“A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.”
Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 1937
Albert von Szent-Gyorgi knew a lot about discoveries. Among his many accomplishments, he’s credited with discovering vitamin C. I’d say his insight into discoveries applies to innovation too. And considering how easy it is to meet with accidents, we could all be innovators. All we need is the prepared mind.
At Intuit, I’ve always directed efforts toward preparing minds for innovation – creating a culture where innovation is not a one-off activity, but an attitude, a way of work.
Here are six simple steps that helped me.
Ask the Right Questions
Innovation is about questions. And the right ones don’t come easy. You can easily tell if an answer is right or wrong, but identifying a wrong question takes a lot of thought. So at Intuit, I encourage questions. Right, wrong, seemingly stupid, possibly unrelated, no matter what, if you have a question, you shouldn’t hesitate to shoot. Because it’s the right question that will eventually set the ball rolling to find an innovative answer.
Set Goals, Step Aside
This one’s difficult, but critical. As a leader, it’s your job to set the big goal, envision the big dream, but as a good leader, it’s also your job to step aside, let people run with the idea and build it. Stay out of the nitty-gritty, and give people the freedom to do their own thing. A lot of times, that’s all you need to do. My one question is always, “What is your billion dollar product idea for India?” And it is remarkable how inspired everyone is to answer that question and bring that dream alive.
Identify Barriers, Remove Them
As a leader, you can’t set the big goal and then just sit and watch. You need to observe, see where teams are failing, see what barriers constrain them, and help eliminate those obstacles. For example, one challenge that teams frequently face is finding the right customer. For an innovator, the toughest challenge is to identify that first customer, who can then give feedback and help tailor the product. There will always be more barriers down the road and it’s your job as a leader and coach to help your teams eliminate them.
Celebrate Failure
Most organizations also say they accept failure, but create a culture that tolerates only success. Failure is learning too. Someone who attempts to validate a hypothesis, but later learns that it isn’t true, is still innovating. If a product test reveals that only 10 percent of customers are happy with it, the product hasn’t failed. Analysing why the remaining 90 percent didn’t like the product teaches you things you hadn’t known before. So when I say celebrate failure, I’m not suggesting people should seek to fail. What’s critical is the learning that comes from failures. At Intuit, if we do a series of experiments and eight out of 10 failed, we still talk about and discuss those, and not at all in a negative way.
Measure and Be Objective
Go step by step and measure each step, objectively. When a team asks me if something is a good idea, I ask them for their unit of one – the one customer their product will delight. And once that works, I tell them to bring me 100. When 100 delighted customers actively use a product, I know there’s something to it. Always base your decisions on data and metrics, never on the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion.
Encourage Diversity
Workplace diversity plays a very important role in powering innovation. An idea from someone with a very different perspective than yours is out-of-the-box for you by default. And if each person runs forward with an idea like that, everyone is thinking different. Innovation, then, becomes just a matter of time. At Intuit, we have employee networks, formed and driven by passionate people to create different communities of common interests that are open to all employees which, in turn fosters a culture of innovation.
Which of these do you try in your organization? Do you think any one of these is more important than the other? Leave your comments below. I look forward to hearing what you have to say!
Photo: Albert von Szent-Györgyi
