THE FUNNEL Powered by
the funnel shorts PAGE 4
A Few Points On Influence PAGE 6
The Keys to the Seattle Transit Success Story PAGE 13
Innovation Manager: Job in Incubation PAGE 22
Winter 2019
CONTENTS Business Title
03 From the Editor
04 Innovation Shorts
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Influence: The fundamentals
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The Secret to Workforce Engagement
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Building a Hub: Designing a National Entrepreneurship Ecosystem
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Innovation manager - Job title in incubation
24 Latin American innovation - Another Silicon valley in the making?
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Storytelling for Innovation
13 The Keys to the Seattle Transit Success Story
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Creativity, Group genius and innovation An interview with Dr. Keith Sawyer
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FROM THE EDITOR Dear reader, The success of innovation managers is completely dependant on their ability to bring about behavioral change. Employees of corporations are used to doing their work a certain way and innovation challenges habits such as how they allocate their time, the skill sets they develop, how they make decisions and how they exert influence. When done right, systematic innovation changes organizational culture one project at a time. For innovation projects to occur, we need to engage broad populations of contributors such as employees, customers, partners and startups and change their perceptions and habits. That is why the skills of changing behaviors of individuals and of large populations is so essential to the success of innovation managers. This issue of “The Funnel” focuses on the art and science of changing behaviors. Change behaviors of individuals and you will change crowds. Utilize the right principles of crowd behavior and you will recruit the crowd itself as your partner in this effort. Change the right behavior and you set the foundation for the change you aspire to, which is having large numbers of contributors actively participating in innovation related activities. As the new year approaches, I’d like to take the opportunity to wish you a happy 2019. May it be a year of innovation success, of great breakthroughs and of organizational transformation.
H
Ahi Gvirtsman Chief Editor & Chief Product Officer at Duco
Innovation shorts 1
2019 Innovation Trends As 2018 is nearing its end and 2019 is looming around the corner, many futurists and trend experts are laying out what they see as the innovation trends for the upcoming year. While there are no significant surprises and most predictions focus on expansion or improvement of trends we’ve already seen in 2018, it is interesting to note the changes. Among the themes repeated in many of these forecasts (by Forbes, Qmarkets, Business Insider and others) are: Data analytics and AI will continue to be at the center of all other trends More and better--IOT, chatbots, cloud, 5G, augmented reality (although virtual reality will still be confined to gamers) Less hype - Blockchain stops being a magical mysterious wonderland, its limitations are better understood and the hard work of understanding what can actually be done with this technology begins Growing collaboration between startups and corporates The Growth of the “As a Service Industry�
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Innovation to come from the top
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Amazon is coming to Queens
Amazon announced it will be splitting its second headquarters and opening offices in Long Island City in Queens, NYC and in Arlington, Virginia (next to Washington DC). The decision on NYC (that already houses Google, Facebook and other tech giant HQs) surprised some who thought Amazon would opt for a smaller city where it would be the leading player and not one of many in the megalopolis that is New York. Jeff Bezos has homes in both NY and DC and analysts joked that it is surprisingly easy to predict where a company will set up HQ based on the owners’ real estate. According to Amazon, both locations were ultimately chosen because of the potential talent pool of new employees. Local governments in both locations have offered Amazon hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to locate their new offices there. In return, both sites will receive a 2.5 billion dollar investment from Amazon and are expected to have more than 25,000 employees, bringing in about 10 billion dollars in taxes over the next 20 years. Some are worried about the fact the new HQ will have on housing prices and traffic. Another point of criticism is that Amazon implemented the search to gain proprietary information about all the bidding cities without offering transparency in return.
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Innovation On the Acropolis Athens was named European Capital of Innovation for 2018 by the European Commission. The title comes with a million euros to promote further innovation and cooperation with other cities. Athens was awarded the title mainly for its use of innovation to deal with Greece’s economic and social crisis. Many of the projects include using innovation in order to increase citizen participation in municipal projects such as revitalizing neighborhoods or renovating abandoned buildings, education, helping refugees etc. Athens, one of the oldest cities in Europe is an excellent example of what happens when municipalities involve citizens to create new solutions.
INFLUENCE THE FUNDAMENTALS Talya Vaish, Community manager, “The Funnel”
Countries, organizations and individuals vie for influence. It is a major component of human interaction and is important in any professional or personal setting.
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For people charged with leading innovation, it is critical. Innovation often makes people feel uncomfortable and out of their comfort zone, can add more tasks to an already busy schedule, operates outside the regular corporate hierarchy and usually requires teamwork. These are all things that don’t come naturally to most people. When we talk about trying to change behavior or influence it may have a negative connotation. It shouldn’t. It is not about tricking them into doing something they wouldn’t want to do; it is rather, about understanding their needs and tapping into them in order to bring about the desired change or behavior. Organizations tend to think that employees will buy into the change if they are persuaded that it is the best thing for the organization and focus their persuasion attempts
at that. However, the first thing to realize when instituting change such as an innovative culture, it is the innovation leader’s responsibility to convince different types of people - from employees in different departments all the way up to the CEO that the change or innovation is what’s best for (on a personal and professional level). People won’t necessarily become passionate or zealots about the change they are taking part in, but there are certain actions that can make them more likely to participate and even be enthusiastic about the change or new project. This is a complicated and fascinating field, and we won’t be able to cover everything in this short span. In this article, we won’t be addressing formal sources of influence such as hierarchy, nor more obvious incentives for motivation - promotion, money etc.- but rather, focus on internal and external mechanisms that help people adopt and maintain new behaviors that are important for innovation.
HOW AND WHY PEOPLE LEARN AND CHANGE
There is no solution that fits all, and each group or audience will need a different motivational/behavioral tool set. It is about understanding real underlying needs. There are some behavioral theories: diffusion of innovations, social learning theory or self-determination that challenge conventional "carrot and stick" assumptions and attribute significance to social and group effects. These theories can serve as an efficient basis when trying to create influence and infuse innovation outside the regular organizational structure.
people are more inclined to adopt innovation than others. Researchers have found that people who adopt innovation early have different characteristics than people who adopt it later. There are five established adopter categories. Innovators > Early Adopters > Early Majority > Late Majority > Laggards. Different strategies are used to appeal to the different adopter categories.
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY We learn by observing others and through positive and negative reinforcements. This theory by Albert Bandura (1977) says that we learn and imitate behavior by observing different models from our immediate and remote environments,or by seeing how others are reinforced for their behavior. There are several factors which affect whether or not we will repeat the imitation: • We are more likely to imitate someone we see as similar to ourselves. • The reinforcement is more likely to have an impact if it matches the individual’s needs. • If the imitation is limited to behavior or if we also imitate values and beliefs (identification). • Cognitive processes such as how much attention we can give the model, how well do we remember a certain behavior, our ability to repeat the action, etc.
DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION Different people adopt innovation and adapt to it in different paces. As an innovation leader, each type of adoption rate requires a somewhat different approach. Diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory was developed by E.M. Rogers in 1962. It is one of the oldest social science theories around. It attempts to explain how, over time, an idea or product gains momentum and spreads through a specific population or social system until it is adopted (be it a new product, service or behavior). The key to adoption is that the person must perceive the idea, behavior, or product as new or innovative. It is through this that diffusion is possible. The most relevant part in this theory to corporate innovation is that adoption does not happen instantaneously nor simultaneously; it is a process. Some
Successive groups adopting the new technology (shown in blue), its market share (yellow) will eventually reach the saturation level. The blue curve is broken into sections of adopters.
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SELF DETERMINATION This is a macro theory of what affects motivation and has many different factors. Some are external and some are intrinsic. This theory recognizes three basic needs that come into play when discussing motivation - autonomy, competence and relatedness. This is a mega theory or framework for theories of motivation. It was initially developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan in the late 70’s and has been refined by many other scholars since. Motivation can stem from external factors such as reward or fear, but it can also come from within by factors such as interests, curiosity or values. SDT research focuses on how social and cultural factors facilitate or undermine individuals’ experience of autonomy, competence, and relatedness as three core needs for motivation and engagement: • Autonomy - Desire to act in harmony with the complete self • Competence - Control over outcome • Relatedness - Will to interact, be connected to others and experience caring Recognise the role of power, and understand that behaviour sits in a matrix of technologies, infrastructures, institutions, norms and social structures, all of which need to be open to strategizing and potential modification. Behaviour change is therefore a multi-disciplinary effort. It involves practices and ways of thinking that no one profession can claim expertise in, like organisational change, infrastructure design, observational and social research, regulation, design thinking, social psychology, and communication and marketing.
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ENCOURAGING LEARNING AND CHANGE MECHANISMS
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In the previous section we discussed how people learn and adopt new behaviors, what motivates people and touched on how they are affected by one another. While motivation and action have to correspond to people’s needs, setting the right environment has a lot to do with meeting those needs.
The environment - Space, time, conditions - determines how hard people have to work in order to learn and adapt and to commit to the desired change. It is about fostering creativity; but, even more importantly, it is about working on the right setting that will create a commitment to making those ideas into products, new business models, services etc.
Creating and reinforcing routines that make innovation the natural state of the organization takes time and a lot of moving parts.
HOW THE THEORIES TRANSLATE INTO ACTION One of the main pieces of advice you get when trying to influence a group of people is start with the ones that are more open to the idea or change what you are creating. This advice combines some of the messages from the theories we mentioned - adoption patterns, imitation etc. Getting people to switch to the electric car - Research has shown that in order for the general public to switch to the electric car (based on previous adoption behavior in the automobile industry) would require a 3% adoption rate by early adopters. When that number is reached, the new product is commonplace enough to become prevalent in the larger public's awareness, making it seem like a safe enough choice and that surrounding infrastructure will be set up to accommodate that new product. • Different people have different paces adapting to change. Embrace that. • People imitate what they see, especially if they feel the person they are imitating is similar to them.
MAKE IT AS EASY AS POSSIBLE. We are cognitive misers and are programmed to take the easiest route. Several cities around the world, realizing that have installed a number of dog hygiene stations all over town. These stations consist of a garbage can with a liner and a dispenser with plastic mitts that can be used to pick up dog waste. These stations make it easier for dog owners to clean up after their dogs, which cuts down on the number of people who fail to do so. After a certain time the cities can put in less effort but the new behaviour has already been programmed into the public.
ADD RATHER THAN SUBTRACT. According to the prospect theory, from the field of economics and game theory (Khanmen and Tversky) people are more averse to risk when it comes to potential losses rather than gains (and place less value on the outcome).
GO FOR THE POSITIVE AND CELEBRATE SUCCESS. Much like sugar, our brains like celebrations. According to research by Fred Bryant - celebrations, even minor ones help buffer from difficulties and manage challenges and stress. Research of soccer teams (Moll, Jordet and Pepping) demonstrated that teams that celebrated individual and group achievements were more successful.
BUILD COMMON GROUND Common ground is an important tool in multiplayer systems mediating between personal and collective goals. In addition common ground creates an atmosphere of sharing (especially shared goals), trust and consensus orientation. Research into how urban governance employs common ground shows that it is a dynamic process (much like the innovation process itself) and requires a constant state of negotiation.
USE YOUR EMOTIONS Tone, posture and other aspects of nonverbal communication convey as much if not more than our words. Emotions are contagious. In a study on teachers and students (Keeshan Nadler and Bainbridge Frymier) they discovered that teachers who used more “immediate� behavior (that caused perceived intimacy) such as eye contact, wider vocal range, forward lean, smiling etc. created greater motivation in students, more effective learning and more tolerance of demanding coursework.
Because influence and motivation are critical to innovation it is important to have some understanding of the underlying currents and hidden causes, and more importantly how to translate it to actions that push innovation forward.
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FIVE THINGS YOU CAN DO IN ORDER TO IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES OF INFLUENCING AND MOTIVATING - LEARNING FROM DIFFERENT FIELDS
THE SECRET
TO WORKFORCE
ENGAGEMENT Ahi Gvirtsman, Chief Product officer, Duco
I
nnovation proficiency, in other words, an organization’s ability to conceive, evaluate and execute projects with a high level of uncertainty and a significant potential impact on strategic KPIs, is dependant on various factors. One such essential factor is the willingness of members of that organization to participate in the various stages of the innovation process. Depending on the format of an innovation program, there are various activities for which the involvement of members of that organization is required:
IDEATION When running internal innovation processes, we want members of the workforce to come up with innovative ideas that can then flow through the process.
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PARTAKE IN VIRTUAL TEAMS We may want members of the workforce to take part in teams that work on developing innovation ideas and taking them through the process as a supporting cast to the idea owner.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION When an online platform is part of the tools being used, we may want members of the workforce to comment on innovative ideas and perhaps even vote for the ones they like the most.
SME (SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT) SUPPORT Every organization has certain areas of expertise that are essential to the success of innovative ideas. Effective innovation programs recruit SME’s from inside the organization to assist projects.
ENTREPRENEURIAL SUPPORT Understanding the entrepreneurial character of innovation projects and the tools that should be applied is a teachable skill and certain organizations seek to have innovation champions/coaches/mentors acquire this skill and then offer it to projects in the pipeline.
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When running an innovation program and requiring such involvement from members of the workforce, one faces tough opposition in the form of existing work duties, tight schedules and endless existing task lists. The key to successfully getting the massive engagement required to run an innovation program at scale is to offer your target audience something they would find very difficult to get otherwise. It should be something that would be valuable enough to them that it would cause individuals to take some time and invest in what you ask them to do, as opposed to what’s on their list of action items at that moment. As someone who ran an innovation program for a large multinational, I found a theory called “The six human needs” to be almost magical in its ability to get people’s attention and involvement. This method was conceived by who I consider to be the greatest life coach today, Tony Robbins. The thinking behind this theory is that
there are six basic needs we all aspire to fulfill as human beings. Most humans fulfill those needs without intention or thought and can do so through positive or negative vehicles. Activities that regularly fulfill any four out of the six needs are addictive to the person performing them. And so we set out to position innovation related activities as ways of fulfilling these basic human needs and thus make the innovation program addictive to the people involved with it. For readers who feel uncomfortable with the term “addictive,” let us use “highly pleasurable” instead.
Following are these six human needs and examples of how innovation activities can fulfill them:
SIGNIFICANCE This need is about our desire to stand out from a crowd, to feel unique and derive a sense of self worth out of it. As part of the innovation program, members of the workforce get opportunities to present their ideas to large audiences of colleagues at events. They get the rare opportunity to present to senior management and get positive exposure. Internal communications sent to thousands of readers tell their story and praise them for their activities as part of innovation newsletters.
CONNECTION The need to feel connected to others and be a part of something greater than our individual selves. Being involved with innovation projects is a great opportunity to become part of a community of like-minded innovators. It is a great way to meet highly skilled professionals as part of the innovation mentoring network and through colleagues that wish to assist the project along the process. As a result, the professional network of those engaged with the program expands and increases their ability to handle various professional activities. The innovation program can organize through its local coaches meetup sessions where innovators can meet local colleagues face to face and feel part of an actual local community.
CERTAINTY The need to feel confidence about one’s life experience and avoid unpleasant surprises. When dealing with what are essentially high-risk entrepreneurial projects, the innovators need to have confidence that the program has their backs. Even though failure is highly probable, publishing clear rules of engagement and communicating real stories of such failures and the fact that the involved team walked away very pleased with the experience. This draws more people to the program and also guarantees return customers in the form of entrepreneurs that go through the process multiple times.
VARIETY Working in a format that allows members of the workforce to contribute to innovation in parallel to their regular work is a fantastic way of introducing some variety to their work week. Entrepreneurial activities are very different from daily activities in most organizations and so those involved get to experience to very different types of work at the same time.
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GROWTH As human beings, we want to feel progress and growth in the form of new experiences, new skills, new boundaries broken. Being active in entrepreneurial activities offers unprecedented opportunities for such personal growth. The
various experiences that entrepreneurship offers workforce members require them to acquire new skills (think of presentation skills required to pitch ideas or studying how to validate assumptions as part of lean startup) and to go through experiences that are new to them (for example, pitching to senior management or interviewing customers). The really cool thing here is that we, as innovation managers, can give them the opportunity to go through all of this without risking their existing job.
CONTRIBUTION As social beings, we have a need to contribute to others and, within an organization’s innovation program, one has ample opportunities to contribute time, knowledge and labour. Not every person has to be the entrepreneur in order to make a difference. When structured correctly, an innovation program makes the act of helping others along the process into a very simple and natural one. When this happens, we add yet another layer of fulfillment to the involvement in the program.
Besides setting the program up to fulfill these needs, it is crucial to communicate this to the target audience as you are asking its members to perform a certain action as part of the program. If you want people to act based on an email or a poster then you have to encapsulate within this tight marketing real estate what it is that they’ll gain out of this action. We are sometimes inclined to believe that when asked to do “the right thing”, people can be persuaded to do so based on the positive outcome to the organization, the environment, the community etc. In reality, people are much more responsive to acting based on incentives that are good for them personally. The six needs described above are powerful motivators; and in order for them to be effective, it’s important to make everyone understand what is in it for them when they decide to act and help feed the innovation process with ideas, knowledge and experience. In the context of affecting the behavior of organizations, the six human needs are a powerful tool that, through their influence on individuals, can sway entire organizations. I like to say that organizations become innovative one project at a time and similarly, organizations internalize culture changes one employee at a time.
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THE KEYS TO THE
SEATTLE TRANSIT SUCCESS STORY Jonathan Hopkins, Director of Commute Seattle
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he city of Seattle, home to companies such as Amazon, Starbucks and significant Boeing capacity, is one of America’s fastest growing cities. Yet before the Emerald City’s most recent growth spurt, traffic was already unbearable, with little breathing room for growth. So how did Seattle grow its population nearly 19% in a decade, increase downtown jobs by 30% over 7 years (to over a quarter million jobs), and still keep a functioning transportation system? The answer? Seattle workers learned to love the bus and the train at a rate faster than any other city in the country. Of 60,000 downtown jobs added from 2010 to 2017, 41,500 of those new commutes relied on transit, while car commutes actually decreased by 4,500 over the same period. In fact, Seattle has the fastest transit growth in the nation over the past 15 years, highlighting its uncommon role in a country known for legendary car mania.
How did Seattle do it? By treating this as a critical project that requires innovative thinking, forging new and unified partnership between key actors and by constructing a unique framework to motivate residents to leave their cars at home. The keys to this success lay in 25 years of business and government collaboration on incentives and investment. This started with a business-supported state law in 1991 that required large businesses (more than 100 peak hour commuters) to survey employees on how they get to work, and then take measures to reduce quantities of commuters driving alone. Then in 2004, downtown Seattle businesses collaborated with the city and regional transit and transportation agencies to found Commute Seattle. This non-profit (which I lead) consults businesses throughout Seattle to help them implement best practices to reduce car reliance.
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The best practices we recommend have become what we call a “virtuous circle". This cycle comes in three steps. Figure 1: Starting this cycle is the hard part. It can be self-perpetuating once started
3. Voters support increased service levels When nearly half of commuters are using transit, it makes it easier to get voters to approve increased funding for more transit. In Seattle, 64% of the population has a bus going near their house every 10 minutes, up from only 25% of the population in 2015. This is a result of increased funding approved by voters. Figure 4: Reverse-correlation evident between jobs and drive-alone rates
1. provide incentives for transit King County Metro created the first business-purchased transit pass for employees in the nation in 1993. Now, 60% of Metro’s fare revenue comes directly from businesses purchasing passes for employees, and downtown Seattle businesses spend over $100 million per year on commuter benefits and facilities. Figure 2: Daily commuter trends demonstrate success
Figure 5: Voter-backed measures serve as reinforcement
2. Increasing ridership Because people increase utilization of products that are free, we focus on making the public good as close to free as possible for as many people as possible. We also work to ensure parking is not free. As a result, Seattle’s transit mode share is nearly 50%, and the drivealone rate is only 25%.
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Figure 3: Results stand out compared to other major cities
The level of business-government collaboration described above is as rare in American cities as the results. In fact, Seattle’s downtown businesses, transit and transportation agencies and Commute Seattle meet monthly to devise additional targets and strategies to continue these gains in transportation, a habit that has continued since 2004. The results speak for themselves. Seattle shows us these results require public-private collaboration, audacious targets, and perseverance. For any other city, the only question is “when will you start?”
The stakes are high, the pace of change is increasing, more businesses and industries than ever before are looking to find their path to innovation with results as a tool of survival.
ARE YOU READY? Find your own path to innovation by going on an innovation ROADTRIP on which you’ll experience what some of the organizations on the forefront of innovation are doing. Learn from exciting case studies, take part in interactive workshops, connect with peers from all over the world and discover your own innovation path.
March 17-19.3.2019
Register here: www.road-trip.io
CREATIVITY, GROUP GENIUS
AND INNOVATION AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. KEITH SAWYER In this interview, Dr. Keith Sawyer talks about the concepts of creativity and implementing organizational innovation.
Q: Everybody thinks creativity is this thing you either have or you don’t, and you took it upon yourself to try to define creativity and how to structure it. Can you talk a bit more about this framework you’ve created around creativity? Keith: Absolutely! Creativity is not mysterious and it’s not something you have to wait to be blessed with or for you to experience some mysterious flash of insight. I guess the main point of my book, ‘Zig Zag’, was that creativity could become a deliberate process. It’s a process you can learn how to engage in, it’s a process that consistently leads to creative outcomes. Although it’s unpredictable and a little bit wandering (hence the name Zig-Zag) if you engage in these habits and practices it will consistently lead you to successful creative outcomes. It’s really a lifestyle. It’s a way of being. It’s not about coming up with one idea or a solution to one problem. It’s engaging in a set of daily practices that will pay dividends throughout your life, every day and in every project.
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Q: So it’s like inserting the right conditions that will increase the probability of creating successful outcomes? Keith: Precisely. You’re increasing the odds. You could put it that way. Sometimes I think of it as structured improvisation. So I think it’s a similar sense to an individual, the group or an
organization, that the elements of the innovative process are going to be similar in that they are wandering, unpredictable, starting without knowing how it’s going to end. Most people aren’t comfortable starting without knowing where they’re going and continuing when they still don’t know. You can’t just aimlessly do that, you need to engage in a set of practices that successful creators use, make it more likely that your not aimlessly just wandering around. Q: You talked about not just doing creativity without rhyme or reason, but having some sort of purpose for that creativity. One of the first steps is the blueprint, building a question or defining a problem that really helps to focus the mind because when you ask high quality questions of your mind you get high quality answers if you allow it to give you these answers. Keith: So yes, research on creative questions goes back to the 1960’s. One of my professors stated that in many cases not knowing the problem was one of the major problems. The idea is that if you can involve creativity even when you don’t know the problem and then make a claim as you go through a problem finding process then your creativity will be greater than if you engage in just a problem solving process. It’s more challenging but it results in greater creativity. The take on this message is that problem finding creativity is
Q: In your book ‘Group Genius’ you talk about this dynamic that happens between individuals to co-generate something larger than any individual could do on their own. Keith: That’s the main reason I wanted to write Group Genius, to let people know creativity isn’t about a single brilliant lone genius, that if you aren’t having brilliant insights when you’re sitting alone that your not a failure as an individual. It’s actually better to work in groups or networks that generate creativity, I call that group genius for the reason to contrast the lone wolf model. The idea of a light bulb going off above someone’s head is a mythical view. Everyone thinks of Steve Jobs as this model, but it’s a myth. It plays well in the media and in many cases it serves the innovator well for public relation purposes but in a scientific approach to innovation it’s not the way it happens. Q: You state in your book that our creativity is impacted by inputs that we receive from others even when we’re not aware of it. Care to expand on that? Keith: I think of creativity being collaborative even when you’re alone. I’ve done research, analysed the history of innovation, and even when someone has an idea when they’re by themselves, it is usually a result from prior interactions and conversations they’ve had recently and over their lives. I think it’s helpful to be alone during some of the process. Some research has shown groups will be more innovative if individual members do take time off, and there are some elements of creativity where it is better to think alone. That stereotype of someone standing at the whiteboard while everyone shouts ideas, turns out to not be very effective. It’s better to have each individual in the room brainstorm a list of their own ideas then bring them to the group. Q: So if an organization wishes to encourage creativity individually and in groups in order to promote innovation what would you say should be the best practices organizations should take in order to generate this environment? Keith: I think innovation in organizations takes place in 3 levels. There’s an individual level of creativity, an organizational level of innovation, and between those two is the mediating level of the group. Creativity is like a muscle. I do believe you’ll become more creative as you engage in practices and exercises that train your brain in habits of mind that are associated with greater creativity. If you want organizational innovation you don’t get it from solitary individuals having ideas. You have an organizational structure & culture in place which brings people together, so their ideas join and are synergistic with each other.
Q: So now you’re talking about infrastructure, right? You want people with creative ideas to be exposed in some systematic way to others with ideas so they can have ongoing conversations.
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more likely to be breakthrough innovation than just problem solving.
Keith: Great ideas emerge from interactions between people, and large organizations can potentially benefit from social networks that have hundreds maybe thousands of connections. So absolutely. You need to bring people together and share their ideas, but the starting point is culture, structure & incentives, all hard decisions. A lot of organizations do not have the characteristics associated with innovative organizations. They have leaders in place whom perform a leadership role in ways that are not consistent with an innovative organization. Q: What happens when you start rewarding people for ideas? Keith: If you have incentives in place that reward individual creativity that’s a horrible incentive system because it results in a possessiveness mindset. The opposite of what you want. You get what you incentivize for. These tactics are common and have been around long enough that research shows actually it reduces organizational innovation if you reward individual ideas. The reason is because it boxes sharing and boxes collaboration. Innovation comes from lots of small ideas over time, from lots of different people and it comes from processes & procedures & cultures that make it more likely for small ideas to chain together so they gradually build to something. Q: I also want to raise the notion of failure; the acceptance of failure and the way that it’s treated in the corporate world. Keith: It’s very difficult for organizations to figure out how to handle failure. You’re going to read articles in every business magazine saying “failure is critical”, “fail fast”, everyone has read those but how do we make that work in an organization? Again we really have to change fundamental features of the organization. You can’t just go around saying “We welcome failure!”, there’s a way you have to do it and it’s complicated. If it were easy to do every company would be doing it. Q :So what I’m hearing is that if traditionally built organizations want to become innovative & creative there’s no middle ground. Is that a correct assessment? Or is there a way to take that first step of gaining momentum without going full head of steam? Keith: Keith: It’s complicated depending on the nature of the industry you’re in. I have consulted for petrochemical companies that build huge refineries. For these types of massive scale organizations failure is not an option when you cannot spend 10 years and two billion dollars building a refinery. The core underlying structure of innovation doesn’t change. Innovation emerges from the bottom up in an
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organization, it never comes from the top down management. Organizations are always going to need some type of topdown structure. So in big organizations you should pay attention between fostering from bottom-up emerging innovation while you also need top-down guiding structures that will make it more likely for that bottom-up process to be more successful. The challenge management faces is trying to design top-down structures that work for your organization without squashing their bottom-up process. Q: So if I’m hearing you correctly, organizations should be encouraging bottom-up creativity & innovation and at the same time have management create this top-down structure that allows such creative projects to have a chance to be actually implemented without risking the businesses own mainline activities. Keith: It’s common for organizations to want to be innovative, but still keep 95% of your business the way it’s been. A common strategy used is to build an innovation unit which is separate from the main organization. Now we have innovation hubs, but by observing history that doesn’t always work too well because it was almost impossible to penetrate ideas into the rest of the organization and a lot of it is just cultural mismatch of communication. You really need to have the innovative ways of thinking distributed throughout the organization, it can’t be an afterthought.
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Q: Your message is that there has to be this integration between the people who are doing the creativity and the people delivering the mission critical pieces of the business, because otherwise you’ll never be able to scale an innovative idea. Keith: Pretty much. A lot of well known case studies, probably the most common one is Xerox, based in Rochester, New York. Famously created a research facility in silicon valley. Senior management said “we need to be more innovative, where are the most innovative people?” So they created Xerox Parc and in the 1970’s invented almost every feature for modern computing such as Windows, Mouse, the laser printer...etc, all those things within a few years’ span. But the cultural mismatch between these creative engineers in California, senior management, and the rest of the organization up in New York were just never able to efficiently communicate with each other. I don’t think it was guaranteed to fail. I think it would’ve been possible for Xerox to come out with today’s modern computer as it wasn’t incompatible with their business which was copying and printing. But the way the organization structured innovation out as a separate unit made it impossible for innovation to flow into the organization realistically.
Q: My last question to you I think will be very relevant to the audience of this interview, which are people who have ‘innovation’ as part of their title. What would you say could be a strong argument for someone trying to persuade a decision maker or executive that innovation is possible and worth the effort? Keith: In my view, for an organization to be innovative it requires a serious buy in from the senior leadership team. It could be a true challenge for a consultant to persuade senior management. If you are in innovation management inside an organization you try your best to guide the people above you towards this new way of thinking. It’s very hard to do it well and if you’re a successful innovation consultant, I’m impressed at those people who are able to do this work.
DESIGNING A NATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP ECOSYSTEM Aaron Montero, LATAM Partner at Duco
Costa Rica is widely known around the world for its beautiful beaches, lush rainforests and “Pura Vida” (the pure life) moto. Starting on Sept. 2017 we combined forces with PROCOMER, Costa Rica’s export agency, to also make the country an entrepreneurship hub. In this article we will present the model that Procomer adopted as a case study of a government agency interested in bringing in foreign innovation and investment in order to improve the economy.
POLISH MODEL In order to build Costa Rica’s entrepreneurship model we actually began by looking at Poland and asking what are the main components of an ecosystem that stimulates innovation and attracts foreign investments? In the mid-90s Poland and Costa Rica were approximately equal in terms of their export (about 23 billion a year). Since then Poland’s economy has expanded to become the 19th largest exporter and importer in the world in 2016 (about 196 billion a year). (The Observatory of Economic Complexity, 2016). This growth can be attributed to some important economic elements, such as productivity improvements, foreign direct investment (FDI), brain power and entrepreneurship. Poland’s government was heavily involved with this change. They began with creating PARP: The Polish Agency for Enterprise Development. When Poland joined the EU in 2004, PARP became the main tool to funnel €7.2 billion in EU funds aimed at promoting an “innovative economy” in Poland Today, one of its main missions is no less ambitious than to seed an entire startup ecosystem— creating the
complete chain of elements needed to nurture a venture from idea to enterprise to the “exit” point when founders and early investors can cash out. (Theresa Bradley, 2012). Poland also placed a large emphasis on education. The number of university graduates increased each year from 400,000 in 90s to 1.5 million in 2015. The number of schools offering higher education grew each year - from 277 in 1999 to 453 in 2010 (Bartek Stankiewicz, 2015).The changes in education contributed to economic growth. Dozens of business incubators, accelerators and co-working places launched. All these efforts contributed to increase the Polish economy in general, and export in particular, and are focused on building a strong innovation ecosystem.
TRIPLE HELIX MODEL What we learned in Poland was that improvements in education led to improvements in the economy and which in turn led to further improvements in education. We also found that both education and economy needed government
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Building a Hub
support to perform better. This relationship led to the creation of the “Triple Helix Model”. The model systematizes the key features of university-industry-government (Triple Helix) interactions into an ‘innovation system’ (Ranga, Etzkowitz, 2013). According to this model there are three main components to effective ecosystems: private companies, public organizations and academy. Another example that demonstrates the relationship described in the model is the Canadian ecosystem. According to the Global Innovation Index, Canada is ranked 18th in the world in terms of innovation. There are four basic elements that form Canada’s innovation ecosystem. First is Talent. There are a lot of Universities that bring educated professionals to private sector. It stimulates investments in private companies. In addition, this reduces time and costs of recruiting human resources for R&D. The second factor is a high level of academic research. Private companies outsource research processes to the academic institutions it saves time and money and brings practical results. Another element of a successful ecosystem is a proactive community. Canada is ranked third (overall behind the U.S. and Korea) in Ernst & Young G20 Entrepreneurship Barometer (2013). To be an entrepreneur in Canadian culture means making a good choice in building one’s career, as well as signifying you are socially conscious, involved in creating workplaces in your community. The last element are government subsidies - a government program provides annual tax benefits to 20,000 applicants in R&D. All these efforts are parallel to the three essential parts of the Triple Helix model. These connections provide harmonious work of all components - private sector, academy and government.
In other words, we analysed the environment that makes entrepreneurship possible. The risk avoidance axis is based on Hofstede’s research (mentioned above), that categorized six cultural elements that are universal for all cultures. One of those categories is aversion to risk. We focused our analysis on this element because it is an integral part of making business in general and entrepreneurship in particular. We divided countries to four groups according to these parameters. • Mixed group - countries that demonstrate high levels of risk avoidance and high levels of entrepreneurship resources. This group includes countries that are technologically oriented in terms of their economy and combine the collective and individualistic culture. Israel is typical representative of this group. • Market oriented group - countries like Canada and Sweden, that are technologically oriented, have a strong individualistic culture and are more open to risk taking. • Traditional - countries like Jamaica, where people are very open to taking risks, but there are few entrepreneurship resources. • Conventional (Samoa, Iran) - these countries have few resources for entrepreneurs combined with a high level of risk avoidance and a collective culture. By comparing different countries and examining their development goals it is possible to examine development paths and relevant solutions. All the solutions will address the issue of resources , but the type of solutions that will be chosen and the work processes will be based on the cultural factor.
SOLUTIONS COSTA RICA’S NATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP ECOSYSTEM MODEL (NEE) Based on this analysis on effective innovation ecosystems the Triple Helix, The Global Innovation Index and Hofstede’s Cross Dimensional Theory we built with PROCOMER the National Entrepreneurship Ecosystem model (NEE). The NEE has two basic axes - Entrepreneurship Resources and Risk Avoidance. The Entrepreneurship Resources axis reflects the country’s rank by five basic components:
After the analysis of the main elements of Costa Rica’s innovation ecosystem (that we evaluated as a mixed group country) we proposed three solutions to improve entrepreneurship resources to increase the investment attractiveness of the country. These solutions refer to three elements of Triple Helix model: • Academy: enlarge the role of academy and its link to the market • Public: build the ecosystem on the base of strong verticals • Private: acceleration programs and incubators
• Institutions
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• Human capital and research • Infrastructure • Market sophistication • Business sophistication.
ACADEMY There are two main ways to expand the role of the academy, to build student entrepreneurship centers and to stimulate researchers to become entrepreneurs. Student
PUBLIC Basing the ecosystem on verticals that are already strong (services or greentech in Costa Rica) can open a lot of sources for international investments. For example, in Belgium a lot of government efforts go into the MedTech vertical. They build regional ecosystems and clusters, develop specialized incubators and accelerators, build network organizations, cooperate with universities and research organizations. One of the examples of such collaboration is Icometrix that develops automated biomarkers that standardizes MRI scan measurements. It was founded in 2011 as a spin-off company of the universities and university hospitals of Leuven and Antwerp (Belgium). Few years later it raised 2.17 M â‚Ź from VC.
PRIVATE The solution we found regarding the private sector is building acceleration programs and incubators.There are two approaches that complement each other. The first is to build accelerators and incubators that specialize in a specific domain - like ZeroTo510 - Medical Device Accelerator. The second is to stimulate building accelerators in cooperation with companies in specific fields, like Microsoft Accelerator. There are no doubts that acceleration programs and incubators make the ecosystem more attractive for investment. For example, Memphis Meats - a startup developing meat produced directly from animal cells without the need to raise and slaughter actual animals. In 2015 it took a part in IndieBio accelerator in San Francisco (early stage biology companies accelerator). And the following year it raised 5M$ of seed investment. Designing a national ecosystem is a combination of the local culture and economy adjusted with lessons learned from other countries. Any ecosystem creation model should Concentrate on three arenas that can make the ecosystem more attractive to international investments and more active
in promoting local entrepreneurship..
On the academic level the most effective tool is investing in student entrepreneurship centers and offering scholarships for research in strategic verticals. On the public level the main focus should be on encouraging international companies to open R&D centers in the desired location and to set up information centers, linking Costa Rica’s ecosystem to foreign corporations and investors. In the private sector the efforts should be concentrated on promoting accelerators and incubators that specialize in strategic verticals as well as mapping local businesses in those same verticals. This can be done through government incentives or corporate or academic sponsorship.
Bibliography Theresa Bradley, Seeding a Silicon Valley: How Poland is creating a startup ecosystem from scratch, 2012 https://qz.com/3396/seeding-a-silicon-valley-how-poland-iscreating-a-startup-ecosystem-from-scratch/ Bartek Stankiewicz, 2015, IS STUDYING ALWAYS WORTH IT? http://rostraeconomica.nl/is-studying-always-worth-it/
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entrepreneurship centers help students from different faculties to learn the basics of entrepreneurship and to start building their startups. There are a lot of examples of such centers around the world - MIT Media Lab, Ideaspace at Cambridge etc. Researchers in universities often have a lot of ideas for innovative projects but they have no avenues or budgets to bring them to life . From this perspective the experience of Pontifical Catholic University of Chile is very interesting. Trying to find the funding for faculty projects they started providing services of testing and technological consulting from engineering faculty. It stimulated an entrepreneurial spirit and gave the push for development of entrepreneurship ecosystem.
INNOVATION MANAGER JOB TITLE IN INCUBATION
Maayan Hagar, corporate innovation manager at Osem Nestle IL
I WAS ASKED THIS WEEK BY A COLLEAGUE WHO IS BUILDING AN INNOVATION TEAM, “WHAT ARE THE MAIN AND MOST IMPORTANT TWO QUALIFICATIONS THAT AN INNOVATION MANAGER SHOULD HAVE?”
I
think this question demonstrates very well the confusion many feel when coming to define their own organizational needs, and to choose the right person in the right place that will spark up the innovation light and make this magic catch the entire organizational community.
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Well, I'm not exposing my answer yet. . . This question made me think about recruiting for a job that is not yet fully defined, that has as many faces as the number of organizations holding it. That is recommended now even by the government itself (for its own public organizations) and in other places covers a wide field of expertise. I can tell from what I've seen that organizations tend to look internally first. They try and find some of the workers that are already familiar with the ways of the company, the people in it and the professional know-how of the organization. However, they are also looking for this extra something. It shouldn’t be about a worker who constantly comes up with new ideas; it's usually much wider than this.
"THE MOST JOYFUL AND INTRINSIC MOTIVATION HUMAN BEINGS HAVE FOR TAKING ANY ACTION IS THE DESIRE TO MEET OUR NEEDS AND THE NEEDS OF OTHERS.” - MARSHALL ROSENBERG Marshall Rosenberg was an American psychologist, mediator, author and teacher. Starting in the early 1960s, he developed Nonviolent Communication, a process for supporting partnership and resolving conflict within people, in relationships, and in society. Organizations are trying to find today people that have great understanding of teams, broad view of processes and worlds of content and the ability to lead people into unknown and faraway places. That’s only part of the job. while the other part has to do with business understanding, the connection between unconnected teams, people and processes and capturing the deepest needs in order to search and come up with the best solutions. It all has to be accurate and fast.
Among all that comes the method. As I mentioned before, in some conversations I had before with other respected innovation managers, the first thing to do is method sharing. From all the methods I have met, these are my insights: There is a method! It looks familiar to a person standing from the outside, but the details that determine the innovation routines are a language, unique and internal to each and every company, containing its DNA of knowledge-sharing and teamwork. Having a method helps a lot with defining some of the steps in the formal innovation process, but what really helps driving processes and making them happen is still a non-formal spirit that has to come from the top down and be supported and empowered by this right person--the innovation manager. I would like to bring up two examples from the day to day in my organization where inspiration of connecting dots in a process worked very well. It is relevant to any organization, not exclusive to the food industry that I'm part of at the moment. My first story is about identifying the 'free radicals' in the organization (people with new world job titles that provide complex services that are hard to understand unless you drill down into their real functionality) and connecting them to the right people in order to upgrade and upscale existing and new initiatives. One of those is our 'LEAN OFFICER', who is deals with business excellence, motivating processes and fixing failure points herself. To the day we started collaborating, lean was well known in the factories and along value chain and less known among our marketing teams. Working together, bringing more tools and professional points of view to innovation and product exploration areas enabled a stronger, faster and more validated process, that motivated all teams to create real impact in the mutual processes. And the second is about identifying a need in the field of importing ready made products. Osem is a production based
company; therefore it had a purchasing team that was dedicated to raw materials. Working closely with marketing teams made me realize there is a growing need in external production sources that local factories cannot supply in order to satisfy consumer expectations. Connecting a purchase expert to marketing teams branded as innovation purchase team, making this roll significant from early concept stages, building a process and a common language of working with visual concepts coming out of innovation days (rather than a written standard brief) and communicating this new neural connection to the management worked wonderfully. Just a remark about using visual tools: according to the 'cone of learning model', reading is the least effective way of learning, with only 10% of information being retained. Using visuals triples that amount, so, if I could have this article written as an infographic I'm sure that could be effective and motivating for the writer and reader as well. A new flow of ideas and possibilities was created by identifying a gap in the process, using existing resources and defining the workflow for two parties that worked together but had a different way of communication in the past. My conclusion and answer to the question that was presented to me is that the world is moving to multidisciplinary teams for a very good reason, managing and motivating real collaboration between teams/ functions/ people requires a set of skills that includes: • Working closely with many kinds of teams and people (meaning you are part of the team and not only managing or advising to the process). • Identify the needs and problems of your teams and from your broad point of view, being able to 'copy- paste' abilities and ideas from one place to another in a way that creates a new functionality or idea come to life with minimum effort and maximum value for all partners. • Being a leader means setting a personal example- being able to expand your knowledge all the time, learn and understand worlds of content and mediate them to the local and organizational workflow, helps other people open up to new platforms, ideas and workflows and embrace constant change instead of fearing it. To sum it up: the long term personal relationship style of management and the ability to understand worlds of content fast enough making the right connections with external world in order to upgrade a product, service or idea should be the main capabilities to have in mind when recruiting people to such new processes.
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So, what we have here is not exactly any of the familiar job descriptions, but rather something that is more related to personal abilities and qualities--the same few slippery definitions that recruiters will always try to identify, but can never be positive about. And another open question regarding this job description is: what is the best background for a job that includes identifying opportunity areas, finding a variety of solutions that come from different places, different worlds of knowledge from inside and outside of the organization? The answer is not yet clear and takes some time to answer for those who are looking to manage an innovation process in their company. What I see today more clearly is the influence of being an insider on the success of the process. A great deal of trust is needed here, and a 'touch' or a demonstration of a tool is not enough to make a change in the environment and routines of a working community.
LATIN AMERICAN INNOVATION: ANOTHER SILICON VALLEY IN THE MAKING? By Jonathan Nulman
I
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nnovation is the future of the corporate world; that much is undeniable. Failure to innovate and to adapt to an ever-shifting market is the bane of enterprises big and small. Undoubtedly, it was the failure to innovate that led to the bankruptcies of photography giant Kodak, media rental chain Blockbuster, and the once mighty American cataloguer, Sears Roebuck. Industry-wide learning from these failures and more cases has led to the foundation of innovation hubs around the world Silicon Valleys dotting the globe in a never-ending attempt to stay ahead of the game. Mapping these technological hotspots, Latin America appears largely barren. However, that does not mean that the region is a technological wasteland. In fact, the opposite is true. Local potential continues to rise as increasing technological consumption connects more and more rural areas, enabling higher levels of societal inclusion that countries such as Colombia, where a significant portion of citizens live in isolated villages, have never seen before. In fact, Latin America, which formally includes Mexico, Central, and South America, already has the highest usage rates for Facebook per internet user and WhatsApp per cell phone owner in the world, 89% and 66%, respectively.
WHERE DO DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION AND THE STARTUP CULTURE COME INTO PLAY? Unlike in more developed regions of the world, the Latin American private sector tends to contribute little to investments in Research & Development and innovation in general. This is one of the largest challenges facing the region, as the average investment in R&D is a meager 1% (approximately) of each country’s GDP, a miniscule increase from just above 0.5% in 2004. Why is this growth so sluggish? Research points to the economic base of many Latin American countries--natural resources. Natural resource-intensive sectors still account for about 60% of total manufacturing value in Latin America, leaving only 40% for investment in more complex technologically driven economic engines such as the knowledge-based sectors, whose growth would require an increase in R&D investment. Despite negative headlines in the news detailing corruption in the region and a difficult economic environment for the harboring of a significant startup culture, innovation centers are beginning to spread their wings across the region. The headlines and the current economic state of the region tell only a small portion of the Latin American story.
Current efforts have resulted in success. For example, Argentinian startup Globant, which was founded in 2003 in order to assist clients in fostering creative engineering and technological solutions using a specially designed ecosystem, is worth $413.44 million USD as of 2017. MercadoLibre, another Argentine company, has a dedicated online marketplace dedicated to e-commerce and online auctions. Founded in 1999, the company is worth $844.4 million USD as of 2016. While the current conditions in the region are making an impact, the state of disruptive innovation in Latin America today represents just a miniscule portion of the development, technology, and innovation the region could potentially output in the future.
WHAT ELSE IS INHIBITING THE GROWTH OF THE STARTUP CULTURE IN THE REGION? Aside from a weak economic environment, there are several factors discouraging Latin American entrepreneurs. For one, administrative burdens on businesses remain unusually high in the region. Bureaucracy, “red tape”, and excessive paperwork discourage potential businesses from even opening. So overwhelming are the limitations that, according to the World Bank, it takes Brazilian entrepreneurs, who are setting up shop in the region’s largest, most developed economy, an average of 83 days to open their businesses. This is in stark contrast to an average
of 25 days in India and just 6 days in Italy, despite those countries ranking only a few spots in front of Brazil in GDP. Bankruptcy laws can also be debilitating, further discouraging entrepreneurs.
THE BENEFITS OF DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE REGION’S PROMISING FUTURE Certain parts of the region’s economies and many industries have taken steps to encourage and foster meaningful growth in the innovation sector. Although this growth has been largely minimal in the past decade, it is slowly ramping up, and it is by the region’s own volition that the pace of this growth will continue to increase. However, In order for cognizable improvements and long-term growth to manifest themselves, many of the impediments that currently exist will need to be cleared away. Existing legislation will need to be repealed in favor of more open laws that will encourage the foundation of new enterprises. Administrative red tape must be removed from the board as well. Most importantly, the startup industry simply requires larger amounts of funds from both public and private sources. Latin America today is a region known for a wide disparity between rich and poor, with a small middle class. Startups and similar enterprises encourage people to take their financial situations into their own hands, which could lead to the creation of a larger middle class as potential entrepreneurs raise themselves from poverty. Thus, investment in the proliferation of the startup culture could have economic impacts well beyond the technology sector as the spending capabilities of the average Latin American citizen rise, creating rippling waves of opportunities in other, more commodity-based industries. Now is the time for the economies of Latin America to take control of their situations with regards to startup culture. They have the option of remaining at the mercy of foreign forces or encouraging and embracing the growth of disruptive innovation from within, creating on their own terms a new map of global Silicon Valleys; or, as they would be known in Latin America, Valles de Silicon.
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Costa Rica has invested in R&D, opening public programs such as AUGE, the Startup Incubation Center of the University of Costa Rica. Private angel investing firms such as Stratos Investors and Icaro Investors encourage startups to innovate. A startup accelerator in Santiago, Chile, appropriately named StartupChile, accepts 100 young enterprises into their program annually. As Latin America’s second largest economy, Mexico has been a huge supporter of the startup world. Programs such as Startup Mexico, 500 Startups Mexico, and Alta Ventures have shone light onto the country’s budding startup ecosystems. Brazil leads the region in R&D investment, which comes as no surprise as it is Latin America’s largest economy. It has created sizeable technology hubs in the bustling cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Recife.
for innovation
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Talya Vaish, Community manager, “The Funnel”
WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER? WHAT ARE SOME OF THE TOOLS THEY USED TO MOTIVATE YOU? MOST, IF NOT ALL, OF US, HAVE SEEN MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKERS OR VIDEOS. WITH A CAREFULLY CRAFTED NARRATIVE, THESE PEOPLE MOTIVATE IN DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF LIFE FROM HEALTH TO CONQUERING YOUR DREAMS. BUT STORYTELLING IS NOT JUST FOR HOPES AND DREAMS. IT IS BECOMING A MORE SIGNIFICANT PART OF THE CORPORATE WORLD. NIKE, MICROSOFT, FEDEX AND MORE HAVE THEIR OWN CORPORATE STORYTELLER. WE KNOW THAT OBJECTS AND PLACES THAT HAVE A STORY ARE CONSIDERED MORE UNIQUE AND VALUABLE. THE MONA LISA BECAME THE MOST FAMOUS PAINTING IN THE WORLD, NOT ONLY BECAUSE OF ITS BEAUTY BUT BECAUSE OF ITS STORY OF MYSTERIOUS THEFT AND RETURN.
IT’S SCIENTIFIC One of the great advantages of storytelling is that it works for the various types of learners-- visual (40% of the population), auditory (40%) and kinetic (20%). More than that, neurochemical research indicates that our brains produce the stress hormone cortisol during the tense moments in a story, which allows us to focus, while cute or happy parts of the story release oxytocin, which makes us feel good and connected to other people. The more oxytocin is released, the easier it is to persuade us to help. A happy ending, much like exercise, releases dopamine which makes us optimistic and hopeful. Storytelling is an opportunity to introduce these positive hormones into the work environment to get the desired effect (as opposed to more negative brain chemistry usually created in a work setting). One of the most important innovation tools in the innovation manager's arsenal is framing the narrative in a way that creates excitement and expectation, as well as a strong belief in the product and process. Motivating the teams and managers involved that this product is worth their time and dime can create a sense of shared passion.
1. KNOW WHAT MESSAGE YOU ARE TRYING TO SEND It is important to understand your audience and your end goal and customize the message for them.
6. USE THE STORY TO CREATE A CONNECTION within a new team or between different teams Workplaces that manage to forge strong relationships between employees have happier employees and more loyalty.
2. BE CLEAR While there is no need to exactly spell out a to-do list, it is important to have a clear story without trying to squeeze in too many messages or narratives. It helps to have a structure to the story that includes an exposition, rising action, climax, and solution. Ideally, your narrative shouldn’t take longer than three minutes.
3. A STORY IS ABOUT MORE THAN JUST WORDS Tone, energy, body language, and setting have a lot to do with how the story is perceived.
4. GET PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THE STORY This can be done in many different ways. Creating a protagonist they empathize with, introducing a problem they can relate to, constructing tension that draws them in, etc. Think of some of your favorite stories. Did that make them great?
5. BE AUTHENTIC There is a well known saying in the world of writing “write what you know.” This is also true when it comes to storytelling. Don’t hesitate to share your own experience, emotions, and reactions to the narrative. This helps create a bond.
7. DON’T MAKE IT ABOUT YOU This is a narrow line to walk. While the story should reflect you, it shouldn’t be all about you. Hopefully, you want people to find their role and space in this narrative moving forward. Leave room for them to do that.
8. MENTAL IMAGES ARE IMPORTANT Using visual language and techniques such as metaphors or analogies will help the narrative become memorable and easier to follow. Again, this is a fine balancing act, especially in a corporate setting; you don’t want the story to be too ornate.
9. SURPRISES ARE A GOOD WAY TO KEEP THE AUDIENCE ENGAGED Keeping the audience interested is not easy. They’ve likely heard many narratives before and this can cause disinterest. Throwing in a twist, a joke, withholding a piece of information or changing tones is a good way to keep the audience listening.
10. CREATE A CULTURE OF STORYTELLING Innovation thrives on people who are able to connect to others, empathize and are enthusiastic. Creating a work culture that encourages the development of storytelling skills is as legitimate as a spreadsheet and allows innovation to thrive.
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HERE ARE SOME POINTS THAT WILL HELP YOU CREATE AN EXCITING MOTIVATION NARRATIVE:
CONNECT WITH THE FUNNEL THEFUNNEL@DUCO.IO
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