Fast Company magazine recently hosted the “Fast Company Innovation Festival” and invited fifty executives, not only from large well-known companies like GE and Nike, but also from relatively obscure companies like Grey North America and Birchbox, to attend. The only common denominator shared by the participants was they all came from companies known for being innovative. In the current issue of Fast Company, the magazine publishes what some of these innovators said about innovation and its place in today’s business environment. To read a little about what they had to say, please continue below.
“Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” – William Pollard
When we think of innovation, we immediately think of the newest smart phone or the coolest new app or some other clever gadget. We think of technology companies like Apple, Google, or Microsoft, don’t we? But what about the rest of us? Don’t we have to be innovative too? As a matter of fact, we do. Whether your company is a startup or old and established, whether it’s high tech or low tech, whether it’s a service business or a manufacturing business, you must be innovative or you won’t be in business for very long. While some innovation is aimed at totally new and unique products or services, the great bulk of innovation is aimed at simply improving existing products or services, or figuring out how to deliver them more efficiently.
Here’s what some of the Fast Company Innovation Festival participants had to say about innovation and creativity:
“It’s all about choosing your [creative] partners wisely – choosing partners who are additive.” – Darren Star, producer
“Surround yourself with good people who like things you don’t like.” – Garance Dore, fashion blogger
“If you want innovation, you want diversity. We often hire people like us, and the actual answer is to hire the person who is least like me – who is going to complement me. There’s a real art to that.” – Beth Comstock, GE
“When I hear people say, ‘Well, that’s just not the way we do things,’ my hair stands up. You have to be careful not to let success breed a one-dimensional way of thinking. – Mark Parker, Nike
“In the work environment, innovation comes from great trust, from people having a voice. Fear inhibits innovation.” – Susan Reilly Salgado, Union Square Hospitality
So in the minds of these Festival participants, the key to innovation is to create an environment where diversity of thought is not just tolerated, but encouraged. As General George Patton once said, “If everyone is thinking alike, someone’s not thinking.”
And one more.
“Starting with the premise that [customers] are smart and their needs will continue to change is the only way that we will not become a victim of our own success.” – Katia Beauchamp, Birchbox
So like the William Pollard quote above, Beauchamp tells us to beware of entrenched success. A defensive, don’t-rock-the-boat mentality can creep in that will kill innovation.
Some innovative companies put a fancier handle on innovation and call it Continuous Process Improvement (CPI), but it’s all the same stuff. It’s the idea that we have to constantly look for creative ways to do what we do better/faster/cheaper or to change what we do to satisfy changing and evolving customer needs.
After all, that’s what our competitors are doing.
