Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric That Matters - Hardcover

Utley, Jeremy; Klebahn, Perry

 
9780593420584: Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric That Matters
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0593420586 ISBN 13: 9780593420584
Verlag: Portfolio, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

“Teams succeed to the degree that there is a free flow of ideas. Read this book to learn how to bring out the best in others—and in yourself.” — Scott Galloway, bestselling author of The Four and Post Corona

Ideaflow: the number of ideas you or your team can generate in a set amount of time

We all want great ideas, but few actually understand how they’re born. Innovation doesn’t come from a sprint or a hackathon--it’s a result of maximizing ideaflow.
 
Jeremy Utley and Perry Klebahn of Stanford’s renowned Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (aka the “d.school”) offer a proven strategy for coming up with great ideas by yourself or with your team, and quickly determining which are worthy. Drawing upon their combined decades of experience leading Stanford’s premier Launchpad accelerator and advising some of the world’s most innovative organizations, like Microsoft, Michelin, Keller Williams Realty, and Hyatt, they’ll teach you how to:
 
• Overcome dangerous thinking traps
• Find inspiration in unexpected places
• Trick your own brain to be more creative
• Design and deploy affordable experiments
• Fill your innovation pipeline
• Unleash your own creative potential, as well as the potential of others
 
Perhaps you have experienced low ideaflow. Have you been in that quiet conference room, with a half-filled whiteboard, and an unmet business target?. With the proven system in this book, entrepreneurs, managers, and leaders will learn how to tap into surprising and valuable ideas on demand and fill the creative pipeline with breakthrough ideas.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jeremy Utley is the director of executive education at Stanford’s d.school and an adjunct professor at Stanford’s School of Engineering. He is the host of the d.school’s widely popular program "Stanford’s Masters of Creativity.” Perry Klebahn is a cofounding member of Stanford’s d.school faculty. He is an adjunct professor and director of executive education at Stanford’s d.school. He has served as COO for Patagonia and as CEO of Timbuk2.

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Chapter 1: Measure Tomorrow's Success in Today's Ideas


One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas.
-Victor Hugo

It was a chilly April morning in Ventura, California, when Perry realized he'd run out of ideas.

Getting out of his car at Patagonia headquarters, fleece pullover zipped to the chin and piping hot coffee in hand, Perry felt large and in charge. The year was 2002, and he was responsible for a good chunk of sales and operations at the beloved outdoor clothing company founded by iconoclast climber and blacksmith Yvon Chouinard. It had been an incredibly stressful few months for the entire world since the tragic events of September 11, but at least here and now, things were starting to feel normal again. Perry was lucky enough to work at a great company with outstanding values, and his colleagues were terrific. That morning, it felt OK to breathe deeply of the salty ocean air and welcome spring.

Perry's feeling of optimism cooled faster than his coffee, however, as he thumbed his way through the newly arrived racks of clothing for the following year's spring season. This funereal assortment would be sent to Patagonia's stores and countless other retailers around the country? These drab, colorless garments were Patagonia's idea of vernal exploration and renewal? Perry forced down a sip of now-lukewarm java.

Trying (and failing) to seem casual, Perry turned to the senior merchandiser busily organizing everything for the product team's review.

"Good morning, Adrienne," he said, forcing himself to breathe. "The product line looks a little . . . dark for a spring line, don't you think? Where are the new colorways?" There was an uncomfortable silence before she responded.

"New colorways?"

Perry smiled harder and inclined his head at the dispiriting racks of black and gray clothing as if to say, The colorways that aren't here yet, but must certainly be on the way. At that moment, Adrienne's face showed some of that missing color.

"Perry," she said, "you told us we have to focus on the winners."

Perry bit off a retort. It was true. He had said that. Somehow, playing it safe had made a lot of sense at the time. Now that Patagonia's spring lineup resembled a mortician's closet, however, not so much. Looking at rack after rack of black and gray clothing, he could just imagine the jarring effect these garments would have on Patagonia's bright and welcoming stores. Talk about a downer. This was the consequence of a decision that had been made, above all, to avoid risks. By narrowing his options in pursuit of "security," however, Perry had taken a terrible risk instead.

"How quickly do you think we can get some variety in here?" Perry asked, keeping that fake smile plastered to his face. "Things are getting back to normal. Customers are coming back to the stores. I think they'll be ready for a little color by next spring."

"You're kidding, right?" Adrienne replied, making no effort to match Perry's smile. "You know our standard lead time is eighteen months."

Eighteen months! Perry thought. How do I get today's ideas into yesterday's company so we still have a tomorrow? He dumped his cold, half-finished cup in a wastebasket. Time to get to work.

The dangerous business of new ideas

As we've said, an idea is simply a new connection between two things that were already floating around in your head. When you give your brain a problem to solve, it goes to work, way in the background, by jamming disparate pieces of knowledge and experience together in different ways until a light bulb goes off. "Does this work?" Maybe, maybe not, but you don't want to cut off the flow of ideas yet, so you say: "Good job, brain! What else have you got?"

A problem, as we've said, is anything you don't already know how to do. It can be anything from "How do we meet next quarter's revenue target?" to "What colors should we offer for this season's snow pants?" The real-world effectiveness of any potential solution is unknown until it's tested, so every single idea represents a risk. Forget the possibility of catastrophic failure-in many cases, it simply won't work.

Thus, tackling an unfamiliar problem-or seeking out a better solution for a familiar one-requires not just ingenuity but courage and vulnerability. A willingness to put things out there and make the occasional mistake. The irony of the creative process is that we limit our creativity just when we need it the most, as illustrated by Perry's experience at Patagonia. When we're under pressure, we default to the known and familiar approach even when it clearly won't suffice. It feels safer to fail by doing the expected thing than risk looking foolish by trying something new.

Through the system in this book, you will unlearn this defensive instinct so that you can maintain a steady flow of new ideas through adverse circumstances. You must learn to trust in your ingenuity. If you can keep the pipeline of potential solutions flowing in both good times and bad, you can overcome any challenge. Abundant creativity and the capacity to execute on it represent an extraordinary competitive advantage. To understand why, let's go back to Patagonia.

There are tough times, and then there are catastrophes. After the tragic events of September 11, 2001, no one knew how to react. Beyond the sense of existential threat to the United States felt by many at the time, beyond the psychic shock of the unprovoked murder of thousands of civilians, the attacks disrupted everyday life for all Americans. Everything came to a halt. A sky without aircraft was just the most visible aspect of this collective paralysis. In the days and weeks after the fall of the Twin Towers, "normal" started to feel like a distant memory. People operated in a state of ceaseless vigilance. Who was responsible for the attacks? Would there be more? What would happen next?

Naturally, discretionary spending after the attacks sputtered. Businesses worldwide faced one hard choice after another. The slowdown might last years, especially if there were more attacks. How would they survive the next quarter, let alone meet their existing goals and targets? At Patagonia, Perry and the rest of the leadership team faced pressure to take decisive action. The company was on track to buy millions in raw materials for the upcoming season. Betting on the future seemed, well, risky, so, like nearly all their competitors that fall, Perry had cut the order for raw materials by a large percentage to match the drop in demand. As for where to make those cuts, he offered clear guidance to the merchandisers: "Keep the winners we know we can sell."

It doesn't require a wave of terrorist attacks to inspire short-term, self-defeating decision-making. Most of us try something new only when we're desperate. We weigh potential losses far more heavily than potential rewards. This so-called loss aversion exists for a good reason. If a prehistoric human mistook a bush for a lion, it was good for a laugh. Mistaking a lion for a bush, however, wasn't good for anyone but the lion. Deep-seated instinct tells us it's safer to stay the heck away from the bushes in general, even if some might hide tasty fruit. To attempt something new, you're fighting against the brain's bias. The problem when it comes to our ideas, however, is that we're terrible at distinguishing the winners from the losers until we've tried them. We will see many, many examples of this throughout the book. In our experience, the more experienced and successful the innovator, the less they trust their own capacity to pick the winners on sight. Never pick when you can test.

For an outdoor clothing company like Patagonia, black and gray basics are the "safe" options. When the creative team was told to pick...

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Verlag
Portfolio
Erscheinungsdatum
2022
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593420586
ISBN 13 
9780593420584
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
304
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Portfolio
https://www.wetones.co.uk/

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