If your company is like the one I work for DeForest Buckner Jersey , your people are talking about the need for innovation. Mine has just announced a new program "that will bring a standardized approach to gathering and evaluating your ideas for generating new revenue and improving our business." An Innovation Team has just formed, with a new electronic mailbox and a contest offering cash prizes for the year's best ideas.


Why do we need innovation?


Three answers seem obvious. First, you need innovation because our rapidly changing technology demands it. You cannot afford to do "business as usual," because what was best in its class yesterday is today's routine and tomorrow's technological dinosaur. You have to innovate just to stay up.


Second, you need innovation because your customers expect it. They are looking to you to provide the fastest Ahkello Witherspoon Jersey , most accurate, and most accessible products and services available in the world today. If you don't deliver, they will go to someone who will.


Third, you need innovation because it sells. In every highly competitive industry (and what industry isn't?)companies tend to look over each other's shoulders and try at least to match what the competition is offering. The result is what Peter Skarzynski and Peter Williamson have labeled "strategic convergence," a phenomenon in which each competitor within an industry moves its practices and procedures close and closer to those of its rivals. This leads to a vicious Solomon Thomas Jersey , downward spiral, aptly summarized by David Crosswhite:



Benchmarking the strategies of the "industry leaders" and then copying them, by definition, leads to convergent strategies. Convergent strategies lead to industry parity, which leads to commoditization of product and service offerings Fred Warner Jersey , and indeed, commoditization of value proposition. Commoditization leads to price competition. Price competition leads to declining margins, and a lack of (or a perceived lack of) an ability to invest, which leads to a belief that you don't have the "space" to innovate. If you don't resist the temptation of this thinking right from the start, you plunge into a strategy convergence death spiral.

Innovation has the potential to propel your company ahead of the pack and demonstrate that you are clearly the company your customers should choose and be loyal to.


Two kinds of innovation


Not all innovations are the same. Generally Dante Pettis Jersey , they fall into two categories: incremental and quantum leap. Incremental innovations are relatively easy and quite common, like the slight improvements you notice in each new version of your favorite software. Quantum-leap innovations, however, move quickly from nothing to something dramatic and substantial, like the introduction of personal computers or WYSIWYG word processing. Your company should be pursuing both kinds of innovation.


What helps innovation happen?


Experts agree that certain kinds of thinking make innovation more likely to occur. Here are a few examples.


1. Breaking set ? To develop innovative thinking Mike McGlinchey Jersey , we must learn to examine our assumptions and imagine possibilities outside of them. This is what "thinking outside of the box" means. Brainstorming usually facilitates this process.


2. Multiple options ? Part of the assumptions we must jettison is that we have only one or two options. Assuming that a whole range of possibilities exists helps to move us beyond the off-the-cuff, obvious ideas. The more choices we can generate, the more likely will be the possibility that one of them is an outstanding idea. Once more, brainstorming is an excellent tool to use. Also, aim at generating six or seven alternatives Richard Sherman Jersey , not just one or two.


3. Lateral thinking ? You have to train yourself to discover commonalities between two or more seemingly unrelated concepts, forcing linkages between them. One useful exercise is to examine an industry very different from yours and try to determine what they are doing successfully that you can imitate. For instance, UPS documented the time and circumstances of residential deliveries to explore ways to trim delivery times nationwide. Do you have processes that can be timed, analyzed, and then streamlined? External research helps to identify and validate the linkages you make.


4. Mental helicopter trips ? Can you rise above the mundane tasks of your daily grind to gain an overview of the entire chain of events that make up the process you are trying to improve? The broader perspective will give needed context to each component task. Flowcharting helps you to start "hovering."


Three approaches to innovation


1. Start from the end ? One approach to developing innovation is to start with the goal you have in mind. What would the ideal product look like Jimmy Garoppolo Jersey , and how is that ideal different from what is already available? Then you work backwards, asking what changes would be necessary for that to happen, and how can we make those changes?


2. Find new uses for existing products or processes ? Perhaps a product already exists and is only waiting for someone to repurpose it to meet a long-standing need. The adhesive in 3M's Post-It notepads had been around for decades, but it took researcher Art Fry to find a use for it that now generates over $300 million in annual sales for the company.


3. Problem-solving ? Innovation often comes as a way of solving a critical problem. "Necessity is the mother of invention," and her babies sometimes come due at the most unexpected times. Every challenge carries an opportunity. Fry created Post-It notes because of his frustration that bookmarks kept falling out of his hymnal during church services. He recognized the lemons and made the lemonade!


Teaming for innovation


Most people find that innovation naturally occurs in a team environment. This is because of at least three factors.


1. Teams are efficient< Research as shown that sy. Cheap Jerseys Cheap Jerseys China Cheap Jerseys From China Cheap Wholesale Jerseys Cheap Replica Jerseys Cheap Jerseys China Wholesale Cheap Soccer Jerseys Cheap NHL Jerseys From China Wholesale NFL Jerseys Wholesale Basketball Jerseys