Malcolm Gladwell on innovation and innovation leadership
My notes and thoughts on Malcolms talks in Nordic Business Forum 2013
As I promised on my earlier post I'm going to go over all the talks of NBF and share the great insights (at least the ones that I was able to find) of the event. If you feel that these posts are not long enough or do not go deeply enough to the matter I'd love for you to let me know. I'll be coming back to these topics on a later notice.
Why is it good to be the third one to innovate?
In the first talk Malcolm dove head first in to innovation via an example from the year 1982. Example was taken from a battle in the 82 Lebanon war. In the battle Israelian air forces took apart the opposing air and anti-air forces through innovation.
1. Innovation order
In Malcolms example there were three distinctive innovations put to an effective use against the opposing forces by the Israelians. These innovations were in no particular order: AEW&C Aircrafts, Homing missiles and a modern aerial combat doctrine. Also you have to take in to consideration the fact that any of these innovations were not made by the Israelians and both forces had the same kind of possibilities to be the "Innovative" one.
Another example was the mouse and graphic user interface by Xerox, Douglas Engelbart and Steve Jobs.
Malcolm gave us three different levels of innovation based on the amount of resources the innovator has:
Early innovator or Inventer. This is most of the time the one who comes up with the idea or invention in the first place. It helps also if you have "unlimited" resources as did the soviets aerial doctrine inventors or Douglas Engelbart.
Fixer or Tweaker. These are the ones who see the first inventions and use them most of the time for their own uses. With the tweakers we see many high-tech guys and companies still with vast amounts of resources but mostly used very decentralized or without a common goal. Here we have Xerox who made a 300 $ mouse to be used with their already expensive products or Americans tweaking their missiles uncoordinated with the AEW&C planes in battle.
Implementer & Perfecter. Are the Isrealians and Jobs of the world. They do not have resources to waste. They have an goal oriented mind and attitude that needs to solve the challenges. What made the battle and Apple's case so uneven was the way they implemented and most importantly coordinated their innovations.
2. Strategic Innovation = Coordinated Innovation
So the thing that matters here is the question why weren't both of the forces familiar with these technologies. And as it is mostly with innovation why did the other one take such a beating. A single innovation rarely wins a war. I'm sure that Syrian forces had made quite a few innovations on their own. What then is the innovation that matters.
In my opinion the term coordinated gives you the answer. A singular innovation, man, woman or say a player in a sports team rarely wins you the challenge. With innovation you need the same amount of coordination and leadership as with any other facet in business. You have to be able to see the different innovations complimentary. When you think innovations more as a single building blocks to a bigger combination than breakthroughs that make all the difference by themselves you'll be able to coordinate and lead your innovations yo your and your company's advantage.
3. Innovators social challenge
In his other talk Malcolm gave a really detailed trip to the discovery of chemotherapy for childhood leukemia.
Here we had a young US doctor who made it possible to cure earlier a 100% mortal disease by the combination of different poisons and so fathered chemotherapy. The challenge that lies with these kinds of innovations is the moral side of the story. When you are truly doing something others have no idea of you always run in to other peoples opinions and morals. So there is most of the time not only economical "risks" that you take when innovating.
To take a lighter example for this we have Henry Fords words
To be an innovator is to try to truly change the world. Not only how the world works but also how the world thinks.
Things that came to me after the speech:
What was the last innovation that I've taken into everyday use and does its value rise when coordinate with an another innovation?
Where do I look for more innovations to take myself or my company to an another level?
Where do I look for more innovations to take myself or my company to an another level?
When was the last time I thought about innovations that my competitors use and how to counter them?
Pictures:
Pictures:
