Leader's Digest #12 - 15 July 2018

LEADERS ISSUE 12

15 JULY 2018

INN

DIGEST

TION nous

Curiosity: The Key To Workplace Innovation The Wonderful World Of Disney: Imagineering With Three Chairs The Secret To Innovation 10 Influencing Factors To Creating A Climate For Innovation Just Thinking About Innovation The Rotting Apple: Innovation Lessons From A Failing Giant

This fortnightly publication is dedicated to advancing civil service leadership and putting it into practice contemporary leadership principles.

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PUBLICATION TEAM Read this issue and past issues online at bit.ly/LEADSCS. Scan the QR code below for quicker access:

EDITORIAL

Editor-in-Chief Segaren Assistant Editor Diana Marie Capel Graphic Designer Awang Ismail bin Awang Hambali Abdul Rani Haji Adenan

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CONTENTS

ISSUE 12 I 15 JULY 2018

Curiosity: The Key To Workplace Innovation Page3

10 g Influencin o T rs to Fac A Creating or F te a Clim n o ti a v o Inn

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Just Thinking About Inno vation Page8

The Rottin g Apple: Inno vation Lessons Fro m A Failing Giant Page10

derful The Won f World O : y e Disn g g ineerin a m I e e r h T With he C hairs T o T t e Secr n io t a v Inno

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THE LEADER’S DIGEST IS A FORTNIGHTLY PUBLICATION BY LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE OF SARAWAK CIVIL SERVICE FEATURING ALL THE LATEST SURROUNDING THE TOPIC OF LEADERSHIP. THE PUBLICATION ALSO FEATURES SPECIALLY SELECTED WRITE-UPS RELATED TO EACH THEME OF THE ISSUE, THROUGH ITS CONTENT PARTNERS.

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CURIOSITY: The Key To Workplace Innovation

BY EVETTE CORDY

A 2017 article, “Are You Solving the Right Problems?” published in the Harvard Business Review revealed that 85% of 106, C-suite executives across 17 countries, strongly agreed or agreed that their organisations were bad at diagnosing problems. Furthermore, 87% strongly agreed or agreed that this flaw carried significant costs.

In Australia, the share price of retail group Myer continues in a downward trend. Under pressure from the muchanticipated arrival of Amazon, Myer has launched a new online marketplace of local and international brands, Myer Market.

Myer has a business problem however; the new marketplace does not appear to address existing customer problems, as evident in its online customer reviews.

Look for the silver lining While it is obviously vital for businesses to stand out and stay ahead of their competition today, this is becoming

increasingly harder to do: especially if you’re a large organisation who isn’t as agile as a smaller start-up, or the likes of Amazon.

Many businesses are investing time, effort, money and resources to come up with innovative ideas and solutions for problems that customers don’t have.

The challenge for organisations is the incredible pressure placed on short-term results. Leaders are always chasing for outcomes and immediate results.

When a business problem arises, their reaction is to jump into finding a solution, without first checking if the problem they are setting out to solve might actually be an opportunity that will return the best investment.

Leaders need to not only be able to articulate their business problems, such as falling revenues or portfolio decline, but also their most valuable customer problems.

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The best commercial opportunities arise at the intersection of a business problem and a customer problem. Getting curious about this is the key to workplace innovation.

Curiosity fuels innovation

Understanding the customer’s experience In today’s business world, leaders need to spend less time in the office and more time walking in the shoes of their customers.

They need to find clues and collect artefacts that build a whole picture of their customers’ experiences.

It is important to spend time discovering customers’ hopes, fears and values, and viewing the world through their eyes.

And, noticing what delights them and observing their irritations, frustrations and pain points as they interact with the world around them.

Leaders who curiously observe what people say, what they do, and seek to understand deeply what matters to them find the most valuable problems to solve.

Enabling curiosity in the workplace When leaders create an environment of curiosity, they inspire their employees to ask questions, to learn, and to seek problems and solutions for themselves.

Curiosity a r i s e s when there is a gap between what someone knows and what they want to know. That is, individuals are intrinsically motivated to seek out information.

When employees are curious, they are open to discovering new things, and this leads to better insights and platforms for problem finding, and ultimately innovation.

It is a mindset that can be activated. Curiosity is the fuel for inquiry, learning and discovery – that’s why it’s critical for organisational growth and innovation.

As the need for innovation intensifies, there is an opportunity to leverage curiosity as a competitive advantage.

When leaders are curious they look at how customer needs will change over the coming few years.

That means creating a culture for curiosity to thrive within organisations now, as well as in the future.

They think about the biggest problems or pressures that their organisation is likely to face over the next few years.

They see how all the current disruptions will feed into one another.

Evette Cordy is an innovation specialist and author of Cultivating Curiosity: How to Unearth Your Most Valuable Problem to Inspire Growth. She is a highly regarded workshop leader and an expert in working with business leaders, stakeholders and customers to solve business problems.

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Influencing Factors To Creating A Climate For Innovation

BY EVETTE CORDY

Rapid technological change, increasing global competition, and economic uncertainty all contribute to companies’ increasing interest on creativity and innovation. Companies need to be able to generate new ideas to fuel growth.

At the same time, they need to be able to increase both the effectiveness and efficiency of the innovation process.

While this is a difficult challenge, there is a great deal that business leaders can do to improve innovation.

One key way for leaders to increase innovation effectiveness and efficiency is to create a climate of creativity, or a place where new ideas are invented and applicable innovation results.

Research and experience shows that the organisational climate is an effective predictor of creative performance.

Furthermore, creative people are especially the influenced by climate.

A recent analysis of 42 research studies found several climate factors which significantly and positively impact creative performance.

Here, we will present 10 of the most important factors.

2. Intellectual Stimulation

1. Challenging Work

Intellectual stimulation means encouraging an open and honest debate and discussion of ideas.

Making the work challenging means designing jobs and tasks that are demanding, complex, and interesting; yet, they must not be overly taxing or unduly overwhelming.

Challenging jobs are typically characterised by skill variety, autonomy, ambiguity, and frequent changes.

When jobs are complex and challenging, individuals are more excited about their work and interested in completing their jobs well.

Leaders can influence this factor through job design by injecting enough complexity and variety into the job to keep things interesting and by setting challenging goals for the workgroup.

Creativity flourishes in work environments where meaningful exchanges take place around significant issues and ideas. This kind of debate takes time, focus, and interaction in both formal and informal settings.

In today’s virtual workplace, a controversial policy might be required to create this type of environment.

Marissa Meyer was frequently criticised when she rolled back Yahoo’s work from home policy.

However, she stuck to her decision saying employees are:

“more collaborative and innovative when they’re together. Some of the best ideas come from pulling two different ideas together.”

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3. Positive Interpersonal Cohesion Creativity also flourishes in climates where employees perceive a sense of togetherness and cohesion and an absence of emotional conflict.

Collectivistic cultures where employees identify more as team members working toward shared goals also foster greater positive interpersonal cohesion.

Fostering positive interpersonal relationships can be difficult when you must also encourage open debate.

It is important for the leader and group members to acknowledge the need to debate ideas and issues while, at the same time, being careful that the debate does not erode positive interpersonal cohesion.

Continuing to have open conversations may even improve interpersonal cohesion.

4. Trust and Safety Research and practice clearly show that a climate of trust and safety facilitates creative performance.

Global innovation expert Charles Day says that “the fuel of trust is transparency.”

Transparency doesn’t necessarily mean telling everyone everything, but it does mean being as open as possible with employees.

This includes also being open about what you do and don’t know, as well as, what you can and cannot share.

Building trust also means showing you trust your employees.

Even as Netflix has grown and become a successful public company, it has not implemented formal time off or time and expense policies.

Instead, it trusts employees to use their common sense and make decisions in the best interest of the company.

This climate of trust helped Netflix grow to over 25 million United States subscribers and triple their stock price in 2013. Indeed, creating a climate of trust must go beyond policies and posters on the wall.

5. Flexibility and Risk-Taking Encouraging flexibility and risk-taking means being comfortable with the uncertainty that comes along with creative work.

Organisations that embrace the knowledge gained from errors have a competitive advantage over those that ignore or punish failure.

Leaders must clearly communicate through word and action that errors are to be learnt from and they must present opportunities to learn and improve.

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IDEO, the innovation powerhouse, shows support for risktaking in a company slogan:

“Fail often to succeed sooner.”

Harvard Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter points out that flexibility is also key in innovation efforts.

For example, Honeywell set up a venue for divisions to present their best innovation ideas during quarterly budget reviews.

However, none of the budgets contained funds for emerging ideas. Thus, the leaders were forced to fund projects by finding cost savings in other areas.

In contrast, IBM has set up a US$100mil innovation fund to support new ideas which might emerge during the year.

6. Autonomy Providing employees with autonomy in doing their jobs is another important aspect of a creative climate.

Decades of research on innovation clearly demonstrates that innovators prefer the freedom to be self-directed and independent.

Innovation author and researcher Scott Anthony observed that in the 1950s and 1960s, the most successful innovators chose to work autonomously outside of the bureaucracy of large companies.

Today, large corporations (e.g. IBM, Medtronic, Unilever) are creating so-called “corporate garages” allowing innovators autonomy in their work while still enabling them to draw on the overall resources of the organisation.

7. Mission Clarity Mission clarity is another critical aspect of a creative climate that can be highly influenced by the leader.

Academic and applied research clearly shows the importance of setting forth a clear mission and engaging innovators in that endeavour.

The first step is often called “problem identification” and has been shown to be highly correlated with creative production and solution generation.

Because the leader typically has the most comprehensive viewpoint, his or her input in problem identification is vital.

The second step in creating mission clarity is to make clear strategic decisions that set the context for innovation.

These decisions send strong signals about the company’s strategic direction and the competitive landscape.

Bain and Company in a 2013 study found that setting clear, specific innovation goals and models was the single most important factor dividing top performing innovative companies from weaker performers.

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They suggest that creating passion for the mission by capturing the hearts and minds of innovators is also an important part of this factor.

The leader must sell the importance of innovation efforts to more senior leaders and communicate them to the innovation team.

Leaders need to ensure that innovators are given a clear, compelling, and aspirational mission that challenges the mind and engages the heart.

While leadership support for innovation is important overall, it is most important in the testing and implementation stages of the innovation project when resource needs become less predictable and organisational patience wears thin.

8. Commercial Emphasis Promoting a strong balance of practicality and originality is another important aspect to creating a climate for innovation.

A solution that is original but not relevant or effective is of little use to the organisation. Likewise, some solutions are practical and effective but not original.

Those solutions may work in the short term, but they are not innovative. Thus, they are easily replicated and do not represent sustainable competitive advantage.

This is why “blank slate” brainstorming doesn’t work as well as expected. Putting practical constraints on brainstorming has been shown to yield better results.

9. Resources Just as innovation is a risky endeavour, it can also be costly.

Innovators need to perceive that the organisation is willing to invest the time and money necessary to support innovation and implementation of these efforts.

Leaders need to purposefully plan for flexibility in budgets and in time allocation to encourage innovation.

3M’s policy allowing its engineers to take 15% of their workweek to focus on independent projects has yielded such innovations as the Post-It Note.

Lavish spending on innovation is not required and it can actually be detrimental to the team’s climate for innovation.

Research has shown that an overabundance of resources can lead to complacency and that some limitation of resources leads to resourcefulness which drives innovation.

This same idea holds true for time resources as the leader must allow adequate time for innovation but also be able to make a call about when to “shelve” an idea that is not currently viable.

10. Leadership Support Finally, innovation teams must believe that their efforts are important to top management.

The innovation team leader can influence this factor greatly by serving as a conduit between the team and more senior leadership.

Conclusion Research and practice clearly show the strong positive impact that climate can have on creativity. The positive linkage between these climate factors and performance are applicable across a wide variety of work environments.

By definition, one cannot guarantee a successful innovation project.

However, as we have discovered, there are many factors that can ensure a climate that fosters creativity and leads to profitable innovation.

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For innovation to flourish, organisations must create an environment that fosters creativity; bringing together multi-talented groups of people who work in close collaboration together — exchanging knowledge, ideas and shaping the direction of the future.

”

—Linda Naiman

Daniel Russell was a faculty trainer at Leaderonomics specifically focused on talent management and strategic HR programmes. He has written white papers and book chapters on leading innovation, training and development, talent acquisition, HR technology, and employee engagement.

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JUST THINKING ABOUT

INNOVATION

BY DIANA MARIE

In Sarawak, we are well known for the stunning rapid and rocky shores and if you are reading this page by the banks of your hometown stream, perhaps one of the most obvious, although it may seem to be a rather simple innovative products, is the engine powered boats which replaced the old-style row boats, without which, it would take half a day to reach the next village.

In my understanding, innovation could be described as the application of new concepts to a product, processes, or other aspects that leads to increased “value” a matter or medium. Adding value to a product or process stimulates its market price, and the number of users.

The ripple effect of innovation has made the human life easier and that particular task is now being completed at a speed twice or thrice of what it used to be.

Innovation customarily involves the element of creativity although it may not be identical to it, due to the nature of innovation that involves acting on the creative ideas to make specific and tangible difference. Many would say creativity is exclusive only to some, whilst literature claims that it is vital to the successful performance of many industries forcing the talent management industry to jump on the band wagon for the search of creativity in talents. Who ever imagined the invention of wireless mobile charging, or did we envision new words such as ‘selfie’ as part of our vocabulary because of innovation, or was that just simply creative?

If innovation was a tree, the fruits of creativity are almost instantaneous, as many of us witnessed first-hand how the rise of smart phones and connectivity gadgets took less than a century. In an industry as fast growing as the telecommunication industry Steve Jobs said that “innovations distinguish the leader and the follower”. Did we ever imagine that we would take photos with 8

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Traditionally innovation is often associated with manufacturing, where technology is changed frequently at jet speed with the purpose of increasing production or purely enhancing the products' beauty and function to attract users and buyers. The evolution of Industry 4.0 challenged manufacturers to move away from the typically old-fashioned factory structure, clearly threatening those who are still heavily encumbered by bureaucracy that they could be left behind in the inevitable race towards innovation. Most chose to embrace it, which in the 21st century exhibited the rise of smart factories equipped with robots and automated services. This resulted in an increased precision and output accuracy as well as decreased the need for changes in design.

the same gadget that we make calls on?

How many of us still carry the once very popular DSLR camera? That not only means less Ringgit spent, but also less kilos in our bag packs. Innovation means adding value to customers, making them want to purchase or consume the product; perceiving an improvement.

This kind of innovation fulfils customer needs so much so that we have become accustomed to those machines in our environment. When you go to the airport, which would you choose, between printing your boarding pass at the kiosk or would you rather pay for counter service? Could we visualize the chaos in our lives without the existence of Automated Teller Machines (ATM)?

Creativity and innovation could occur at various levels - the individual, work team, organisation, or at more than one of these levels combined even in the animal kingdom. Have you ever seen the Puffer Fish Circles or the Swallow Nests? What would it take for us to build an architecture similar to the Ants Colony? Such creative innovation are simple examples of how structure and delegation of work is critical to innovation; everyone must know the importance of their role.

Another distinct characteristic of innovation is that it develops growth, as a focused effort to achieve change in the organisation's economic or social potential because it is an essential driver of economic progress that benefits consumers through increased productivity and in the length of time that is less than before. These factors simultaneously increase the demand for more manpower and higher wages.

Needless for lengthy explanations, the chain effect of the upsurge in one’s wages can inflate beyond the community, creating vast opportunities for each member. So, can we move ahead without adhering to the change that innovation bring into our lives?

Managing Change as an outpour of innovation is certainly not for the faint hearted as the public now expect every service to be seamless and just a click away from the answer to their needs.

Were you there when our mothers first used disposable diapers and did you know about how painstakingly the material went through changes in the name of comfort and functionality? The list goes on and on to the height of the radical innovation with the invention of colour television, microwave ovens to scanning cashiers. These innovations usually resolve and uplift issues of aesthetic, form or functionality of the product such as flat television then smart television because we all know that consumers now care more than ever about the integrity of their products.

Finally, it is important to note that innovation has to be timely. Considering the right time and cost according to place, location and man power for mass production is vital to ensure that the threat of innovation does not destroy the existing market or take over our means of employability. Innovation should always thrive to encourage employees to try new things and learn from each other helps to enhance learning and build stronger teams.

It made me smile to read the caption ‘state-of-the-science’ on a photo of a wind operated metal sculpture that moves when the wind blows. Just less than 20 years ago we would have said ‘state-of-the-art’.

Then again, Steve Jobs said:

From Paper to Product

BY HAZLINA BINTI MOHD PADIL Faculty of LAW, UiTM (Negeri Sembilan Branch) Campus Seremban

Being a former lawyer, I always carried a black A5-sized book with me wherever I went. There, I logged everything I neededfrom promises, to-do lists and appointments.

Eventually, the multiple lists I had became streamlined into a book with my weekly class timetables with hourly schedules from 8.00 am to 7.00 pm.

It never crossed my mind that my self-made planner could win a Gold Medal in an innovation competition.

I carried my self-made planner around for ease of reference.

Soon, people were drawn to the attractive colours and the usefulness of the planner. Sheela, a colleague of mine, pestered me to have it entered into an innovation competition. I wondered to myselfhow could a bounded stack of coloured paper with empty boxes on it compete in an innovation competition? I Ignored Sheela’s opinion but that did not stop her from encouraging me to enter into a competition. One day, she decided to take matters into her own hands and asked me what were the steps needed to use my planner. She also requested for the planners I used for the past 2 semesters.

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I listened to her and gathered my old planners. It was then that I realised the innovation process I had gone through, from an A4-sized, plain paper planner to something slightly bigger than an A6-sized, coloured bound copy. Sheela help me with the abstract for the innovation competition. We agreed to team up and invited two friends to join us. The whole process took about three weeks before the competition day. I was very lucky to receive testimonies from friends who had been using the planner I made for them. Things began to shape up in an amazing manner. Further research was conducted on my planner and lecturers from various backgrounds were collaborating together. On the morning of the competition, my innovation product “My Smart Planner� was duly printed and was ready for submission. Thankfully, everything went according to plan, and My Smart Planner won the Gold medal, in the first innovation competition that I had participated in my whole teaching career. Upon advice from an Associate Professor, My Smart Planner was registered with the Research Innovation Business Unit (RIBU), University Technology MARA (UiTM) under the copyright protection. Since then I have entered numerous innovation competitions and have won gold, silver and bronze medals.

Seeing ideas being developed into products brings a high degree of self satisfaction for me. It is interesting that ideas alone are not protected.

Ideas alone are not protected by copyrights; only the expressions of those ideas could be. People create new things and it is important to protect their creation. The process of protecting ideas is simple where one can always visit the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO). Based on the statistics from the website of MyIPO, a total of 70,958 online services have been transacted from January to Jun 2018 ranging from the services of filing of trademarks, patent, industrial design and geographical indication filing.

Products of innovation competition can be protected by filing in with MyIPO. Fees range from as low as RM10 depending on the types of services.

Every innovator should protect their product. This is to avoid others from exploiting their hard work. Some innovation products could be developed for commercial use and be marketed to a bigger geographical zone. It is an asset that can be turned into a long term business. RIBU UiTM has been encouraging their staff to register their innovation products. Being a one stop reference centre for UiTM, RIBU will manage the intellectual property of the university as well as promote creativity amongst the staff including managing the technology transfer and commercialisation of innovation products. Being an intermediary between the university and the industry, RIBU will continue to encourage innovation creativity that leads to generating of income through commercialisation activities.

In this day and age, lecturers have to also be innovative. It is insufficient to excel in classroom teaching alone. At UiTM, staff are encouraged to participate in competitions where they can challenge themselves by innovating new products or upgrading existing ones. Lecturers are given opportunities to participate in, or to judge yearly innovation competitions. These platforms provide good exposure for lecturers, and students equally benefit by the wealth of information and knowledge shared by their lecturers to them.

Of late, most of the innovation competition held by faculties and campuses in UiTM are moving towards commercialisation. Every innovator will ensure that the products are commercially worth and are able to be enhanced through time.

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The Rotting Apple:Innovation Lessons From A Failing Giant

BY ROSHAN THIRAN

In May 2014, Apple’s brand value dropped 20% whilst Google’s grew 40%. According to various reports, this US$37bil drop in value for Apple was due to “lack of innovation”. Everyone talks about innovation and its importance, yet we see many companies struggle with innovation including companies like Apple whom most of us would prescribe as innovative.

So, why was Samsung, Google and even Microsoft succeeding in being innovative whilst Apple struggled?

What changed?

According to Andre Spicer from the CASS Business School, Apple’s decline in innovation has to be solely the fault of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

He adds:

“What’s been interesting with Apple in the last few years is that under Tim Cook, the company has moved very much from being the leader in the industry, to following many industry trends.”

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According to Spicer, the leader sets the innovation agenda and has to take a huge responsibility for its results or the lack of it. Many analysts believe that a key reason for Apple’s lack of innovation has been Cook’s relentless focus on short-term profit rather than long-term growth and innovation. In contrast, Google was clearly seen focused on solving longterm problems rather than obtaining short-term profits. Even Microsoft with its new CEO had moved from a profit-hungry machine into one with a long-term view.

But much more alarming at Apple was its loss of being the industry leader. At the launch of the iPhone 6, 6Plus and iWatch, most industry experts were unimpressed. Where

Apple once led the industry, these new products were entering a market already dominated by Samsung and Sony, who have already brought out numerous iterations of big phones and smartwatches and are now moving into new areas such as virtual reality headsets. In fact, Steve Jobs once stated that “no-one’s going to buy a big phone”. Well, the good news is that there are many who have forgotten what Job’s said and are buying Apple’s new big phones.

Imagine Jobs watching as Apple releases big phones, becomes a “follower” in various areas, and uses its cash to buy back shares (to prop share prices) and thereby diverting money that could have been used in longer-term innovation.

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The declining great So, how did Apple lose its ability of being the leader and trendsetter?

Clearly it was a leadership issue.

But this fall from innovation greatness is not something that has only inflicted Apple. This has been the case for many innovative companies from the beginning of time. The moment organisations forget what brought them success, and instead dwell on profits and share price, they are bound to fall. So, what can we learn from here? What lessons can we gather for ourselves in our organisation’s innovation journey?

We hate new ideas A few years ago, I read Scott Berkun’s Ten Myths of Innovation. One of the 10 myths he postulates is “the myth that we love new ideas”. According to Berkun, as humans, we hate change as “conformity is deep in our biology”.

To him, being creative is not safe.

Most creative people were shunned, disgraced and most great ideas were rejected, often for many years before they became the norm.

Apple’s innovation stemmed from their former CEO’s skill in pitching ideas to others. There are a million ideas being rejected daily. Ideas are rarely rejected on their quality but because of how they make people feel. Selling ideas are possibly a key element in the innovation process that is often taken for granted. Yet, it holds the key if an idea is accepted and embraced.

Apple not only lost a great CEO in Jobs, it lost its chief persuasion officer. Innovation is persuasion.

Change is tiring The word “innovation” is derived from the Latin word “innovare” which means to “renew or change”.

Innovators are essentially change agents. They are always defying their bosses, the organisational structure and refusing to conform to status quo.

When organisations become big and strapped with cash (as in the case with Apple), change may actually not be welcomed. Processes, structure and consistent performance become

the new mantra instead of the usual experimentation, risk and play.

This drowns out the “heretics” in the organisation that push through disruption and change.

In fact, most organisations won’t promote many of these “rebels” into senior roles as they lack political savvy in conforming to the unwritten status quo of the organisation. Innovation gets stalled and over a period of time, the decay starts to show.

Some ‘fruitful’ lessons So, what can we learn from Apple’s fall from its innovative glory? Clearly, money is the root of all innovation failures. An intense focus on profit will drive innovation to its tomb.

Leadership is also key to innovation success. Having the skill to persuade others to embrace and try your ideas is critical in every organisation. And more importantly, ensuring your innovators and heretics are given the space to grow and innovate is key.

So, what can we learn to enable us to be better innovators?

Berkun adds:

“The history of breakthroughs is a tale of persistence against rejection. Much of what makes a successful innovator is their ability to persuade and convince conservative people of the merits of their ideas, a very different skill from creativity itself.”

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Here are my top 10 tips to becoming a better innovator and a heretic: 1. Learn to observe and listen more Part of Jobs’ uncanny ability for innovation was his skill of observation and listening. I saw a YouTube clip of Jobs listening intently to Bill Gates explaining in minute detail the future tablet. Jobs listened and two years later, the iPad was birthed.

Microsoft at that point, didn’t seem to be listening to its former CEO. Today it listens to everyone and its innovation shines through.

2. Connect the dots Apple may lag its rivals as they had failed to connect the technology dots.

What does this mean?

It simply means utilizing point 1 (observation and listening) and then finding patterns and other ideas to create new ones. Ideas always come from other ideas. When you listen and observe, the key is to look for patterns and figure out a way to combine and build upon the existing ideas.

3. Be brave, be heretical Take risks. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Innovators struggle and struggle. Apple in the early days made numerous product mistakes with Lisa and other ‘dud’ products. Yet, that did not stop it from innovating. It dared to go against convention and stand up for it. And it resulted in a much admired Apple. In its later years, one can argue that it follows in the footsteps of others.

Berkun adds that “experiment is the expected failure to deliberately learn something”.

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General Electric (GE) founder Thomas Edison famously said that:

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Innovators are brave people. If you want to be an innovative organisation or an innovator, be ready to be ridiculed as people hate change. But stand firm on your heretical belief and one day you may be praised.

Gutenberg invented the printing press and received no credit during his lifetime. Today, his invention is considered one of the most important in history.

4. Be persistent Innovation requires hard work and the ability to keep going strong in dark moments. Edison adds that:

“Invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

Ideas are the starting point of innovation but the majority of the journey is a laborious one where persistency, faith in vision and hard work will take us through.

5. Learn to persuade The key to ensuring your innovation becomes successful is to have the Jobs-like skill for persuading others to accept our ideas and make them come true. Many innovators cannot communicate their work resulting in many great ideas not being accepted and mediocre ones (that are well communicated) being glorified.

6. Always keep a journal or device to write things down Ideas are usually built on other ideas.

When the apple fell on Isaac Newton’s head, it was the last piece of the jigsaw. The apple falling reinforced his 20 years of work on gravity and

enabled him to pull together all his notes and thoughts previously on the subject.

I am sure there were many other people who had apples fall on them. Yet, it was Newton who made the connection. Having different thoughts and ideas written down helps as you can always go back to them in the future and start to make those connections when an apple falls on your head.

7. Ask questions always, be curious Innovators are inquisitive people who are always looking for a problem to solve.

8. Find an innovation buddy Innovation never happens alone.

Our media constantly showcases lone-ranger type innovators sitting in a dark lab and creating the most amazing inventions. Most inventions happen in groups who brainstorm and work together. Find a partner who is interested in similar innovating ideas and join forces.

9. Access your creative energy To do this you need to be in a relaxed manner. This is why we sometimes get great ideas in the shower or when driving alone. Find your creative energy trigger or creative zone or space.

10. Plan for setbacks There will always be roadblocks along the way. Think and identify possible problems that may arise and be prepared with Plan B and Plan C. This will enable you to be ready when these setbacks occur.

Roshan Thiran is CEO of Leaderonomics, an ‘ever learning’ social enterprise passionate about transforming the nation through leadership and youth development.

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The

Wonderful World of Imagineering With Three Chairs The Secret To Innovation

BY ROSHAN THIRAN

As a kid, my whole family would all look forward to gathering together to watch The Wonderful World of Disney on TV. Every episode was inspiring, filled with dreams and promises of the wonder of Disney. I dreamed of going to Disneyland one day to experience this promise of a magical land.

Many years later, that dream was realised as an adult. But the promise Disney made to me as a kid of a magical land still held true.

And it got me thinking, “how many companies keep the promises that they make?” Disney kept his and continues to touch everyone. Every young girl dreams of becoming a princess, thanks largely to Disney. Try imagining a world without Disney, without magic, optimism and childlikefantasy.

The Walt Disney Company was the creation of a high school drop-out who suffered bankruptcy numerous times, and encountered repeated financial and business disasters.

How did one man, Walt Elias Disney achieve so much?

Walt Disney is best known for developing Mickey Mouse.

Yet, behind this man is an amazing leader. Disney with his brother Roy changed the world through animation and created Disneyland, the “happiest place in the world”.

Walt was born to Elias Disney, who moved to California in search of gold, but ended up a farmer. Walt developed a love for drawing, dropped out of school, and joined the army to drive an ambulance. At 19, he started his first company called Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists. However, it soon went bust. Walt decided to get a “real job” and worked at an ad company but was soon fired for not being “creative enough”.

Eventually, he started another company, Laugh-O-Grams, which also went bankrupt. Walt went to Hollywood, facing more failures and setbacks in attempts to create a

Mickey Mouse, one of Walt Disney’s most beloved creations

successful cartoon series before finally creating Mortimer Mouse. His wife insisted on changing Mortimer’s name to Mickey Mouse, who went on to stardom, overshadowing then popular Felix the Cat. Walt continued to struggle, even after winning his first Academy Award in 1932. His big breakthrough came with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. But his company kept facing financial issues as Walt was always out there chasing impossible dreams. Walt never once gave up sight of his dream to create “the happiest place in the world”. Even in dark hours when Charles Minz, a big film distributor ‘stole’ the rights of Oswald the Rabbit (the character that first put the Disney Brothers on the map) and hired away his top animators, Walt and his brother Roy kept pressing on.

Walt was never afraid to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty. Years ago, journalist Art Linkletter turned up early for the press conference of Disney’s Fantasia. He found the place empty except for one person who was busily arranging chairs. He asked, “When is Walt Disney supposed to arrive?” Walt grinned and said “I’m Walt Disney”.

Walt was always an innovator. In Steamboat Willie, he created the first-ever animated film that synchronised sound. Walt was first to use three-strip Technicolor.

He developed a two-story-tall multi-plane camera, later adopted by everyone. He made the first film with Fantasound (an early surround sound-like system), first with CinemaScope (widescreen technology), audianimatronic robots and the first colour TV programme.

Walt was never satisfied, always tinkering, fiddling with new things, seeing how far their capability could be stretched, and then creating something better. What was the secret to his innovation, creativity and imagination?

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LEADERS

DIGEST

WALT DISNEY'S IMAGINEERING' PROCESS

THE REALIST THE DREAMER Dream the future

Define the plan

THE SPOILER

Identify problems

The Three Chairs Secret As a kid, I thought Walt Disney was this wonderful fairyland.

Later, I realised that Walt Disney was ONE person. Recently, I learnt that Walt Disney was actually three.

An animator who worked for Walt said, “there were actually three different Walts: the dreamer, the realist, and the spoiler.”

Walt had a secret. His secret: three chairs. Yes, his secret was having three chairs in his office which never moved. Each chair was anchored to three different mental perspectives and he gave names to these chairs, naming them: •

The dreamer – the visionary chair where Walt dreamt the future

•

The realist – the pragmatic chair where Walt defined the plan

•

The spoiler – the critic chair where Walt questioned and identified potential problems

Walt found an approach with his three chairs exercise, calling it “Imagineering”, a term combining the words “imagination” and “engineering”.

Robert Dilts in his book Strategies of Genius: Volume One, studied Walt in great detail and adds, “Creativity involves three sub-processes: (being a) dreamer, realist and critic.

A dreamer without a realist cannot turn ideas into tangible expressions. A critic and a dreamer without a realist just become stuck in perpetual conflict. The dreamer and the realist might create things, but they might not achieve a high degree of quality without a critic.”

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The Dreamer Walt never stopped dreaming new possibilities. Walt understood that possibilities were only limited by our imagination. And his “Dreamer” chair was for this sole purpose – to sit down with unrestrained creativity, unlimited resources, and questions like “what would I love to create next”, “how would it look like” and “what would touch people’s lives”.

Walt resented limitations claiming, “I can never stand still.

I must explore and experiment. I am never satisfied with my work”. Walt the Dreamer would visualise extraordinary scenarios in his chair. Today “thinking outside the box” is the hype for innovators. Yet Walt refused to accept the existence of a box saying, “Don’t think outside the box!

Once you say that, you’ve established that there is a box.”

The Realist Once Walt spent enough time on the “Dreamer” chair, he would move over to the “Realist” chair. The Realist is pragmatic and practical. The Realist asks, “How, in practice, could we make this dream work?” He would begin the process by asking hard questions about his just crafted dream: •

What resources do I have to make this dream happen?

•

What do I need to do to make it happen?

•

How will I fund it?

•

How long will it take?

•

Who can help to make it happen?

•

What obstacles will I face and how will we overcome them?

In the “Realist” chair, Walt focused on action assuming that the idea could be done. He “felt out the idea” and worked out the idea, the story, the character, the solution.

Paul Dunn explains, “If [Walt and his team] were working on a new roller coaster, likeSpace Mountain, they imagined what it would feel like to be sitting in the roller coaster as it raced around each winding turn, slowly climbed each steep incline, rapidly dropped down each descent.”

“They noticed how the seat and the straps felt on their bodies. They heard the sounds of the roller coaster and saw the lights flashing as they coursed through the whole ride in their minds. The Realist filled in the blanks of the original idea created by the Dreamer.”

Walt believed, “our work must have a foundation of fact.

We must know everything about it. We cannot do fantastic things unless we know what is real and what is not”.

LEADERS

DIGEST

The Spoiler/Critic Walt the Critic worked this chair by asking “I know there is something wrong with this. What is wrong with this?” The focus on this chair was on “why” – “why do it this way and why do this at all?”

Walt subjected everything to rigorous scrutiny. He claims that “every foot of rough animation was projected on the screen for analysis, and every foot was drawn and redrawn until we could say, ‘This is the best we can do’”.

The Critic plays a key role in finding loopholes – things that may go wrong and uncovering issues that the dreamer and realist failed to spot.

It was essential for Walt to spot these gaps so that they could be fixed before his audience discovered them. Other questions Walt would ask sitting in his “Critic” chair are: •

What are the weaknesses of this plan?

•

Will a customer really be pleased?

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How would this look to an expert in this field?

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Is this the best? What would make it better? What’s missing?

•

Does it achieve what we set out to achieve?

The Spoiler critically evaluates the work of the Realist and Dreamer and Walt knew its importance saying “We were growing through self-criticism and experiment.

Each year we could handle a wider range of material, attempt things we would not have dreamed of tackling a year before. This is not genius, or even remarkable. It is the way people build a sound business of any kind.” To Walt, his three chairs were just sound business processes.

Leveraging Walt’s Three Chairs Dilts, who studied Walt for years, found his strategy useful not only in planning, but in coaching people: “It’s helped me understand that it’s not because people are ‘unrealistic’, or ‘wishy-washy’, or ‘cynical’ [that they don’t succeed]; it’s that they lack enough different perspectives to see things from.”

Walt died before Disney World in Florida was completed.

On launch day, someone commented to Mike Vance, creative director of Disney, “Isn’t it too bad Walt Disney didn’t live to see this?” Vance quickly replied, “Yes, he did see it. That’s why it’s here.”

Walt the leader Walt loved people, including his employees and his family, and was a great teacher who pushed his employees out of their comfort zone.

Disney employee Blaine Gibson recalls, “Walt had more confidence in us than we had in ourselves. I’m a sculptor now, but I used to be an animator. But Walt saw me as a sculptor and sold me on it. He made me believe I could do it. He gave us the confidence to do things we never imagined were possible.”

Walt had great leadership traits, including his tenacity to never give up and keep pursuing the dream, even in the most horrible circumstances.

But most importantly, Walt understood the process of innovation. He knew he needed to be willing to take chances on innovative technologies at an early stage, when others expressed concern.

Walt was always optimistic in his convictions because he knew his “imagineering” three chairs exercise had ensured he had considered all the risks and knew exactly what he was getting himself into.

Walt and Roy operated at the very edge of financial decay so many times. They risked everything they had numerous times, when many would have said “let’s play this one safe.”

Had he been just a “dreamer”, he would have died bankrupt and forgotten. He was fearless, but he wasn’t reckless.

Neither should we when it comes to innovation. All we need is three chairs and we can become “imagineers”.

If we aspire to be innovators, we need to have perspective.

I found that for each project I work on, consideration of the three perspectives helped take the project to a whole new level. Dream the impossible, then make that dream possible and then see if the critic in you can shred your work by finding flaws.

Roshan Thiran is passionate about developing Malaysia’s own Walt Disney. To partner with Leaderonomics as they attempt to “transform the nation”.

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