Innovative: 3 Steps Ahead / 10 Steps Ahead. . .
The word “innovative” has a shine of “never before seen” and a whisper of adventure. It is one of those words that catches people’s attention.
It also gets used far too much.
So, what is innovation? What makes something innovative?
Over the next few blog posts, I will lay out my thoughts on “innovative”.
Years ago, my dad told me:
Walk 3 steps ahead and you’re a leader: people will follow you.
Walk 10 steps ahead and you’re a rebel: people will stone you.
While the exact numbers are placeholders, the principle is true.
A leader needs to live in two paradigms:
10 Steps: On a personal and strategic level, a leader must look as far ahead as possible for opportunities, risks, and changes. Their personal growth and strategic foresight need to be ahead of the people they lead. While the leader may have a small circle of advisors who share this long-range view, this part of their leadership will be invisible to most people.
3 Steps: For their followers, a leader must lead at a pace that challenges the followers to join the adventure – not at a pace that overwhelms them with fear or despair. A wise leader knows this pace will change as external influences impact the line between adventure and fear in those following their leadership.
Innovative products or services fall under the same rod.
In the development lab, the product or service needs to reach as far as possible into the future – divining and determining its long-range viability, development, and growth.
In the marketplace, the product or service needs to be innovative enough to excite a sense of adventure in the target market. At the same time, it needs to be anchored in the target market’s “comfort arena” - being an “old friend” and a “new adventure” at the same time.
Steve Jobs was good at hitting this balance. We may never know the many varied products the Apple development labs created behind closed doors. With Steve Wozniak in the lab during the formative years, you know there must have been some pretty futuristic inventions.
Yet when Steve Jobs brought products to market, he brought out products people could readily identify with. At the same time, these products moved his target market into technology they had never seen or touched before: to desktop computers, to personal entertainment devices, to smart phones, and on to smart devices.
For his computers, Steve Jobs didn’t create an “operating system” like his competitors had. He created an on-screen environment his target market would feel “at home” with. His products, over time, stepped into newer technology and use cases, but the user environment advanced 3 steps ahead of his followers – creating adventure to engage them and not technological terror to overwhelm them.
If innovation reaches a bit ahead, people will adopt it. If it reaches too far ahead, people will reject or ignore it.
Risk is a part of innovation. Each person / company / market / society has a set risk tolerance. Beyond that risk tolerance line, fear or despair will propel them to reject or ignore innovative products or services no matter how good or helpful they may be.
The key is: know your target market and bring them products or services that comfort and inspire them – without overwhelming them.
That is truly innovative.