Visionaries See Trends — Innovation Makes It Real

Invention isn’t ruled by public opinion. While there is no such thing as a crystal ball, many big bets were executed because someone boldly envisioned a different future — one not yet seen by others — and pursued it.”— Jean Case, CEO, Case Foundation

Case, in her book, Be Fearless: 5 Principles for a Life of Breakthroughs and Purpose, argues that our most significant achievements often come from a willingness to “peek around the corners” — make an educated guess about what the future holds — and run with it.

Invention isn’t ruled by public opinion. If I’d asked people what they wanted, they’d have said, ‘Faster horses,’” — Henry Ford

The visionaries who create new realities must be able to peek around corners and see what others cannot. Upon the introduction of the automobile, people’s minds turned to the downsides of this new contraption, the risks. It is always that way with new things. Please think of the fears in our modern era about driverless cars. Many of history’s most significant innovations have come from visionaries who had to wait then for the world to catch up.

Erin Wapnick describes the incredible power of multipotentialites, as real innovation occurs at the intersection of two disciplines. Multipotentialites’ often have innovation superpower, as they have their interests in multiple areas, so they more readily see these intersections. It is part of their performance DNA.

When Innovation Reaches Mainstream

When an advancement reaches mainstream acceptance, we lose sight of what life was like before. Can you imagine life without an Internet connection? While I bought my first PC over 35 years ago, an IBM clone that had two 5.25” floppy drives — no hard drive—one for swapping program disks and the other one for swapping data discs.  The 5.25-inch diskettes were available in a capacity of 160 KB single side, 360 KB low density and 1.2 MB high-density sizes. Twenty years ago, only one in four families owned a computer! Today, many people have three or more — laptop, tablet, and a smartphone — and that is just for personal use.

100 Million Customers or Bust

America Online (AOL) launched in 1985 when fewer than 3 percent of Americans were online at the time. Users averaged one hour per week. Few jobs needed computer skills. Mobile phones were more massive than a lunch box. I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard, “Why would I ever need email?” or “My business doesn’t need a connection to the Internet.”

However, the vision to democratize access to ideas and information is a compelling one. Many persisted on making it a reality.

When Paul Allen and I started Microsoft in the late seventies, we had big dreams about software. We had dreams about the impact it could have. We talked about a computer on every desk and in every home. It’s been amazing to see so much of that dream become a reality and touch so many lives. I never imagined what an incredible and important company would spring from those original ideas.” — Bill Gates

It took AOL nine years to get their first million customers. However, it took just seven months to get the second million. Today, investors in tech start-ups want to know how long it will be to get 100 million customers. The telephone was launched in 1878 and took 75 years to reach 100 million users, Netflix took 20 years, Amazon Prime took 13 years, Facebook took four years, and Instagram took two years, while Candy Crush hit the target in less than a year.

Lessons from Jeff Bezos

Peeking around corners involves either watching where the trends are headed or deciding to start a new one. Amazon is an example of this. At a time when people were nervous about putting credit card information online, Amazon got consumers so comfortable with online purchasing that people now allow companies to store their credit card information, track their purchases, and make personal recommendations for other items they might enjoy.

Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos’s life story is the embodiment of both the be fearless principles and the American Dream. He was born to a seventeen-year-old mom, and when he was four years old, his mom married a Cuban immigrant. Growing up, Bezos spent summers with his grandparents on a ranch in Texas doing chores.

We fixed windmills, and laid water pipelines, and built fences, and barns, and fixed the bulldozer.” — Jeff Bezos

He speaks of lessons taken from his experiences on the ranch, from the down-to-earth nature of problem-solving to the importance of teamwork.

First Investors

As a hedge fund manager in 1994, he told his parents about his idea to start an Internet company. The Internet had grown 2,300 percent in the previous year. His parents were his first investors, handing over most of their savings to invest in his internet bookselling business.

They weren’t betting on the idea, because they didn’t understand the idea. They were betting on their son — even after I warned them that there was a 70 percent chance, they’d lose their entire investment.” — Jeff Bezos

Bezos left his lucrative Wall Street career to jump into the emerging tech market. However, as he later explained, “

I knew when I was eighty that I would never, for example, think about why I walked away from my 1994 Wall Street bonus right in the middle of the year at the worst possible time. That kind of thing just isn’t something you worry about when you’re eighty years old. At the same time, I knew that I might sincerely regret not having participated in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a revolutionizing event. When I thought about it that way . . . it was incredibly easy to make the decision.”

It turned out he was onto something. Within a month, Amazon.com was doing $20,000 in sales. A year later, he raised $8 million in capital. In 1997 the company went public. The following year, Amazon started selling music and videos, and soon other products too, including electronics, household goods, and toys.

Too Big?

Amazon has grown to be a very successful company. Economist Paul Krugman has claimed that Amazon “has too much power, and it uses that power in ways that hurt America.” This view is shared by others who blame Amazon for declines in their retail sales. However, others argue that Amazon did not create this decline. Bezos recognized a trend and capitalized on it. He appealed to what most of us want: more choice, more convenience, and more competitive prices.

Success Breeds Failure

Looking at Fortune 500 firms 1955 v. 2016: Only 12% remain, thanks to the creative destruction that fuels economic prosperity.

The fact that nine of every ten Fortune 500 companies from 1955 are gone, merged or contracted shows that there has been a lot of market disruption, churning, and creative destruction over the last six decades. It is reasonable to assume, 60 years from now that almost all of today’s Fortune 500 companies will no longer exist as currently configured. New companies in new, emerging industries will replace them. The constant turnover in the Fortune 500 is a positive sign of the dynamism and innovation that characterizes a vibrant consumer-oriented market economy. Moreover, that dynamic turnover is speeding up in today’s hyper-competitive global economy.

Innovation Must Continue

Innovation is crucial for long-term business survival. Despite innovation frequently being integral to the survival of businesses, it is still relatively difficult to achieve. I provided insight that considers organization areas in which innovative leaders set themselves out from the pack.

While organizations themselves see a need to innovate, considering new opportunities–the current lack of preparedness is likely to hinder development. Certain groups are better able to develop innovation. The ‘innovation leaders’ provide insight into how other firms may be able to boost their innovation activity.

Amazon has kept innovating

They look around corners and find new opportunities. When Amazon introduced the Kindle e-reader in 2007, there were few eBooks. About 20,000 were available for download. By the time, the Kindle went on sale; Amazon had increased that to 90,000. Today Amazon has more than five million eBooks available, millions more on other platforms, and vibrant eBook publishing industry.

Other innovations include video streaming service and smart devices like Alexa populating households everywhere.

Constantly Looking

Leaders who drive innovation are looking to keep up with changes, as well as develop their innovative solutions and propositions.

Innovation Requires the Right People

Culture and recruitment remain hurdles to success. Organizations struggle to recruit the innovation people they need for success. Interestingly, 82% believe that their performance management approach rewards uniformity over creativity.

Based on performance DNA, we predict, with 85% reliability, the likelihood that an individual will exceed expectations in a specific role. One of the 85 traits we measure is innovation. Also, how people approach understanding problems and generating solutions, is driven by four performance competencies,

• Seeks Innovation— Thinking expansively and showing profound imaginative insight to find wise but innovative solutions.
• Thinks Conceptually— Having a curiosity to search for root causes, a desire for intellectual complexity and a holistic perspective on problems.
• Reasons Critically— Tackling intellectual ambiguity by using logic, quantitative support, and consequential thinking to find common sense solutions.
• Communicates Clarity— Offering persuasive and articulately written and oral recommendations, and believing problem-solving needs subtle verbal sophistication.

You need a best-fit hiring process to get the right people and develop a culture of innovation at your organization.

Our new offering uses SuccessFinder’s research of high performing leaders from managers to CEOs. Our Ladder of Leadership, performance competency model identifies the ten critical competencies at each level. The research identified the two fundamental performance competencies that are important at every level of management — Leads Decisively and Thrives in Chaos. It is noteworthy that "Seeks Innovation." a discriminating competency at the C-Level. requires 

Concluding Thoughts

Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years.” — Bill Gates

Success happens because of watching where trends are headed, deciding to start a new one, and having the ability to capitalize on the intersection of solving today’s needs with novel approaches — innovation.

• People need to get from one place to another — Uber serves the need at a lower cost, while continually seeking customer satisfaction feedback.
• Folks need to stay someplace when out of town — AirB&B serves the need at a lower cost, while continually seeking customer satisfaction feedback.
• We are going to buy stuff — Amazon serves the need and supplies more choice, more convenience, and more competitive prices.

As Thomas Edison once said, “Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.” Business success is often defined by moments of creative genius. However, we cannot just wait for brilliant ideas to come to us—we must put in the work, too. While there is no crystal ball, today’s big successes materialized because someone boldly envisioned a different future — one not yet seen by others — and pursued it.

What kind of world do you want to see? What kind of future do you want to build? It would be best if you tuned out those who do not share your vision; built the team, technology, and organization to execute, and persevere toward your goal.

Think Big

I follow a slight modification to Edison’s approach when it comes to business: 99 percent of the work is execution (if your smart, you do not need to sweat), 1 percent is only the idea. That is the simple formula for success. When you are thinking big, you should set a big and audacious long-term goal. This goal creates a sense of urgency. Moreover, it gets you out of thinking too small.

Your long-term goal:

• must be clear and compelling
• connects to your strategy
• is long-term, a minimum of 10 years or longer
• expands your organization’s current capabilities
• feels as if it is 70% achievable
• is measurable

We focus on supplying strategic insights to, expand your thinking, create a strategy, shape your long-term goal, build the capabilities, and the management systems to achieve success.