CLARITY FOR INNOVATORS Podcast

Have you ever wondered why some work stays for so many years while some other work is forgotten as soon as it is put out? The work is excellent.

You are about to meet a man who was born in 1452 yet today his art still attracts lots of value.

Discover his approach to innovation and use it to create without limitations.

John Maxwell says, “good questions inform while great questions transform”. There are three questions —why, what if, and how— they lead to a basic and logical progression of many innovative breakthroughs.

As it turns out, your Customers will never ask you for a disruptive idea.

You have to develop the skill of observation and use it to become creative as you develop products and services that they will love and pay for.

Discover and get tips on how to practically turn observation into solutions.

Strategy can be defined is an integrated set of choices that help you to deliver value to a certain group of people in a certain market in a way that is distinct, anticipated, personal and also sets you apart from your competition.

Strategy helps you steer your brand in the desired direction, hold your people accountable and most importantly track progress. You can choose to operate without strategy but you will burn out, motivation will be low and people will leave your team in a split second because they do not understand the direction you are taking as a team.

Strategy is principally comprised of five choices which i will frame in form of questions. They are:

What is your aspiration? Case in point; you are building a hotel, your aspiration could be to “provide the best relaxation place for tourists while they are on tour in national park”. An aspiration is direction bound. You can’t be all things to all people, choose who you serve and aspire to serve them in the best way possible.

Where shall we play? This is the second choice you have to make. Like is stated above, you can’t be everything to everyone. Deciding on your “playground” places you in a position to be a master at one thing.  Following the example of the hotel from choice one; you are playing in the hotel industry (sector) targeting tourists (customer) who are on tour within Uganda’s national parks (geographical zoning) its time to make the third choice.

How are we going to win? Still using the hotel example, how are you going to win within the filed you have chosen? You edge might in;

The design of rooms; if you are looking at relaxation, you can give the rooms a feel of relaxation- not Televisions, Colour themes should be relaxing.

Personal service might be another thing; does your client take coffee at three in the morning, deliver it to his room in a flask before he or she sleeps.

What capabilities do you need?  Capabilities are simply skills that help you deliver your distinction you chose in choice three. In our example you will need a service design capability to be developed among all staff at your hotel. Service design means; you are going to study your customer thoroughly periodically and refine the service proposition that you are giving them. It’s time to make the last choice;

What are your non- negotiables as the leader? Everything rises and falls on leadership and so is strategy. From our example your no negotiables shall be;

Keeping the place immaculately clean.

Handling customer complaints with urgency.

Value is subjective but not abstract. Learn how you can build trust and engagement that drives 10X more revenue consistently.

If you are going to innovate in the short and long term you need a consistent innovative product portfolio structure to help you do that and a supporting culture. Google, IBM and Apple are consistently innovative because they have the product portfolio dived into three categories to favor cash flow inflows and drive innovation simultaneously;

1. Bread & Butter

2. Consulting

3. Out-of-the-box.

“If you understand how careers progress from one stage to another you will be; happier with the process that leads you to mastery-of course you will make the money. Understanding career progression will also help you be patient when need arises”.

Here are the five stages of career progression;

Learning.

Editing

Mastery

Harvesting

Sharing

Innovators today more than ever need harness digital platforms: the way we do business has changed and the way we interact with customers has changed. I was reading recently, I think it was in the Harvard business Review that; America would lose five million jobs to self-driving cars. Think about that, five million jobs are gone overnight. Those people will still need jobs, what are they going to do? Inevitably they have to learn new skills one of them being how to work remotely and maximize the use of digital platforms to stay relevant.

A digital platform refers to the software or hardware of a site that facilitates producers and consumers to interact in a way that is mutually beneficial. Examples of digital platforms include: Facebook, Quora, Instagram etc.

The Producer in this case is the business and the consumer is the client.

Digital platforms in essence do three things; they connect you, help with interaction and they are great tools in facilitation of exchange.

As much as I know people are losing jobs to self-driving cars, Digital platforms are providing opportunities for businesses to serve their customers- online. Brick and mortar is dying in some sectors like Baking-and for such the need to understand how to harness digital platforms in terms of proving creative stellar Customer Service.

Here are the top three basics of creating good service using Digital Platform? 

Basic 1: Learning never Stops in the Digital World.

Basic 2: Organizational Health (culture) Comes Before Smartness (Strategy, Technology)

Basic 3: Date Your Customers Before Marrying

On this Podcast what we are going to be talking about is how defining the problem can help you to innovate.

The process involves you asking yourself the following questions;

What is the problem?

Who is  most affected by this problem?

What is the evidence that the problem exists?

 

What is the solution?

A system is a set of elements which are interconnected to achieve apurpose. Listen and find out how to build innovation systems from scratch.