy ! (*laugh).
Before becoming this intermediation platform, it was a training experience. YES you can live an experience when you want to train yourself! Why does it have to be boring all the time?! Training can also be fun and immersive !
Act 1 : “Reinventing training, beat the codes”.
Everything began in march 2017, we decided to propose to top and middle managers a new training experience. We privatized ”La Bellevilloise” in Paris which is a cultural center. We’ve turned it into a theater with different parts to allow the players to move forward in their reflections.
We had 48 hours to teach companies how to not disappear. 48 hours to answer the question: “Who will be the next little jerk in a hooded sweatshirt to come and smash your business model?”. So we locked up 40 top and middle managers during this 48 hours for this amazing training experience! I must say it was a success ! They left the experience shaken but enriched. Actually, it was such a success that we decided to adapt it to other corporate subjects, you can find this experience for sales managers, etc.
Act 2 : “Give back the power and the desire to learn”.
After this success we thought “OK we can’t stop it here ?!”. So we used the Spot, Play, Go methodology faced with the transformations of the training sector in France. After a focus group with coach and independent trainers, and a lot of research, we decided to create an intermediation platform where you can find coach, trainers and experiences crafters. Those “experiences crafters” are at the essence of who we are (Cf. Act 1).
Act 3 : “Begin the transformation”
To do this, we looked for coach, trainers and experiences crafters one by one to give a new experience of training to all people in a simple way. The goal was to transform training into real moments of life.
They all can teach different subjects: digital transformation, design thinking, change management, leadership, agile management, data, security, UX design and prototyping, strategy and innovation, digital marketing, etc…
We are so excited to announce that the platform will soon be available, stay tuned
From an interview/podcast I just made with the great Chiara Covone on Marketing & Branding. Great discussion.
Today we are going to talk about brands, brands from today and tomorrow. You worked with many well known brands over the years, in very different industries.What do you think all successful brands have in common?
I agree with the definition of Professor Sharp, which is very clear in this respect.
Successful brands usually command a vast market share, generated by mental and physical availability. Which means (1) they are able to offer, at scale, good value-for-money product propositions, (2) they go to market in an aggressive way (Trade Marketing, so to speak), and (3) they invest consistently in Marketing – ideally with decent content, to make sure people know they exist.
In a nutshell, successful Brands share the same way of operating.
Having a visionary founder, a strong brand/company purpose, or a full 360-degree sustainability agenda is in no way a predictor of in market success. It’s very often a burden, or at best a PR gig.
We measure success according to the KPIs of a linear model: produce – buy – waste, repeat. We don’t buy Coke or apple for their purpose. They don’t succeed thanks to their transcendent values. Coke just released their last campaign, which is heart-warming. It is unfortunately only excellent Marketing.
The role of people in the success of a brand
People is the first step to build a successful company and brand, before product and before processes. The order with which to structure an organization should be: (1) amazing people – rallied around the same business ambition; (2) lean processes; and, (3) products that do solve people’s real problems. Also here, let’s be pragmatic. Problem solving beats emotions in the long run for most categories (you can get excited about toilet paper, a mattress or a frying pan, but there is an objective limit to being ‘sexy’ for most of the categories that we buy).
Individual needs vs. local, regional and global. What are the 3 trends and the patterns we can identify?
The key challenges for the future are all global: (1) adopt new tech and the right user cases (from AI applied to retail stores to the health industry of the future); (2) embrace sustainability without disrupting supply chain and pricing especially; (3) completely outsource brand narrative, thanks to the magic of the digital world.
Media will be more and more centralized, and so will Trade, leaving local and regional nuances to a very marginal role. Regional and national are mind constructions, which come from the past century. Besides very few local shopping festivities (think of Ramadan) or local needs (Asian Women are smaller; silicone or leather accessories sell less in warmer markets), assortment and new trends will speak to a global audience, and, on the other side, Marketing and execution will cater to the individual, with nothing in between. Think of health in the future, as we said. While innovation will be dominated by investment scaled up globally, therapy will be individualized – n = 1, thanks to solutions like AI & Block-chain. There will not be an ‘us’ any longer, besides ‘us’ being unique individuals or a part of global challenges, like saving our planet.
You worked in many global roles – we see many developing countries leap-frogging their development path.Which markets/regions are the biggest source of inspiration for you and why?
Fashion, for example, looks at Asia as the only engine of growth and innovation for the near future. India is probably the largest opportunity that we all have in the near term. China has not yet unlocked its full potential, being dominated by Chinese players, who are protected by the state. Africa could be an opportunity only for the long term. Europe, Middle East and Americas will be less of an inspiration -and I repeat ‘inspiration’, due to their declining economic trajectory and ageing population.
Purpose driven brands – should brands have a POV around global issues?
Brands will need to sit on the right side of history and shouldn’t brag about it. Being sustainable or diverse will just be hygiene factors, and not differentiators. Brands don’t need a purpose to succeed. Brands need a bold ambition. You have to answer the question: why the hell do you exist, and are you able to stand out?
Are we moving away from democratization?
Yes, thanks to technology. Brands treated everyone the same way. Brands democratized quality and service, for all. The future will look different. Coming back to my health example, therapy and insurance will be individualized, and really tailored to our individual needs. The question is: if brands are not the same for everyone any longer, how do we ensure that there is no discrimination? How can I correct my mistakes and not be penalized for my unsafe behaviors? Is it fair to pay a different price, for different services, and when? People at the margin of society will remain marginalized.
What does it mean to be a luxury brand in 2020?
Two trends here.
There has been an increasing integration or enrichment of product with experience. Think of the apple or Hermes stores. Product alone doesn’t mean anything. Due to Covid-19, luxury brands are moving online for the first time. So, the next level of luxury will be an integration of the physical experience with some mind or virtual experience, plus a superb customer service, almost like a VIP club on steroids. The ultimate luxury, in a world full of technology, will be to have our butler – our alter ego always there for us. Alexa 2.0 will be our ultimate luxury.
The opposite is also true. Luxury can be found in ultra-niche experiences, which are not scalable and not digital by choice. Think of the artisanal Chef, who has 10 tables only, or the small shop in Florence, who rediscovers the beauty of the zero-km bottega.
Let’s talk about brand longevity (McKinsey statistic). How do companies have to adapt to this evidence?
They have to adapt fast. Speaking of Fashion, McKinsey predicts that 70% of brands/companies will be on the edge by the end of this year. I believe this is accurate. This will boost the global concentration and the luxury trends that we discussed. A few global powerhouses will survive – at both ends of the pricing spectrum (premium and cheap), plus a network of niche players. Most brands are reacting to the current stress in the same way: assortment rationalization (once again, same trend of limiting local heroes), Marketing cuts, org adjustments, brands clean-up. The right things to do short term.
There is no better moment for market leaders. There is no better moment for major changes in new tech, sustainability and Marketing. We almost have permission to make the boldest moves now.
From Linear to Circular Economies? What is your POV?
Linear will die, giving way to circular and decentralized. Not because circular is better or more profitable or it has a higher impact. It’s only because we can’t afford the old system any longer, if we want to survive as human beings on this planet.
Brands who will move first on circularity, even before any government, while keeping their Marketing mix intact and as compelling, will win. The larger industries will need to adjust first and fast: energy must go first (fossil fuel). Then, health, transportation, clothing, food & beverages.
Innovation Sprints are a really hot topic right now and for good reason. Some of the biggest companies in the world are using them to build the products we know and love.
If you don’t know what an Innovation Sprint is, it’s essentially a framework that allows you to decide on a problem, generate solutions and prototype and then test ideas with real consumers, in between 3 and 5 days.
Created by Google, the framework has been a game changer for people working in the world of digital products, but now it is being widely adopted by FMCG companies who have to act and operate with far more agility than ever before. Companies need to move faster to get viable ideas into the market ahead of the competition. Instead of taking years to develop, test, and launch a new product, companies now have months.
Innovation Sprints effectively help you to cut some of the processes out of the process.
They give you answers! They help to unpack and test assumptions and early ideas (we call them Idealings) at breakneck speed (compared to the norm).
What Barriers Can An Innovation Sprint Knock Over?
1. Good ideas are not prematurely killed
Often with ideation, so much time is spent conversing and exploring the barriers in an initial concept that the idea is never even given a chance to be explored. Sprints remove these hurdles and enable quick discovery of opportunities without the need for endless deliberation. You have to try ideas quickly and be able to fail fast to find the ideas that are most viable and commercially sound.
2. No time or budget for rigour, but still want to keep the consumer at the heart
With new, faster timelines for product innovation, many companies don’t have as much time for the rigour of conventional market research, but they still want to find a way to keep the consumer at the heart of everything they do.
Innovation Sprints give you enough consumer insight to build a case around what your consumer wants and why. Answers are usually qualitative in nature, best for assessing desirability and where all the holes and gaps are in an idea. It’s an extremely early form of concept validation if you like.
What they don’t give you is a fully developed proposition and the detailed execution of the idea – for example, the name, product descriptor, claims, product and pack format, size, usability etc.
The depth of consumer insight from an Innovation Sprint is unlikely to give decision makers all the insights they need, but it ensures you are getting buy-in from the right stakeholders early in the process.
3. Stakeholder team is not galvanised and/ or aligned
The Innovation Sprint format gives a way to focus the attention on the team on a very specific problem. The exercises are all designed to reduce politics, increase collaboration across functions and put focus on answers, and not just assets.
The team is empowered to make decisions and reject ideas that weren’t right for the project – without pushback. This keeps the whole process moving forward quickly.
Also, the specific expertise of team members is fully flexed throughout the Sprint. By enlisting the help of the right people at the right time, it helps to drive both speed and efficiency.
An Innovation Sprint workshop is completely scalable in terms of how many Sprint Strategists are used, how many of your team are involved in the process, the number of ideas worked on, external resources brought in, location, etc. We recommend up to 8 people who are all equipped and empowered to make decisions there and then.
In summary, Innovation Sprints are a powerful and agile tool for ideation that can deliver;
• A good balance of speed and depth of information • The ability to iterate more quickly • Flexibility in how the team gets to answers • Empowerment to make decisions and feel good about the decisions being made
There is no one-size fits all for innovation sprints. We have learned that there are times when another strategic approach is best for our clients. We’ve also seen how they can help teams make critical strategic decisions, with confidence, very quickly.
Customer Success is a newer discipline in the world of insurance. But while the term is new, the concept is not; in fact, it is largely an aspirational even somewhat elusive nirvana. It’s even more important in the world we live in today where, to quote the ECONOMIST: we are now facing “a new world disorder” and we have to rethink our way. To help with our collective pursuit of excellence, I have created mind maps that snack size the concept by using customer success approached that talented individuals have used in their careers and in their jobs. In this mind map, I am featuring Sara Carvalho – Sara is a veteran in the consulting space which is characterized by periodic churn and the compulsion to grow a repeat revenue cycle. Read on and apply the map to customize your strategy. You can use the tips she has to offer while navigating a career and discovering your own latent capabilities and customer success potential. CS: Meet Sara – she has shown dedication in her career that matches only her dedication as a working parent! Sara, as a domain expert in surviving in competitive, customer centric environments like consulting, what learnings do you have to share for working parents trying to do the same? SC: I think the first thing for working parents is to acknowledge that this is not easy! Give yourself a break! Anyone who tells you it is easy is lying! In my case the starting point was to initiate focused communication with my management teams. I set clear expectations around what is lacking and what is expected from the organization. Don’t be shy. You have to ask for what you need in order to drive customer success in your role. I’ve been working at home for a number of years because of this driving focus on selling to the right customer and monitoring customer health. CS: That’s great. Speaking of asking for what you need for customer success, there are a lot of parents who choose to stay in the same industry but sometimes get typecast or even taken for granted because of the perception that this is the only thing that they can do versus the realization that it is the only thing they want to do. What should people who are in this position do to communicate (like you rightly said) to their management that the reason they’re still in their field is because they love it and because they have mastered customer metrics and not because they are ‘stuck’? SC: It’s an interesting question because I’ve worked with a number of folks who have sort of stayed in the positions that they’re in. This is not only because it was a path of least resistance but sometimes it was because there are benefits. Benefits like enabling them to balance work and home life for instance. The starting point is to take some initiative to review the drivers of customer success. The day-to-day monotony does get in the way but what you do to improve time to value is one of the things that we probably should always do periodically. Take the time for self-reflection to identify why some of your customers display a higher scale of loyalty than the others. I found through this that what really mattered was meeting with my clients, rolling up my sleeves and understanding their evolving needs. Breakthroughs in customer success often come from these conversations. CS: So, what words of wisdom do you have for people who have bettered themselves but are still not able to find that challenge or convince others that their solutions will drive loyalty and new revenue streams? SC: My gut reaction is don’t stop trying to convince them because industries continue to evolve. Look at us today with the pandemic – everyone’s working from home and adapting. Adaptation is probably the perfect word when we’re all trying to strive to be our best. Have honest conversations, listen to feedback, you don’t have to follow it! But I assure you that there will be growth and customer delight, apart from sales! CS: Adaptation is one of the new rules of the game for sure! What tips, tricks or hacks do you have for parents that have stayed in their same roles/industries and are now adapting to the “new world disorder” and aiming for customer success? SC: My hack is finding my “me” time – it’s my valued time in the morning before my kids wake up. I use this time to focus on a project and examine which best practices I need to adopt. I also tailor my news feeds to alert me to new customer metrics and ways to improve time spent and value derived. This makes me just that bit more focused on staying challenged in the roller coaster world of customer retention.
Kaihan Krippendorf‘s latest book, Driving Innovation from Within, takes you smoothly in the intrapreneurs’ journey: his book guides internal innovators to innovation success through meaningful innovators’ stories, research, and wise and shrewd guidelines. It’s a long time since I did not read such a piece of work, steeped in intelligence: I couldn’t resist to extend the pleasure by asking Kaihan a few questions.
Kaihan is a strategy, innovation, & transformation keynote speaker, author of 5 books, founder at Outthinker -a consulting firm and network connecting senior executives with peer professionals and thought leaders-, and senior advisor at Coplex -a tech ventures starter-.
1) You’ve completed great research on the essence of innovation, and came to surprising findings regarding the relationship between innovation, and the overstated entrepreneur hero:
22 out of the 30 most transformative innovations were conceived by employees;
Innovation more often comes from the collaboration of corporate (and institution) employees than from small teams of mavericks;
More than 50% of the time, the innovator loses control of the innovation: competitors take over and scale innovations.
With this regard, what are the advantages of internal innovators?
Kaihan: I conducted about 150 interviews of internal innovators and experts for this book and found many expressed the view that innovating from within held several advantages.
First is scale. When you innovate from inside a company with scale, your innovations naturally scale more quickly. While entrepreneurs can often launch more quickly, their battle then becomes how to scale. The internal innovator’s experience is often the opposite. Getting idea to launch takes a lot of political effort and convincing. However, once you convince your company to get behind the idea, you can quickly tap into a sales force, channels of distribution, production capacity, brand awareness, etc.
The second is capabilities. Inside your organization you are but an email or phone call away from people with the kinds of capabilities and expertise your innovation needs. You can pick up the phone and speak to experts on production, technology, operations, markets, and industries for example. Your scale also makes it easier for you to connect with external partners. For example, if you call on a professor or potential partner and your business card has a well-known name on it, you will like get a call back much more quickly than an entrepreneur from an unknown company would.
The third is resources. Getting resources (time or money) is not necessarily easy for the internal entrepreneur, but neither is it for an entrepreneur who ends up spending about half his/ her time courting investors instead of building the business. Your company has assets to invest that typically demand a lower return that venture capital because they carry a lower cost of capital.
Finally, consider risk diversification. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, once said “if you have a one in ten chance of a 100-times payoff, you should take that bet every time. But you have to be ready to lose nine times out of ten.” What he is pointing to is the ability of companies with scale too diversify their bets. If they can take ten bets each with a chance of a 100 times payoff, they can predictably produce a 10X return. Unfortunately, too many corporation’s investment practices measure the return on individual innovations rather the return on the portfolio of innovations.
2) You map neatly the 4 paramount steps of the innovation process (discover opportunities, evaluate and choose, take action, mobilize resources) with 6 vital attributes of an internal innovator (market awareness, innovative thinking, calculated risk-taking, intrinsic motivation, proactivity, political acumen –synchronizing one’s idea with the motivations of internal stakeholders);
And you coin 7 overcoming barriers in the acronym INOVATE: Intent, Need, Options, Value Blockers, Act, Team, Environment.
Let’s dig in into 4 of the 7 challenges:
Intent: within the Intent chapter, you describe how the internal innovator has a work to do on his beliefs, behavioral, control, and normative beliefs, how he shall challenge them, unleash from limitations, and adopt new beliefs that leads to the future he wants. I found this part truly powerful, would you share your experience on this?
Kaihan: One of my doctorate advisors is an expert in “entrepreneurial intention.” The idea here is that for someone to take action on a new idea they must first have the intention to do so. This is the root or fundamental requisite of innovation. The research shows, and my study of internal innovators supports, the finding that there are three primary barriers that will block your intention. To put these in layman’s terms they are:
The belief that it is not possible, for example, to innovate from within a large organization or that the idea you have is not feasible. The common, and I strongly believe false, idea that large companies cannot innovate feeds into the persistence of this barrier for so many would-be innovators;
The belief that you are not capable. Even if you believe the idea could work, you may think that you lack the skills or character to pursue the idea;
Social pressure is the third major barrier and, if I am honest, it is the one that personally stopped me from pursuing many ideas in the past. You might think “what will my colleagues say?” or “what will my parent’s think?” You worry about being embarrassed.
The key is to do the internal work to identify which belief, or beliefs, is holding you back, dig in to really consider if the belief is true, in order to liberate yourself from that belief. This frees you to more honestly assess ideas that come your way, liberated to jump on a good one when you find it.
Options: As you explain, ‘successful internal innovators are teeming with ideas. Too many people get so attached to their one big idea that if it fails, they are completely disheartened and give up. The path to success is paved with a portfolio of multiple ideas.’ I couldn’t agree more, and I’m a strong believer in innovation portfolio, and that exploring lineas of ideas nurture cross-fertilization. I’m sure you meet innovators who had fallen in love with their idea: how did you switch them to fall in love with the user’s problem as Ash Maurya puts it?
Kaihan: I think that falling in love with the user’s problem is great way out of the trap of getting too attached to your idea. Let’s simplify things and say that an idea is a combination of a problem and a solution (one potential “product-market fit,” if you will). When you are attached to an idea, you are attached to one problem and one solution. By letting go of the solution and instead thinking of multiple ways to solve that problem, in other words by “falling in love” with the problem, you free up your thinking. That said, mathematically, you further multiply your options for innovation if you also fall in love with other problems. Every organization or industry offers many exciting problems to solve. So a great exercise is to brainstorm multiple problems to solve by looking at the entire industry. These could be not only customer problems but problems of pricing, distribution, people, regulation, and more. Then you pick the top three problems that if you could solve them they would really advance the industry’s evolution. Then you start brainstorming lots of ideas for each problem. At the end of that exercise you get an appreciation of the nearly infinite field of innovations available to you.
Value Blockers: ‘disrupt without disrupting, bend your business model to your corporate environment, pursue an innovation that challenges the competition but is not disruptive to your core current business, at the opposite, it leverages the key assets of the company.’ I call it finding the greatest slop line, where the organization pushes your back like a wave for the surfer. Would you share a few examples with us of this ‘magical middle’? You don’t mention Partners in the 8 P’s structuring a business model (positioning, product, pricing, placement, promotion, process, physical experience, people), nevertheless can they be decisive?
Kaihan: This is a great idea to add “Partners” to my list of 8Ps. To be honest, I have been applying and developing my 8P framework for over a decade and have always said “there may be a 9th P,” but have never found someone suggest one! Partners does open up another dimension and one that is increasingly important in innovation. The research shows that collaboration between partners, particularly public-private partnerships, are creating a growing share of the most significant innovations.
As for the “magical middle,” an example I think illustrates it well is X-Box. One of Microsoft’s most successful innovations, the idea was originally conceived as a Sony Playstation killer, essentially a Playstation copycat. This approach would have played to Sony’s strengths while ignoring any of Microsoft’s unique assets. But the company subtly shifted gears in a way that enabled it to powerfully leverage a key asset it brought to the game. To see what they did, its important to appreciate that in the gaming business, the end user is not the most important customer. Game developers are more critical. If you don’t have game developers building appealing games for your console, you won’t attract end-users no matter how effective your marketing plan is. Microsoft, indirectly, had a huge base of PC game developers who were accustomed to building games for computers. If they could convince these developers to follow Microsoft’s shift toward its first console, they could wield a considerable advantage. So, the Microsoft team shifted gears. Instead of building a Playstation killer, they would design the first gaming console built for PC game developers. They ensured that the experience of developing games for the X-Box felt similar to that of developing for PCs. As a result of playing to their strengths, Microsoft was able to launch with an attractive game line-up which set them up for the success they enjoy now in gaming.
Team: you underline how ‘collective leadership, building an effective cross-functional flexible team, with a team learning culture, sharing interdependent goals and aligned focus, progressing on rapid rhythm, high speed of learning and positive velocity’ are foremost. I call it Creative Tension! Would you have some exemplary teams meeting these criteria in mind?
Kaihan: One of my favorite movies is Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks. In that movie, astronauts nearly get stranded in space and team of engineers on the ground have to rapidly work out a way to get them home. If you watch that movie, you will see they exhibit all of those characteristics. The team I write about in my book that created a new publishing platform inside the publisher Macmillan also exhibited these behaviors. Look at any team that rapidly built or solved something of significance and whose members, after the journey, wanted to stay together and I am willing to bet you will see the Creative Tension you talk about in place.
3) You share a research by Mc Kinsey which demonstrates that investors place far more value on new revenue generated through internal innovation than on revenue you capture through acquisition, in other words innovation-based growth exceeds acquisitions-based growth.
Thus, you stress that ‘forward-looking organizations are adopting a new, more agile organizing principle. They are evolving into platforms in which employees have the freedom to spot opportunities, act on them, and rally the resources to pursue them. The internal innovator is put at the central role for innovation’. Furthermore ‘outperforming companies quickly integrate innovations into their business which allows them to pool profits in ways smaller companies cannot. They turn innovation into value.’ Considering these 2 elements, ‘agile participative innovation’ and ‘rapid integration of innovations’, would you suggest a new index for assessing innovation capability for corporations?
Kaihan: Very interesting question. The current measures of innovation, in my view, all bring some bias as to what type of innovation is most desired. If you measure patents, you value R&D. If you measure revenue from new products (e.g. % of revenue from products released in recent years), you value product innovations, potentially at the cost of operational innovation. If you measure “Entrepreneurial Orientation” or “Entrepreneurial Intensity,” you value entrepreneurial behavior. I’d be very intrigued by creating or finding a more holistic measure of innovation that gives proper due to all of these views of innovation.
4) Intrapreneur or internal innovator are often presented as ‘positive or diplomatic rebels’, ‘hacking the organization in the spirit of the rules’. I understand this qualification but in my eyes it’s not an end in itself: if I had to summarize, I would say an internal innovator is someone who ‘relentlessly magnetizes energy to grow his project, and turn his innovation into value’. What would be your one sentence summary?
Kaihan: I agree 100% with your comment about this not being an end in itself. Tendayi Viki recently wrote a book called “The Pirate in the Navy” which is a nice metaphor. The Pirate is the rebel that wants to break the rules. The navy officer is the person that wants to maintain order. So the question is, how do you do both? How can you be a pirate that operates effectively in the navy?
How do you describe this person? I would add just a few short additions to your definition: an innovator is someone who relentlessly attracts energy to grow his projects, and turn his innovations into value for his organization and the world.
I have found it important to not focus on just one project, per our discussion above so I’d make the project and innovation in your definition plural. Also, its interesting and helpful to think about who the value generated is for. I have found that internal innovators that are most happy and fulfilled get intrinsic value out of doing the innovation. They are not after wealth for themselves, nor even the recognition. They are like the leader that the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu described when he wrote “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”
Some people believe that the most innovative companies create customer demand with breakthrough new offerings. They say things like, “Nobody knew they needed an iPhone until Apple created it. Apple created needs that people didn’t even know they had.” Hence, if you want to be an innovation leader, strive to create customer needs. This may sound good, but it’s a misbelief caused by confusing product solutions with customer needs. Get this right or suffer high failure rates and missed opportunities.
Theodore Levitt illustrated the difference best when he said, “People don’t want to buy a ¼ inch drill; they want a ¼ inch hole!” The drill is a solution while the customer need is the job of “making a ¼ inch hole.” Customer needs are separate and distinct from product/service solutions. The breakthrough jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) innovation approach is based on this insight.
JTBD is a breakthrough because now, for the first time, companies can obtain a comprehensive set of customer needs in virtually any market separate and distinct from solutions. We no longer have to rely upon observational research to discover customers’ “unarticulated” needs. It turns out customers can tell us what they want if we ask them what they want to accomplish, feel and experience rather than asking them for product/service specifications.
Additionally, JTBD enables companies to identify and rank the best opportunities in the market with statistical validity. This is nirvana for any leader who wants to turn innovation and growth into a repeatable business process. It provides great confidence about where to focus and what to do to drive innovation and growth. This is consistent with Steve Jobs who said, “You have to start with the customer experience and work back to the technology.” It’s why skilled JTBD practitioners are delivering success rates 2-5 times higher than industry averages.
The iPhone did not create the need to check email, make phone calls, find information on the internet, and do a myriad of other jobs; it enabled people to do these jobs better than ever before.
The iHealth No-Touch Forehead Thermometer did not create needs either; it addressed the current need for testers to keep their distance from others.
Zoom Video Conferencing did not create demand for online meetings; they created a technology that helps us to conduct online meetings more easily.
New jobs are constantly emerging due to change such as new knowledge, new technologies, new laws and regulations, and health threats like COVID-19. COVID-19 has created dozens if not hundreds of new jobs to be done such as:
Determine if a person is infected, which has created a demand for diagnostic tests
Identify those with whom infected people have interacted, which has created a demand for “tracers”
Prevent people from contracting the disease through interpersonal contact, which has created a demand for personal protective equipment (PPE)
Prevent airborne infections inside, which has created a demand for better air filters and ventilation
Keep surfaces clean, which has created a demand for better disinfectants and “no-touch” processes
Sanitize items and/or surfaces that liquids might damage such as phones, car interiors, wallets and other accessories which has created a demand for UV light sanitizing wands
Retail organizations have had to move their physical value delivery systems to online systems which have created a demand for online technologies such as Zoom, online classes, Telemedicine, e-commerce, etc.
Etc.
Certainly, an enormous amount of operational change has been required to adjust to the current environment. In the midst of all that internal change, the companies that will thrive going forward will be those that keep their eyes on their customers’ and employees’ changing needs to help guide operational changes. Customers and employees are relying on management to provide them with the processes, systems, and tools they need to fulfill the brand promise. That means identifying:
New jobs that have emerged among customers and employees and how they measure success getting those new jobs done
New priorities/values that are changing the way customers and employees want to get their “old” jobs done
How customers and employees measure success when obtaining/delivering service remotely
If you want to identify the opportunities for new value creation in your market(s) or among your employees – be it to shore up a core business, find new opportunities to exploit, or deliver an online experience that delights customers – we can help.
Connecting with a diverse range of my coaching and consulting clients over the past few weeks, has seriously deepened my understanding of the impact of disruption and adversity, on our stress levels and neurology, and the importance of leading and managing these factors, from both the business and the human perspective. It reaffirms the importance of leaders and managers becoming more generous, tolerant, caring, empathic, and resilient not only with themselves, and also with others, by strategically leading and managing both the business and human transitions to a post Covid-19 world.
Taking both a business and a human perspective
Because so many leaders and managers have been emotionally hijacked by the often-dire consequences of their own particular series of downturns and stress levels, they often fail to realize that they have a crucial role in empathizing and supporting their people and teams to transition safely and effectively, from the pre Covid-19 world to what could become an abundant, adaptive, innovative and sustainable post Covid-19 world.
By failing to focus the human aspects of transitioning from the old to the new, they are unable to help people see,acknowledge, own, and deal with the amount of disruption, dis-regulation and potentially damaging increased levels of individual and collective stress.
Not doing so, will result in a range of reactive human responses – “where everything has changed, but nothing is different”.
Mindset matters most
Whether you are a self-employed individual, team, or organisation, the range of current adverse global problems and economic conditions, have created a perfect and stressful storm.
Where according to a recent, well-researched article in the New York Times by Kari Leibowitz and Alia Crum:
“We can actually use that stress to improve our health and well-being. Over a decade of research — ours and that of others — suggests that it’s not the type or amount of stress that determines its impact. Instead, it’s our mindset about stress that matters most”.
This means that we are able to individually and collectively, manage and shift our mindsets, be intentionally positive and caring in supporting and enabling ourselves and others we interact with, to lead and manage the human transition effectively and systemically to co-create what might be a post Covid-19 world.
Planning human transitions
Planning your own and your teams’ transition astutely, starts with taking a very first step in helping them make sense and connect with their worlds right now.
Doing this by letting go of assumptions and withholding judgement, and then helping them understand how disruption and adversity impact peoples’ individual and collective safety, survival, and security needs. Noticing and hearing people’s reactive responses, helps them regulate their stress arousal, and potentially creates the safe “allow space” for enabling people to develop better tolerance to stress.
This creates an opening for actually using that stress to improve our health and well-being and ultimately becoming more adaptive and resilient in the face of it.
We have the power to change our stress mind-sets
Being generous, tolerant, adaptive, and resilient, in the face of disruption and adversity creates cracks, openings, and thresholds for inquisitiveness, curiosity, wonder and amazement about the possibilities’ that could emerge through today’s perfect and stressful storm.
Leading and managing transitions as a transformation point, for collaborating to build successful and sustainable individual and collective futures, potentially affects some of the deep systemic changes organisations and the world needs right now.
The three phases of human transitions
I had first-hand experience and moment of truth of this when, almost ten years ago, we relocated to the Middle East, from Australia to an environment in a constant state of disruption and adversity, anxiety and stress, which I found deeply confronting and enormously challenging.
I learned that for transitions to be successful, they typically have three phases:
First, I quickly realised that I had two choices, I could either avoid facing my new reality, by applying my reality distortion filters and sustain my old lens, mindsets, attitudes, and behaviours that suited my old safe situation in Sydney. That collude with my old Compass Learning normal and my old ways and business as usual habits, as a way of coping with the intrusive new culture. Yet, if I was going to succeed, and even flourish in such a radically different, competitive, survival-based culture, I could choose to let go of the “old” to see and embrace my new world with “fresh” eyes. To bravely focus on creating cracks, openings, and thresholds to stimulate inquisitiveness, curiosity, wonder, and amazement about the possibilities’ that could emerge from that perfect and stressful storm.
Secondly, having operated as a trainer and facilitator, I knew that I had to become compassionate, courageous, and creative if I was going to successfully acknowledge, own and deal with the neurological and psychological “no man’s land” between my old world and the new world that was emerging. Letting go of my old roles and learning to become a coach, and to understand and regulate the impact of my survival brain, and the chasm that exists between it and our thinking brains.
Thirdly, choosing to begin anew, I learned to become adaptive and resilient through embracing a new paradox lens, by working with both the constraints of my new environment and with focussing on what might or could be possible to create, invent and innovate, within it.
Learning, through necessity, to adapt, learn and grow through uncertainty, by embracing a range of resourceful growth and innovative mindsets, attitudes, and behaviours that supported my new situation, and ultimately enabled me to ride the wave of disruptive change.
Leading and managing human transitions
Leading and managing transitions, in the face of disruption and adversity, requires more than the obligatory change management strategy and team.
There is so much happening right now that we can’t control, yet there are also unprecedented possibilities and opportunities amid the fear. According to the New York Times article “In Stressful Times, Make Stress Work for You”:
“Some psychologists argue that true transformative change can occur only during stress or crises. The trick is to channel your coronavirus stress as energy to make the most of this time”.
Being a transitional leader and manager
To be effective as a transitional leader or manager, make sure to take, enact and embody, both a well-considered, generous, kind and caring, and an orchestrated strategic and systemic effort.
Being deep empathic, ensuring effective communication, offering training, supporting people through individual and team coaching, and offering counselling if required, and monitoring and validating people’s progress, individually and collectively.
Leaders and managers need to bravely role model being adaptive, generous, creative, courageous, compassionate and collaborative, in ways that generously and kindly embrace transition-wise care.
Supported by well-considered, inclusive decisions, supported by a good sense of timing, so that people feel safe enough to take the small steps towards increasing their stress-tolerance and resilience to ongoing disruption and adversity.
“The virus and our response to it are incredibly complex. But later, we will be able to ask ourselves how we each responded to this crisis. Did we live in accordance with our values? Did we make the most of this opportunity to learn and grow personally, to connect with loved ones, and to prepare for the next time we face a crisis”?
This is the first monthly blog in a series of three blogs, themed of Leading and Managing Human Transitions through Disruption and Adversity. Check out our upcoming Making Innovation a Habit Webinar on this subject.
Find out about The Coach for Innovators Certified Program, a collaborative, intimate, and deep personalized innovation coaching and learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 8-weeks, starting August 25, 2020. It is a blended learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles, and applications of a human-centered approach to innovation, within your unique context. Find out more.
Contact us now at mailto:janet@imaginenation.com.au to find out how we can partner with you to learn, adapt, and grow your business in the digital age.