Sometime around the last holiday season, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced a plan to home-deliver merchandise within 30 minutes of the order being placed . . . by a little helicopter drone.\u00a0 That\u2019s right.\u00a0 He claims, when the system is ready some years in the future,\u00a0 you\u2019ll call Amazon, place your order, and 30 minutes later your stuff will be plopped right on your front doorstep.<\/p>\n
At first, I thought\u00a0 it was a gag . . . maybe some sort of publicity stunt.\u00a0 I mean, c\u2019mon, little helicopter drones flying all over the place dropping packages at peoples\u2019 homes?\u00a0 I bet the FAA just loves that idea.\u00a0 But then I thought, maybe there\u2019s actually some method to the madness here.\u00a0 After all, Bezos is, if nothing else, a world-class innovator.\u00a0 So maybe there\u2019s a clue here about how innovation can take place.<\/p>\n
For more on this, please read below.<\/p>\n
\u201cMake no little plans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Famed architect and urban planner Daniel Burnham said that, and apparently Jeff Bezos took Burnham\u2019s admonition to heart.\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t you love to have been a fly on the wall when Bezos announced his 30-minute delivery plan to his staff?\u00a0 I imagine it might have gone something like this.<\/p>\n
BEZOS:\u00a0 OK everybody, listen up.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got to improve our delivery times.\u00a0 When people order stuff from us, they don\u2019t want to wait a day or two to get it.<\/p>\n
STAFF:\u00a0 We dunno, Boss.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty tough as it is to get people their stuff in one or two days.\u00a0 What do you have in mind?<\/p>\n
BEZOS:\u00a0 Thirty minutes.<\/p>\n
STAFF:\u00a0 You want us to improve delivery times by 30 minutes?<\/p>\n
BEZOS:\u00a0 No, 30 minutes total from the time the order is placed until it is delivered.<\/p>\n
STAFF:\u00a0 Seriously?<\/p>\n
BEZOS:\u00a0 Yeah, although I was hoping we could use the Star Trek transporter and beam stuff to people within just a few seconds, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to work out.\u00a0 Still, I think 30 minutes will be OK.\u00a0 People want their stuff fast, but I think they\u2019ll wait 30 minutes.<\/p>\n
STAFF:\u00a0 Holy crap, boss, how\u2019re we supposed to do that?<\/p>\n
BEZOS:\u00a0 I have no idea, but you guys will think of something.\u00a0 Give me your plan by the end of the week.\u00a0 Oh, and by the way, have a nice day!<\/p>\n
So what\u2019s this got to do with innovation?<\/p>\n
It seems to me that when you set a relatively modest goal . . . let\u2019s say to increase year-over-year sales revenue by five per cent . . . what\u2019s the message?\u00a0 The message is, just tune things up a bit, nothing drastic, just a tweek here, a tweek there.\u00a0 And what\u2019s the message when you set an impossibly high goal, like delivery in 30 minutes?\u00a0 The message is, no amount of tweeking is going to get us to this goal.\u00a0 We have to go back to the drawing board, completely rethink our delivery system, and come up with something totally new.\u00a0 In short, we\u2019re going to have to innovate.<\/p>\n
To paraphrase the old axiom, necessity really is the mother of innovation.\u00a0 As long as our old ways are working just fine and getting us where we want to go, there\u2019s no incentive to rock the boat.\u00a0 It\u2019s only when there\u2019s a compelling need for change that innovation happens.<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s the problem.\u00a0 By definition, innovating is trying something new, something that hasn\u2019t been done before.\u00a0 Therefore, it\u2019s not just possible that you will fail, it\u2019s probable.\u00a0 You may not fail entirely, but you will probably fail to fully achieve the impossibly lofty goal you set for yourself . . . at least not on the first try.\u00a0 So how do you keep the spirit of innovation alive in your organization when the slam dunk, flat out victories are few and far between.\u00a0 Winston Churchill once said, \u201cSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.\u201d\u00a0 Great, but how do you do that?<\/p>\n
If you want an organization that embraces innovation, your culture needs to move beyond a fear of failure.\u00a0 Tom Watson, legendary leader of IBM, told his people, \u201cThe way to succeed is to double your failure rate.\u201d\u00a0 As he struggled to invent the first light bulb, Thomas Edison put a positive spin on it saying, \u201cI haven\u2019t failed.\u00a0 I\u2019ve found 10,000 ways that don\u2019t work.\u201d\u00a0 The point is, we learn more from our failures than from our successes, and it\u2019s just as important to understand what doesn\u2019t work as it is to understand what does.<\/p>\n
If your culture accepts failure as the price for being a learning, growing organization, then innovation will stay alive and well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometime around the last holiday season, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced a plan to home-deliver merchandise within 30 minutes of the order being placed . . . by a little helicopter drone.\u00a0 That\u2019s right.\u00a0 He claims, when the system is ready some years in the future,\u00a0 you\u2019ll call Amazon, place your order, and 30 minutes<\/p>\n