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Innovation Blog

If You’re A Caterpillar, You May Become a Butterly — But CAN You?

By Shlomo Maital

(based on a Brazilian folktale, recounted by Rabbi Dov Hayun, at a Sabbath lesson)

      Once, there was a caterpillar — ugly as sin.  He was a good caterpillar, a leader of his tribe, highly respected and well-loved,  good at finding juicy leaves for his tribe, in the thick dark jungle.   

     One day a beautiful butterfly landed next to the caterpillar leader.

     “Hey!” said the butterfly.  “You can become like me!”

    “How?!” asked the caterpillar, with deep skepticism.

    “Wrap yourself in silk, build a chrysalis, become a pupa!” urged the butterly.  “You can fly!”  The butterfly described the sky, high above the jungle, and the sunshine, and the clouds.

    “Get lost!” the caterpillar said.  “You’re distracting me from my job, leading my tribe, finding food!  Did you think I would fall for your tall tales?!”

     The butterly flew away.

      Soon after, a bird caught the caterpillar in its beak and flew high over the roof of the jungle.  The caterpillar saw that the butterfly was right.  There was a blue sky!  There were clouds!  There was bright sunshine. 

       But an instant later, the caterpillar was stuffed into the beaks of the bird’s goslings….   and his life ended.

………………..

  Every one of us caterpillars may become a butterfly.  It is our own choice.

  But CAN we?

  Before it is too late?

Innovation Blog

Machiavelli’s The Prince: In Innovative Change, Nothing Has Changed in 500 Years!

By Shlomo Maital

  Niccolò Machiavelli

   In 2013 the world will celebrate the 500^th anniversary of the completion of The Prince, a political tract written by the Italian public servant and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. His book was written in 1513, but published only five years after his death, in 1532.  Because of it, the term Machiavellian (mean, slyly manipulative) is in wide use.  This is unfair to Machiavelli.  His practical insights into the politics of change stand the test of time — especially regarding why innovation is so immensely difficult to implement.

      Here is what he says about innovative change, in Chapter Six, with a few comments. I recommend that all innovators reread The Prince before embarking on a change management project:

  “And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.  Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.”

   Did Barak obama, the author of “Yes, We Can!”, ever  read, understand and integrate those words?  Based on his recent interview in TIME magazine, he did not.

  “This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly, in such wise that the prince is endangered along with them.”

   This asymmetry of passion is deadly — opponents of change are fierce and passionate, supporters are lukewarm and passive.  Change agents find ways to create a better pro-change balance.

   It is necessary, therefore, to inquire whether these innovators can rely on themselves or have to depend on others?  ….the nature of the people is variable, and whilst it is easy to persuade them, it is difficult to fix them in that persuasion.

Innovators cannot do it on their own; they need a team.  Keeping the team motivated is a key part of successful innovative change.  

     And finally, Machiavelli brings a case study:

    Hiero the Syracusan  …rose from a private station to be Prince of Syracuse….  This man abolished the old soldiery, organized the new, gave up old alliances, made new ones; and as he had his own soldiers and allies, on such foundations he was able to build any edifice: thus, whilst he had endured much trouble in acquiring, he had but little in keeping.

   Hiero rose from ordinary soldier to Prince with difficulty; he remained Prince, because he had a loyal cadre of supporters and soldiers.   Innovators build a sometimes subversive group around them who “get it”, and who protect, support and energize their leader.  This team is crucial.

    Innovative change is without exception political.    All the more reason to read or re-read the oldest, and still the best, tract on organizational politics ever written.

Innovation Blog

Ounces for Pounds: When Tupperware Meets King Midas

By Shlomo Maital

    Strategy guru Gary Hamel insists that the most powerful locus of innovation is not in products or services, but in business designs and models.   

    Here is an example, taken from BBC’s Business Daily program.

     Ingredients:  Take the current high price of gold (as I write this, the price of gold is $1,092 per ounce).  Add:  the global recession, that has slashed jobs, incomes and wealth.  Merge with:  Tupperware’s famous business model, in which Tupperware plastic kitchenware is sold at neighborhood parties only. 

    Result:  Krista Waddell’s wonderfully-named business, Ounces to Pounds (pounds, meaning, British pounds, £).

    Krista organizes neighborhood parties.  Women bring their gold jewellery to it.  An expert evaluates its weight and quality and offers each woman a price. The price is between 60% and 90% of the market value of the gold content. (Recall that Krista’s company will need to smelt the gold, purify it, and put it into certified gold bullion ingots).   This is higher than woman get in a pawn shop (between 30 – 50 per cent of the market value of its gold content). Moreover, many women are very uncomfortable going into a pawn shop. 

    The average sale at these parties is $150, or  about £90. 

    In the famous legend, King Midas turned everything he touched into gold.  The results were not happy.  Krista Waddell turns gold she touches into profit.  And the results are win-win for all concerned. 

Innovation Blog

Give Half Away…and You’re Left with Twice as Much

    (This blog is dedicated to the memory of Abraham Karu z’l, entrepreneur and inventor,  who passed away last week, and to his generation, who gave of themselves for the benefit of others, as a way of life, during their entire lives).

     Give half away.

     That is what Kevin Salwen did.  Why? Because his 14-year-old daughter Hannah asked him to.   If ever there was a radical innovation in family life…  this is it.

 The Salwen Family   

  The story is recounted in Nicholas D. Kristof’s  New York Times column.[1] 

     Briefly:  While driving their daughter home from a sleepover in 2006, the Salwen family’s car stopped at a stoplight. On the left: an expensive black Mercedes.  On the right: a homeless man, begging.

     Hannah protested. “Dad,” she said, “if that man had a less nice car, that man there could have a meal!”

     “What do you want me to do?”, asked her mother.  “Sell our house!?”

     That’s precisely what Hannah wanted.  Sell the luxurious house, buy a more modest one with half the money, and give the other half to charity.  

     The family did just that.  They gave $800,000 to Project Hunger, sponsoring health, microfinancing, food and other programs for 40 villages in Ghana.  They travelled to Ghana with a Project Hunger executive.

     Hannah, now a high school junior who hopes to become a nurse, says, “Everyone has too much of something, whether it’s time, talent or treasure. Everyone does have their own half, you just have to find it.”

     The Salwen family enjoy their new smaller home.  There is less space to retreat to.  A smaller house, Kristof writes, “turned out to be a more family-friendly house.”   “Half as much” turned into “twice as much”.

     Read about the Salwen’s “give away half” idea in Kevin and Hannah Salwen’s book  The Power of Half.  Then — find your half.  

---

[1] Nicholas Kristof, “What can you live without?”, NYT, IHT Jan. 24/2010.

Innovation Blog

 Innovation Leadership:   Are YOU Riccardo Muti? Or Herbert von Karajan?

By Shlomo Maital

    von Karajan

     Muti

Itay Talgam is a noted Israeli conductor.  Once we had him lead a session with TIM managers.  He showed them how and why management leadership is similar to conducting an orchestra, and actually had a few of them conduct the TIM “choir”. 

   Talgam recently (July 2009) taped a 23-minute talk on TED [www.ted.com]   (Technology /Entertainment /Design), a marvelous website that features short talks by highly creative individuals.  Talgam, according to TED, has “reinvented himself” by teaching the principles of leadership, based on conducting, to managers.

   Talgam, in his talk, compares two outstanding conductors:  Riccardo Muti and Herbert von Karajan.   Talgam notes:

    “….even though he is one of the greatest conductors, three years ago Muti received a letter from all 700 musicians in his orchestra saying: You’re a great conductor, please resign. [The musicians were members of the famous Italian opera house La Scala].   This, Talgam says, is because he didn’t let them develop.”

   Muti’s leadership style?  “It’s all about me!”   He conducts with sweeping dramatic movements that rivet the audience’s attention.  And his message to the orchestra:  We play Mozart.  It is Mozart as I, Muti,  say it is.  Do what I say.  Your opinion is of no consequence. 

    Talgam demonstrates Muti’s leadership style by asking the audience to sing a note, then stops them with a huge sweeping movement!  And threatens to choke someone who failed to stop singing…  

     Many senior managers are Riccardo Muti clones.  They are, because they believe (and in many cases have been taught) that THIS is true leadership.  Do what I say. 

     But consider another conductor, Herbert von Karajan.   Talgam conducts the TED audience like von Karajan.   His hands move in flowing gestures.  His eyes are closed.  He recounts:

     “Let me tell you, Talgam says, “even the [Berlin] Philharmonic looked at Karajan and then they had to look at each other. He explains that Karajan’s philosophy was that the worst damage he could do to his orchestra was to give them clear instructions because that would prevent them listening to each other.”

     Von Karajan’s leadership style was to empower the musicians and challenge them to understand what the orchestra, as a whole, wanted to say about Mozart, or Verdi, or Beethoven.  His conducting was minimal.  For a time, the orchestra players were puzzled.  How do we know when to “come in” (begin to play?).   They figured it out.  They listened and watched each other, and of course watched the concert-master and the first violins. 

     I believe that true business leaders, the most durable and successful ones, the ones that create powerful organizations (fields of perennial wild flowers)  rather than fleeting quarterly profits (crocuses that bloom for two days and wither) are like von Karajan.  Their leadership style is not to orate sweeping visions, garnering headlines and media attention.  Rather, they lead by creating inspired, empowered followers.  Their leadership gathers talent around them like a magnet, because they see their job, as leaders, as fostering and developing such talent, rather than quashing it because it attracts attention away from their own. 

    Are you Muti?  Or Van Karajan?   If you are Muti, you can change.   Watch Talgam’s TED address,  and buy a few van Karajan CD’s.  

 

 

 

 

 

Innovation Blog

A Big Story About  Small Screws:   Israelis in Haiti

By Shlomo Maital

    This is a very big story about some very small screws, and the spirit of improvisation that some say has driven Israeli entrepreneurial success.

     CNN Cable News Network reports that Israel has the most fully-equipped and effective field hospital now operating in Port au Prince, Haita.  The hospital arrived in two El Al planes, shortly after the devastating earthquake,  and was soon fully ready and working. It  includes 200 medical personnel, rescue experts and Home Front officers.   It includes operating rooms, and specialty ‘wards’, including obstetrics (several babies have been delivered),  intensive care, surgery and orthopedics.  The field hospital even has imaging capability, with X-ray machines operating off generators. 

     Yesterday, Israel’s Channel 2 correspondent in Haiti, Ronny Daniel, a veteran military reporter, told the following story:

           Israeli orthopedic surgeons have performed many operations to repair broken bones.  Some of these operations require inserting screws to hold severely broken bones together. The orthopedic surgery team quickly ran out of such screws.

           What can be done?  Wait for a shipment to arrive?   The surgery could not wait; infection resulting from severely-broken bones is life-threatening.

           A team of Israeli rescue experts was dispatched to find orthopedic screws. They found a carpentry shop,  managed to get in,  found some wood screws and brought them back. The screws were sterilized, and the orthopedic surgeons were soon back in business.

A big story about some very small screws.       

Innovation Blog

Are YOU an Innovator?  Ten Ways to Tell

By Shlomo Maital

     Faithful reader Yoav Medan (Insightec) directed me to a wonderful website,  www.businessinnovationfactory.com, which includes many excellent short video films about innovation stories.   If you believe you find truth in good stories, this is a rich source of it. 

      Can you recognize an innovator when you see one?  Many CEO’s cannot.

      Here is  Business Innovation Factory founder Saul Kaplan’s list of the 10 ways to recognize the innovators in your organization — the 10 behavioral characteristics that define innovators.   I think the list is also a good way to make hiring decisions.   I have added my own comments in brackets.

 1) Innovators think there is a better way.  (They don’t think,  they KNOW.  They obsessively think of different ways to do things. Many of their ideas are wrongheaded.  But some are not.  You have to encourage wild ideas in order to modify them just enough to make them practical).

2) Innovators know that without passion there can be no innovation.  (Passion is the rocket fuel, the nuclear energy, of innovation.   Without fire in the belly and sparks in the eyes, innovators soon tire. Search for that fire and that spark).

3) Innovators embrace change to a fault.   (Beware: Innovators are not great at running day-to-day operations.  But there are rare people who can do a task with superb excellence, again and again, all the while asking, how can I do this totally differently, or not at all?)

4) Innovators have a strong point of view but know that they are missing something.  (Innovators listen better than they talk.  They know that chances are, someone else has vital knowledge they need; to get it, they have to listen.)

5) Innovators know innovation is a team sport.  (See point 4).

6) Innovators embrace constraints as opportunities.   (Non-innovators whine about constraints and problems.  Innovators see them as opportunities and challenges, chances to prove their abilities and creativity.  Keep whiners off your innovation teams…in fact, off your premises entirely).

7) Innovators celebrate their vulnerability.  (I think this means that innovators are ordinary people, with normal weaknesses, who practice WYSIWYG – what you see is what you get — and freely speak about their failings and  problems).

8) Innovators openly share their ideas and passions, expecting to be challenged. (“Here is my idea — what do you think?  Innovators say this a lot, then listen carefully.  Non-innovators react to criticism defensively, defend their idea, battle for their own point of view — and soon innovation becomes political arm-wrestling, ideas die).  

9) Innovators know that the best ideas are in the gray areas between silos.  (Modern universities are failing to make breakthroughs, because they preserve traditional faculty and department silos, while true innovation comes in the interface between such disciplines.  Ever heard of nanotechnology? ).

10) Innovators know that a good story can change the world.  (Innovators have a personal legend — here is how I changed the world, past tense.  They believe the story, and work to make it happen.  The story is vivid and photographic.  And they are inspired by the great stories of other innovators).

Innovation Blog

Why Your Company Culture is Crucial —  And How to Create a Winning One

By Shlomo Maital

    Company culture is like humorist Mark Twain’s comment about the weather — everyone talks about it, but no-one does anything about it.

     Culture, simply defined, is ‘shared values’ — what we share in common with our fellow workers and managers, regarding what is crucial and mission-critical and what is not.   Culture is created. It is defined from Day One, ideally by the founders, and constantly relearned and strengthened.  Behavior is driven in part by incentives and reward; but the kind of behavior that drives great organizations is based much more on shared values — culture.  That culture is replicated by obsessive emphasis on hiring only those people who truly sincerely embrace company culture.   Indeed,  what kills innovative startups, perhaps more than anything else, is the degradation of what begins as a dynamic change-the-world culture (“it’s not about the money”) to a stagnant what’s-in-it-for-me culture driven by options and cash.

     Don’t take my word for it.  Here is what business leader Tony Hsieh says, quoted by Adam Bryant in his “Corner Office” column, in the New York Times.  Hsieh started LinkExchange in 1996 with some friends, after graduating from college, and sold it to Microsoft in 1998 for $265 m.  He now is CEO for Zappo, an on-line shoe company.

      “…We ended up selling the company [because] the company culture just went completely downhill. When it was starting out, when it was just 5 or 10 of us, it was like your typical dot-com. We were all really excited, working around the clock, sleeping under our desks, had no idea what day of the week it was. But we didn’t know any better and didn’t pay attention to company culture.  By the time we got to 100 people, even though we hired people with the right skill sets and experiences, I just dreaded getting out of bed in the morning and was hitting that snooze button over and over again…..

     “…About five years ago, [at Zappo] we formalized the definition of our culture into 10 core values. We wanted to come up with committable core values, meaning that we would actually be willing to hire and fire people based on those values, regardless of their individual job performance. Given that criteria, it’s actually pretty tough to come up with core values. We spent a year doing that. I  sent an e-mail out to the entire company, asking them what our values should be, and got a whole bunch of different responses. The initial list was actually 37 long, and then we ended up condensing and combining them and went back and forth and came up with our list of 10.

     “Today, we actually do two separate sets of interviews. The hiring manager and his or her team will interview for the standard fit within the team, relevant experience, technical ability and so on. But then our H.R. department does a separate set of interviews purely for culture fit. They actually have questions for each and every one of the core values.”

    Action learning:  

    1.  What are the 10 key core values of your organization?

   2.  What does your organization do, to a) instill these values in new hires, and b) choose new hires in a manner that carefully selects those who live by those values even before they are hired? 

   3. What does your organization do, to ‘walk its talk’ — act in accordance in its values, including in the very smallest of details?