Driving Eureka!. Doug Hall

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      As you embark on this journey, you will quickly see the world in a new way. Problems will be seen as opportunities to 19. A mindset of “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it” will be replaced with a never-ending passion for discovering ideas, methods, and tools for working smarter.

      As your mindset changes, you are likely to find that your new thinking conflicts with others. You will become frustrated that they don’t embrace and celebrate your new courage and confidence to use innovation to work in smarter ways.

      A fundamental belief within the Innovation Engineering community is that people are fundamentally good. We believe that the naysayers you interact with are not against change or Innovation Engineering. They just don’t understand it. They can’t imagine that innovation could be a reliable science instead of a random gamble. It was the same with Dr. Deming’s efforts in the 1980s. When asked if executives were doing enough to apply his teaching, his response would be loud and on the verge of belligerent:

      Managers don’t know about it. How could they know? How could they know there was anything to learn? How could they? How could they? How could they know there was any other way to manage?

      Quite simply, most adults think that ideas are magical and only randomly reveal themselves to so-called special people. How could they know that everyone can add value and make a difference if they are simply taught how to think quicker, faster, and more creatively.

      How could they, or you, know? Until recently there were no courses available in system-driven innovation. The good news is that now you can learn how to use system thinking to enable yourself and your organization to innovate faster and with less risk. Not only can you learn it—you can master it.

      However, before we get started, I want you to pause and reflect.

      What Did You Learn?

      If you attended an Innovation Engineering class on campus or off, or were working with some Innovation Engineering Pioneers on a project, you would hear this question often.

      The question is designed to cause you to stop, think, confront, and explore what you’ve experienced from a “bigger picture” system perspective.

      The best way to explore what you have learned, what confirms as well as what contradicts your preexisting thinking, is through conversation with your coworkers, family, or friends. Speaking what you learned out loud makes a difference. Research finds that when we speak our thoughts in a full voice so that our ears hear the idea, a different part of the brain becomes engaged, resulting in new levels of understanding.

      The second best way is to have a conversation with yourself in writing. Write what you’ve learned in a journal, a notebook, or on your computer. The written word also has a way of bringing out truths that we aren’t at first fully conscious of.

      Each chapter ends with a section called What Did You Learn? You are free to utilize this prompt or to ignore it. Research finds that those who do—who consciously reflect—will realize a much greater return on their investment in reading this book.

      Rock & Roll!

      Doug Hall

      Springbrook, Prince Edward Island, Canada

      Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

      You Have Two Choices to Make

      1. If you fully “buy in” to the need for Innovation Engineering, skip ahead to Chapter 3 and get started. If you have some reservations, the next two chapters are for you.

      Chapter 1 outlines the innovation problem and why innovation is no longer optional.

      Chapter 2 outlines the Innovation Engineering solution, history, and pedigree.

      I’ve included these two chapters because it’s only with a total commitment to the new mindset of system-driven innovation that you will realize the potential of Innovation Engineering.

      2. If you are someone who values the PEDIGREE behind what you are being taught, flip to the back of the book and read the Backstory chapter on Dr. Deming. It lays out the foundation that system-driven innovation is based on. If this is not important to you—simply go ahead to Chapter 1 or 3 as detailed above.

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      PROBLEM:

      Innovation Is No Longer Optional

      The way we live—and the way we do business—is changing like never before. Our growing interconnectedness is transforming the way the world works. As power shifts from the hands of central authors to the hands of the people, movements are becoming more powerful and moving more rapidly than ever before.

      —Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin

      It’s a Dickens of a Time

      Those organizations that are leading change in their industries are winning. Those that are “reacting” to the forces of change are losing.

      During a recent speech at the UK Marketing Society’s annual conference in London, I thought it would be funny to loosely recite Charles Dickens:

      It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. It is the age of wisdom, it is the age of foolishness. It is the season of light, it is the season of darkness. We have everything before us, we have nothing before us. We are all going direct to heaven, we are all going direct the other way.

      A few laughed, but most didn’t. I would learn later that most saw it as confirmation that these days are indeed the worst of times.

      The life cycle from monopoly to commodity used to take decades. Today, because of the internet, it’s often measured in less than a year. The consequence is acceleration of Joseph Schumpeter’s Creative Destruction—organizations that don’t innovate are destroyed by those that have embraced a mindset of never-ending, continuous innovation.

      The new reality was made clear following the recession of 2008, when the marketplace didn’t bounce back like it had in the past. The good news, from my perspective, is that the world as we knew it is NEVER coming back. The world has changed, rewarding those who innovate and destroying the profitability of those who don’t.

      In 2011 we conducted a survey of CEOs for the US Department of Commerce, the results of which quantified the gap between those who innovate and those who don’t. The survey found that those who had an innovation mindset following the recession realized significantly better business results three years after the recession of 2008.

      SALES GROWTH: +84% for innovators versus +4% СКАЧАТЬ