Wheel reinvention is over-rated

I love Tom Peter's quote - "forget reinventing the wheel, concentrate on your home grown wheel makers" from The Little BIG Things.

For some time now I have been questioning the so-called logic "don't reinvent the wheel". It just seems to be an excuse to limit creativity and innovation. Just keep tweaking the same-old and you'll just get more of the same-old.

Of course there are pragmatic/economic/time-saving reasons to tweak what we already have, but is that at the expense of creativity and innovation - I think so.

The wheel has been invented, it revolutionised the world in so many ways - personally, interpersonally, commercially. It has been invented and cannot be reinvented. So there ends the argument.

New ideas and new ways of doing things are fresh and exciting and bring new energy. Wheel makers will make the right wheel for the vehicle, terrain and purpose.

You can't put a bike wheel on a lorry. You can't even put a racing bike on a mountain bike. So before you come out with the line... "we don't want to reinvent the wheel"... think again. Perhaps you need a new wheel altogether for this new turn in the road.

#111 The Innovation 15: What we know so far... (163 ways to pursue excellence - Peters)

Innovation and leadership legend, Tom Peters has summarised his four decades of work on the subject of innovation to the top 15:
1. Try it, Repeat, Repeat - He who tries the most stuff wins.
2. Celebrate failure - not tolerate, but celebrate.
3. Relentlessly decentralise - more statistically independent tries
4. Parallel universe - when facing resistance to change, set up a separate "new world"
5. Searchers - forget reinventing the wheel, concentrate on your home grown wheel makers
6. Hang out axiom - hang out with 'interesting', get more 'interesting'...hang out with 'ordinary', get more 'ordinary'
7. "d"iversity - lowercase 'd' diversity means diversity on any dimension imaginable
8. Co-invent with outsiders - creating new inputs and a great test bed - the power of "everybody"
9. "Strategic" listening - core competence - harvest ideas from any and every source imaginable
10. Hire and promote innovators - the best test is a track record of innovation
11. XFX/Cross functional excellence - 90%of innovation requires or can immeasurably benefit from working across functional borders
12. Complexity and systems destruction officer - systems are imperative. Systems constrain and strangle
13. R&D Equality - may be the "value added Secret #1"
14. Fun! Self deprecation! - Innovation is about breaking the rules - often our rules.
15. Good luck! - Entropy rules! Performance deteriorates.

from "The little BIG things:163 ways to pursue excellence" by Tom Peters (2010)

Encountering resistance to change amongst your team?

Seth Godin has a great blog, a prolific ideas machine, he is constantly coming up with gems. This one is called:

Frightened, clueless or uninformed.

CHANGE is very confronting to people. When we are initiating and leading them through change we often encounter pushback. If we can recognise the root of the problem we can address the negativity in a much more constructive way. So depending on how they react, lead your team members in a way that helps overcome the way they are feeling.

'Frightened' will resist any help given and will probably shoot the messenger.

'Clueless' don't know what to do, don't know what questions to ask. Instructions don't help.

'Uninformed' just need information to know what to do next.

So, as Seth says: Comfort the frightened, coach the clueless and teach the uninformed.

Read his full blog: sethgodin.typepad.com

I've got his new book on order - Linchpin - can't wait.

Key motivators for your team? You may be surprised to learn....

What do you think really motivates your team members?

600 managers from dozens of companies were asked to rank five factors on employee motivation –

1. recognition
2. incentives
3. interpersonal support
4. support for making progress
5. clear goals

The managers’ number one was “recognition for good work (either public or private)”. But they were way off the mark.

Teresa Amabile from Harvard Business School and Steven Kramer, and independent researcher and writer undertook a multi-year, study of hundreds of knowledge workers in a wide variety of settings. They found that recognition was the factor that participants ranked last, and that the top motivator of performance is progress.

In her diary a worker wrote: I felt relieved and happy because this was a minor milestone for me.

2 questions:

1. How does this affect you as a leader? The best thing about this is that the key motivation is largely within your control. As leaders we have great influence over events that can facilitate or undermine progress. Amabile and Kramer reinforce that we must scrupulously avoid impeding progress by “changing goals autocratically, being indecisive or holding up resources”. Unfortunately, the effect of negative events on emotions and motivation is generally greater than the positive ones. The participants generally noted that a demotivating setback was the most prominent event in the team member’s worst day.

2. How can you proactively create the perception and the reality of progress? 

Take care to clarify overall goal

Ensure efforts are properly supported

Refrain from creating time pressures so intense that minor glitches are perceived as crises, rather than learning opportunities 

Cultivate a culture of helpfulness

Facilitate progress in a more direct way: Roll up your sleeves and pitch in.

Celebrate incremental progress. Of course recognition can and does motivate your team, but if your people aren’t moving forward, then there’s nothing to recognize. Recognition can’t necessarily happen everyday, but progress can.

Reference: HBR January-February 2010/ Amabile & Kramer

Breakthrough ides for 2010” What really motivates workers – Understanding the power of progress

It was true in 1977

In 1977 Prahalad wrote a piece in the Hardard Business Review about the "responsible manager". He reviewed the points for the January 2010 issue and nothing has changed:

• Leadership is about change, hope and the future
• Leaders have to venture into uncharted territory, so they must be able to handle solitude and ambiguity
• Display a commitment to learning and developing yourself. Leaders must invest in themselves
• Good leaders are inclusive
• Be concerned about due process. People seek fairness - not favours
• Put personal performance in perspective. Humility in success and courage in failure are hallmarks of a good leader
• Be ready to invest in developing other people
• Be unstinting in helping your colleagues realise their full potential
• Balance achievement withe compassion and learning with understanding

He concluded the article: "Every year I revisit my notes about the responsible manager...The world has changed since then, but I haven't found it necessary to change a word of my lecture. Indeed the message is more relevant today than ever." C.K. Prahalad, HBR Jan 2010