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The 5 Gifts of Uncertainty

The 5 Gifts of Uncertainty

by | Sep 30, 2020 | Innovation, Leadership, Stories & Examples

“How are you doing?  How are you handling all this?”

It seems like 90% of conversations these days start with those two sentences.  We ask out of genuine concern and also out of a need to commiserate, to share our experiences, and to find someone that understands.

The connection these questions create is just one of the Gifts of Uncertainty that have been given to us by the pandemic.

Yes, I know that the idea of uncertainty, especially in big things like our lives and businesses, being a gift is bizarre.  When one of my friends first suggested the idea, I rolled my eyes pretty hard and then checked to make sure I was talk to my smart sarcastic fellow business owner and not the Dali Lama.

But as I thought about it more, started looking for “gifts” in the news and listening for them in conversations with friends and clients, I realized how wise my friend truly was.

Faced with levels of uncertainty we’ve never before experienced, people and businesses are doing things they’ve never imagined having to do and, as a result, are discovering skills and abilities they never knew they had.  These are the Gifts of Uncertainty

  1. Necessity of offering a vision – When we’re facing or doing something new, we don’t have all the answers. But we don’t need all the answers to take action.  The people emerging as leaders, in both the political and business realms, are the ones acknowledging this reality by sharing what they do know, offering a vision for the future, laying out a process to achieve it, and admitting the unknowns and the variables that will affect both the plan and the outcome.
  2. Freedom to experiment – As governments ordered businesses like restaurants to close and social distancing made it nearly impossible for other businesses to continue operating, business owners were suddenly faced with a tough choice – stop operations completely or find new ways to continue to serve. Restaurants began to offer carry out and delivery.  Bookstores, like Powell’s in Portland OR and Northshire Bookstore in Manchester VT, also got into curbside pick-up and delivery game.  Even dentists and orthodontists began to offer virtual visits through services like Wally Health and Orthodontic Screening Kit, respectively.
  3. Ability to change – Businesses are discovering that they can move quickly, change rapidly, and use existing capabilities to produce entirely new products. Nike and HP are producing face shields. Zara and Prada are producing face masks. Fanatics, makers of MLB uniforms, and Ford are producing gowns.  GM and Dyson are gearing up to produce ventilators. And seemingly every alcohol company is making hand sanitizer.  Months ago, all of these companies were in very different businesses and likely never imagined that they could or would pivot to producing products for the healthcare sector.  But they did pivot.
  4. Power of Relationships – Social distancing and self-isolation are bringing into sharp relief the importance of human connection and the power of relationships. The shift to virtual meetups like happy hours, coffees, and lunches is causing us to be thoughtful about who we spend time with rather than defaulting to whoever is nearby.  We are shifting to seeking connection with others rather than simply racking up as many LinkedIn Connections, Facebook friends, or Instagram followers as possible.  Even companies are realizing the powerful difference between relationships and subscribers as people unsubscribed en mass to the “How we’re dealing with COVID-19 emails” they received from every company with which they had ever provided their information.
  5. Business benefit of doing the right thing – In a perfect world, businesses that consistently operate ethically, fairly, and with the best interests of ALL their stakeholders (not just shareholders) in mind, would be rewarded. We are certainly not in a perfect world, but some businesses are doing the “right thing” and rea being rewarded.  Companies like Target are offering high-risk employees like seniors pregnant women, and those with compromised immune systems 30-days of paid leave.  CVS and Comcast are paying store employees extra in the form of one-time bonuses or percent increases on hourly wages.  Sweetgreen and AllBirds are donating food and shoes, respectively, to healthcare workers.  On the other hand, businesses that try to leverage the pandemic to boost their bottom lines are being taken to task.  Rothy’s, the popular shoe brand, announced on April 13 that they would shift one-third of their production capacity to making “disposable, non-medical masks to workers on the front line” and would donate five face masks for every item purchased.  Less than 12 hours later, they issued an apology for their “mis-step,” withdrew their purchase-to-donate program, and announced a bulk donation of 100,000 non-medical masks.

Before the pandemic, many of these things seemed impossibly hard, even theoretical.  In the midst of uncertainty, though, these each of these things became practical, even necessary.  As a result, in a few short weeks, we’ve proven to ourselves that we can do what we spent years saying we could not.

These are gifts to be cherished, remembered and used when the uncertainty, inevitably, fades.

Originally published on Mat 19, 2020 on Forbes.com

Why “Innovation” is Killing Innovation (Hint: it involves peanut butter and cats)

Why “Innovation” is Killing Innovation (Hint: it involves peanut butter and cats)

by | Sep 24, 2020 | Innovation, Tips, Tricks, & Tools

Innovation is not peanut butter.

You can’t smear it all over something and enjoy the deliciousness.

In other words, “Innovation” is not a one-sized-fits-all term.  If you apply it to everything new and different that you’re doing, you’ll be confused, frustrated, and ultimately left with very little to show for your efforts.

In a previous post, I defined Innovation as something different that creates value.  For companies to increase their odds of creating value, however, they need to develop a language and discipline around at least three different types of innovation.

Why do I need different types of innovation?

Imagine if we used the word “Cat” to describe every feline from a house-cat to a lion.  If you proudly proclaim that you just got a new cat, people might wonder whether that purchase was truly legal.  If you yell, “There’s a cat behind you!” people might not react with the level of urgency required.

Specificity enables rapid understanding which leads to better decision making.

Labeling everything new and different with the term “innovation” can result in dramatically under-resourcing some efforts and prematurely canceling others.  After all, launching an entirely new business model takes far more time, money, people, and patience than launching an improved version of an existing product.  You need a language that reflects that.  

Why do I need at least three types of innovation?

Because, after decades of research and application, academics and practitioners alike seem to agree that two is too few and, since three comes after two and three seems to work, you need at least three.  (Doblin said 10 but that feels like too many to remember).

Which three should I use?

The three that best reflect your company’s strategies, priorities, and culture.

I know that’s a bit vague, but the truth is that there is no one right answer.  The only “right answer” I’ve ever seen is the one that sticks, that advances key corporate strategies, and that enables thoughtful decision making.

Start Here

When one of my clients is at the very beginning of building their innovation capability, we start simple

  1. Core Innovation is improvements to what they currently do
  2. Adjacent refers to innovations which combine existing and new elements (e.g. selling an existing offering to a new customer, selling a new offering to an existing customer, or monetizing an existing offering in a new way)
  3. Breakthrough innovations change everything (e.g. new offerings to new customers, monetized and delivered in new ways)

We then develop a high-level innovation process that can apply to all three (this helps with communication across the company and reinforces that everyone can participate in innovation). From there, we create more detailed structures, processes, tools, trainings, and timelines for each type of innovation to ensure that we have a balanced innovation portfolio, allocate appropriate levels of resources, and set realistic expectations with regards to timelines and ROI.

But what about (fill in the framework here)?

Again, the two most important things about innovation types are that (1) you define them and (2) they are practical, actionable, memorable, and enable progress against your strategic priorities.

That said, there are other Innovation Type frameworks from which you can draw inspiration.  Here are three of the most popular

McKinsey’s 3 Horizons Making its debut in the 1998 book The Alchemy of Growth, McKinsey’s 3 Horizons frameworks remains a favorite amongst consultants and executives (but not Steve Blank, who thinks it no longer applies).

The book argued that for companies to kick-start growth or continue to grow rapidly, they need to simultaneously focus on three “horizons of growth:”

  1. Horizon 1 ideas drive continuous improvements in existing offerings, business models, and capabilities
  2. Horizon 2 ideas extend the core to new customers or markets
  3. Horizon 3 ideas create new capabilities or businesses in response to disruptive opportunities or threats

Clayton Christensen

In his 2014 Harvard Business Review article, “The Capitalist’s Dilemma,” Professor Christensen wrote that the terms he famously coined, “disruptive” and “sustaining” innovation, are not types of innovation, rather they describe “the process by which innovations become dominant in established markets and the new entrants challenge incumbents.” Innovation types, however, should describe the outcome of the innovation.  The three he identified are:

  1. Performance-improving innovations that replace old products with new better models
  2. Efficiency innovations that enable companies to sell existing products to existing customers at lower prices
  3. Market-creating innovations that combine an enabling technology that rapidly reduces costs with a new business model to reach new customers, resulting in the creation of (as the name implies) entirely new markets.

P&G

From 2000 through 2012, P&G, under the leadership of CEO AG Lafley,  improved its innovation success rate from 15% to 50% and doubled the average size of successful initiatives.

One of the first steps in achieving these dramatic results was to define 4 types of innovation.

  1. Commercial innovations that increase trial and use of existing products
  2. Sustaining innovations that make existing products better, faster, cheaper, or easier to use
  3. Transformational innovations that deliver a step-change improvement in a product’s performance, ultimately setting new performance expectations for a category
  4. Disruptive innovations (new brands or business models) that “win through simplicity or affordability”

 

OK, I’m on-board.  How do I start?

My clients and I follow these four steps:

  1. Put a stake in the ground and name 3 types of innovation. Don’t overthink it.  Just pick three types and go on to step 2
  2. Share the types (names and definitions) with people and see how they react. Do they immediately understand?  Do they look confused?  Do they recoil in horror?  Get curious about their reactions and ask for feedback.  Refine your types and their definitions until a majority of people immediately understand (note: you’re not going for 100% agreement because that never happens, you’re going for “good enough with no one violently disagreeing)
  3. Map your innovation initiatives to each type.
    • Are there types with no initiatives? Is that type critical to achieving a strategic priority or key metric?
      • If yes, you have a gap in your portfolio.
      • If no, get rid of the type.
    • Are there initiatives with no types? Is that initiative critical to achieving a strategic priority or key metric?
      • If yes, create a type to describe that (and hopefully other) initiatives.
      • If no, get rid of the initiative.
  4. Share your innovation portfolio with key decision-makers and start developing your innovation strategy.

 

Congrats, you have a working draft of your Innovation Types!  You’ve taken a crucial first step in your journey getting real results from innovation.  Reward yourself with some peanut butter!

How to Transform WFH into the Best Thing to Happen to Innovation in Your Company

How to Transform WFH into the Best Thing to Happen to Innovation in Your Company

by | Sep 18, 2020 | Innovation, Tips, Tricks, & Tools

The seasons may be changing but, for most, there is no end in sight for our new Work From Home (WFH) existence.  The prospect of more months of working from the kitchen table, searching for a quiet spot for a Zoom call, and juggling personal and professional responsibilities on a minute-by-minute basis is frustrating and overwhelming for most.

It’s also raising questions about the future of work.  Will companies still maintain large physical office spaces? What new symbols of power and status will take the place of the corner office?  Will people need to re-locate when they change companies?  When, if ever, will co-workers gather together in person?

How will company culture form? Will innovation continue or stall?

It is those last two questions, about culture and innovation, that every single one of my clients, all executives with responsibility for growth and innovation at their companies, have been asking and struggling to answer for the past few months.

They fear that the isolation of WFH eliminates the serendipitous collisions of people and ideas that ignite innovation.  They worry that the artificiality of Zoom meetings diminish the authenticity of conversations.  They know that the explosion of meetings contributes to people’s feelings of overwhelm, draining their energy, curiosity, and creativity.

But what if it doesn’t have to be this way?

What if the opposite is be true?

What if WFH accelerates innovation?

I believe it can.

I believe it will if we are willing to take the following steps

 

1. Stop trying to re-create the real world in the digital one.

One of the most common mistakes companies make when adopting or adapting to a “new normal” is cutting and pasting the old into the new.

For example, consider the newspaper industry.  In 1980, when the first newspapers went online, the offered text versions of their print editions.  As internet speeds increased, they shifted to offering visual images of their print editions.  It wasn’t until subscriptions and ad revenues began to plummet that they realized they couldn’t simply “cut and paste” their print editions into a digital format but rather needed to create content specific for the digital medium.

The same thing is happening today.  Hoping to spur serendipity and create casual conversations, companies spent the Spring and Summer hosting Zoom Happy Hours and virtual coffee chats.  The results were even more awkward and less useful than the usual in-person “mandatory fun” events.

 

2. Recognize that the things that spur innovation are not “one size fits all.”

Today’s workplaces were designed for extroverts.  Open-floor plans, unassigned desks, glass-walled conference rooms, community tables, and endless brainstorming sessions feed extroverts’ desire for engagement, energy, and interaction.

Introverts, of which I am one, hate it.

We work best when we can sit quietly, think deeply, look at things from multiple angles, and then share it with the world.  Working from home gives us the space (if not the quiet) to be thoughtful and creative in the ways that best suit our styles.  Because of this, we’re more likely to speak up in meetings, share ideas, and reach out to people.

 

3. Create innovation approaches and activities purpose-built for a workforce that WFH.

Identify the most essential parts of the real-world experience.  Be careful not to confuse “essential” with “favorite”.  Yes, it may be fun for you to be in a room of people furiously shouting out ideas and writing them on sticky notes.  But the only essential part of that is getting ideas from multiple people.

Identify the most unique parts of the WFH experience.  It can be hard to bring diverse perspectives into a brainstorming session at the office, but at home, you have ready access to perspectives from kids, friends, and that random guy who walks his dog past your house while you enjoy your morning coffee.

Combine the essential parts of the real-world experience with the unique parts of the WFH experience and create something that works in the digital space.  For example, instead of brainstorming, sorting, and prioritizing ideas all in one meeting (like you did in the “old days”), send the brainstorming topic to people 24-hours before the meeting.  Ask them to brainstorm ideas before the meeting and come prepared to share them with the group.  Once each person shares their ideas with the group, then the group can collectively discuss, build, group, and prioritize.

 

Innovation happens because people have the freedom to think of new things, permission to share their thoughts, and the opportunity to work with others to bring it to life.

Not just because we bump into people in the hallway or sit next to someone new.

You don’t need an office for those things.  You can have all those things, and more, if you let go of the old normal and embrace the “new WFH normal.”

Back to (Buzzword) Basics: Growth, Innovation, and Transformation

Back to (Buzzword) Basics: Growth, Innovation, and Transformation

by | Sep 2, 2020 | Innovation

“When people hear ‘Innovation’ they think of shiny new objects.  So, we don’t really use that word anymore.  Now we talk about growth.”

My friend, a VP of Innovation Growth at a large media and entertainment company summed up the state of “innovation” pretty well with that comment.

“Innovation” has become a meaningless buzzword and, after decades of failed investments and initiatives, corporate executives have grown tired of its theatrics and empty promises.

I don’t blame them one bit.

But swapping out one word for another simply because it has less baggage is not the answer.

It’s like putting a Rolls Royce hood ornament on a Kia and trying to sell it for $80,000.  It just doesn’t work.

 

Let’s get back to (buzzword) basics.

Here’s a break down of Growth, Innovation, and the latest addition to the buzzword pantheon, Transformation.

GROWTH

  • Buzzword-iness: 🙄
  • What it is: Improving some measure of a business’ success, usually by increasing the top line (revenue) or bottom line (profit)
  • Why it is important: Growth is how you stay in business, especially in competitive markets
  • When to do it: Always

INNOVATION

  • Buzzword-iness: 🙄 🙄 🙄
  • What it is: Something different that creates value, a key driver of growth
  • Why it is important: Innovation is how to stay competitive, either by copying competitors or improving internal processes (“different” is relative to your company’s status quo), or by creating or doing something new.
  • When to do it: Always and ideally before you are confronted with a burning platform because that is when the resources required for successful innovation (time, money, people, and patience) are in the shortest supply.

TRANSFORMATION

  • Buzzword-iness: 🙄 🙄
  • What it is: Profound or radical change that dramatically reorients the purposes, processes, structures, and practices or an organization.
    • Often confused with:
      • Turnaround: Positive and sustained reversal of negative conditions while maintaining or only incrementally changing the organization’s purpose, processes, structures, and practices
      • Digital Transformation: Use of digital technology to solve problems usually requiring the transformation of processes from non-digital or manual to digital
    • Why it is important: Transformation is how the organization stays in viable for the long-term (e.g. decades or centuries)
    • When to do it: Transformation is required when it becomes clear that the organization’s current business model (i.e. how it creates, captures, and delivers value) will eventually cease to generate value due to fundamental shifts in the market, technology, customer preferences and behaviors, and/or competitive forces

 

The Basic Bottom-line

Growth is required for organizations to stay viable.  There are a variety of ways to achieve growth including, but not limited to, selling existing offerings to new customers, selling new things to existing customers, and reducing costs.

Innovation is one of the ways that organizations can grow and is most effective when it is used strategically and consistently.

Transformation is required when the likelihood of long-term growth diminishes and the only way to remain a viable entity is to radically and fundamentally change the nature of the organization.

 

Now that we’ve got the right hood ornaments (definitions) on the right cars (words), I hope that my friend can keep working on innovation and avoids operational efficiency efforts.  After all, as a VP of Growth, both could reasonably fall under her mandate.

 

Buzzword-iness Scale:

🙄 (1 eye roll): Relates to an essential topic but is probably overused and/or used in a way that is so ambiguous as to elicit sighs, knowing glances, or eye rolls.

🙄 🙄 (2 eye rolls): Appears with greater frequency in the business press and consultant presentations; lots of senior executives and consultants use the term but no one can quickly or concisely define it or explain why it’s important.

🙄 🙄 🙄 (3 eye rolls): Inescapable and meaningless but has been used for so long that we’re stuck with it; lots of people use the term, everyone has their own definition, most can explain why it’s important, few have successfully done it.

 

The Innovator has No Clothes: Innovation’s 3 Great Lies

The Innovator has No Clothes: Innovation’s 3 Great Lies

by | Aug 26, 2020 | Innovation

I love stories.  When I was a kid, my parents would literally give me a book and leave me places while they ran errands.  They knew that, as long as I was reading, I wouldn’t be moved.

But there was one story I hated – The Emperor’s New Clothes

I hated it because it made absolutely no sense.  It was a story of adults being stupid and a kid being smart, and, to a (reasonably) well-behaved kid, it was absolutely unbelievable.

No adult would try to sell something that doesn’t exist, like the clothiers did with the cloth.  No adult would say they could see something they couldn’t, like the Emperor and the townspeople did.  Adults, after all, don’t play at imagination.

As a kid, this story seemed completely wild and unrealistic.

As an adult, this story is so true that it hurts.

The truth of this story touches so many things and innovation is at the top of the list.

I’ve spent my career working in innovation working within large companies and as an advisor to them.  I know what executives, like the emperor, request. I’ve said what the consultants say to sell their wares.  I believed all of it.

Now I need to be the kid and point out some of the lies, as I see them.

 

Lie #1: Companies can disrupt themselves
Truth #1: Companies can but they won’t

There are lots of reasons why companies won’t and don’t disrupt themselves but, in my experience, there is one reason that trumps them all: It’s not in anyone’s interest.

In most companies, there is not one single person, including the CEO, who has a vested interest (i.e. is incentivized) in taking the time and allocating the resources required to disrupt the current busines.

In most companies, however, there are lots of people who have a vested interest (i.e. make lots of money) in delivering on quarterly or annual KPIs.

Disruption takes time.  It took more than 20 years for the hard disk drive industry, the focus of Clayton Christensen’s doctoral research and the basis of the theory of Disruptive Innovation, to be disrupted.  Even in today’s faster-paced world, it’s hard to find an industry that, in a span of 5-10 years, ceased to exist as a result of disruptive innovation.

Companies have the resources to disrupt themselves.  But executives don’t have the incentive.

 

Lie #2: If companies act like VCs, they’ll successfully innovate
Truth #2: If companies act like VCs, they’ll go bankrupt

OK, this one is more false than true.

Companies need to engage in multiple types of innovation:

  • Improving their core
  • Moving into adjacent markets by serving new customers or offering something new or making money in new ways or using new process, resources, and activities
  • Creating something breakthrough that changes the basis of competition

Companies should only “act like VCs” when dealing with breakthrough innovations.

VCs are purpose-built to be financially successful in environments where there are more unknowns than knowns.  This is why the central tenant of acting like a VC is adopting a portfolio approach and making little bets in lots of companies.  When large companies who take this approach to breakthrough innovations, they, like VCs, invest in lots of initiatives thus increasing the odds of investing in a winner.

However, companies that “act like VCs” when it comes to their entire innovation portfolio simply dilute their resources, investing too little in too many things and ultimately decreasing their already low odds of innovation success.

This is because when engaging in core and adjacent innovation, the bulk of innovation pursued by large companies, the knowns typically equal or outweigh the unknowns.  As a result, it makes more sense to NOT act like a VC and make medium to large bets in a few initiatives, enabling companies to rapidly launch and scale their core and adjacent innovation initiatives.

 

Lie #3: We can pivot our way to success
Truth #3: If you’re not solving a problem, no amount of pivoting will bring success

The fact that the emperor and all the townspeople believed the emperor was wearing clothes didn’t make it true.

And no amount of “pivoting” – it’s not silk, it’s wool!  It’s not green, it’s blue! – was going to make it true.

The same can be said for innovation.

If the innovation isn’t solving a problem, there is no market.  Shifting from a product to a service, won’t change that.  Nor will changing from a transaction-based model to a subscription model.

Pivoting is how you fit a square peg into a round hole.  It’s not how you create a hole for your square peg.

 

Of course, it’s easy to come up with one, or two, or maybe even three examples of the lie being true.  It is those one, or two, or even three examples that are trotted out in every speech, book, article, and consulting pitch to convince us to believe.  But the reality is that the exceptions, in this case, prove the rule.

After all, the emperor wasn’t completely naked.  He was wearing a crown. 

But that doesn’t make the lack of clothes any less embarrassing.

5 Ways to Go Beyond Your Customers & Serve All of Your Stakeholders

5 Ways to Go Beyond Your Customers & Serve All of Your Stakeholders

by | Jul 29, 2020 | Customer Centricity, Innovation, Strategy

Over the past several weeks, I’ve kicked off innovation projects with multiple clients.  As usual, my clients are deeply engaged and enthusiastic, eager to learn how to finally break through the barriers their organizations erect and turn their ideas into real initiatives that generate real results.

Things were progressing smoothly during the first kick-off until a client asked, “Who’s my customer?”

I was shocked.  Dumbfounded.  Speechless.  To me, someone who “grew up” in P&G’s famed brand management function and who has made career out of customer-driven innovation, this was the equivalent of asking, “why should I wear clothes?”  The answer is so obvious that the question shouldn’t need to be asked.

Taking a deep breath, I answered the question and we moved on.

A few days later, the question was asked again.  By a different client.  In a different company.  A few days later, it was asked a third time.  By yet a different client.  In yet a different company.  In a completely different industry!

What was going on?!?!?

Each time I gave an answer specific to the problem we were working to solve.  When pressed, I tried to give a general definition for “customer” but found that I spent more time talking about exceptions and additions to the definition rather than giving a concise, concrete, and usable answer.

That’s when it struck me – Being “customer-driven” isn’t enough.  To be successful, especially in innovation, you need to focus on serving everyone involved in your solution.  You need to be “stakeholder-driven.”

 

What is a customer?

According to Merriam-Webster, a customer is “one that purchases a commodity or service.”

Makes perfect sense.  At P&G, we referred to retailers like WalMart and Kroger as “customers” because they purchased P&G’s products from the company.  These retailers then sold P&G’s goods to “consumers” who used the products.

But P&G didn’t focus solely on serving its customers.  Nor did it focus solely on serving its consumers.  It focused on serving both because to serve only one would mean disaster for the long-term business.  It focused on its stakeholders.

 

What is a stakeholder?

Setting aside Merriam-Webster’s first definition (which is specific to betting), the definitions of a stakeholder are “one that has a stake in an enterprise” and “one who is involved in or affected by a course of action.”

For P&G, both customers (retailers) and consumers (people) are stakeholders because they are “involved in or affected by” P&G’s actions.  Additionally, shareholders and employees are stakeholders because they have a “stake in (the) enterprise.”

As a result, P&G is actually a “stakeholder-driven” company in which, as former CEO AG Lafley said in 2008, the “consumer is boss.”

 

How to be a stakeholder-driven organization

Focusing solely on customers is a dangerous game because it means that other stakeholders who are critical to your organization’s success may not get their needs met and, as a result, may stop supporting your work.

Instead, you need to understand, prioritize, and serve all of your stakeholders

Here’s how to do that:

  1. Identify ALL of your stakeholders. Think broadly, considering ALL the people inside and outside your organization who have a stake or are involved or affected by your work.
    1. Inside your organization: Who are the people who need to approve your work? Who will fund it?  Who influences these decisions? Who will be involved in bringing your solution to life?  Who will use it?  Who could act as a barrier to any or all of these things?
    2. Outside your organization: Who will pay for your solution? Who will use your solution?  Who influences these decisions?  Who could act as a barrier?
  2. Talk to your stakeholders and understand what motivates them. For each of the people you identify by asking the above questions, take time to actually go talk to them – don’t email them, don’t send a survey, actually go have a conversation – and seek to understand they’re point of view.  What are the biggest challenges they are facing?  Why is this challenging?  What is preventing them from solving it?  What motivates them, including incentives and metrics they need to deliver against?   What would get them to embrace a solution?  What would cause them to reject a solution?
  3. Map points of agreement and difference amongst your stakeholder. Take a step back and consider all the insights from all of your stakeholders.  What are the common views, priorities, incentives, or barriers?  What are the disagreements or points of tension?  For example, do your buyers prioritize paying a low price over delivering best-in-class performance while your users prioritize performance over price?  Are there priorities or barriers that, even though they’re unique to a single stakeholder, you must address?
  4. Prioritize your stakeholder by answering, “Who’s the boss?” Just as AG Lafley put a clear stake in the ground when he declared that, amongst all of P&G’s stakeholders, that the consumer was boss, challenge yourself to identify the “boss” for your work. For medical device companies, perhaps “the boss” is the surgeon who uses the device and the hospital executive who has the power to approve the purchase.  For a non-profit, perhaps it’s the donors who contribute a majority of the operating budget.  For an intrapreneur working to improve an internal process, perhaps it’s the person who is responsible for managing the process once it’s implemented.  To be clear, you don’t focus on “the boss” to the exclusion of the other stakeholders but you do prioritize serving the boss.
  5. Create an action plan for each stakeholder. Once you’ve spent time mapping, understanding, and prioritizing the full landscape of your stakeholder’s problems, priorities, and challenges, create a plan to address each one.  Some plans may focus on the design, features, functions, manufacturing, and other elements of your solution.  Some plans may focus on the timing and content of proactive communication.  And some plans may simply outline how to respond to questions or a negative incident.

 

Yes, it’s important to understand and serve your customers.  But doing so is insufficient for long-term success.  Identifying, understanding, and serving all of your stakeholders is required for long-term sustainability.

Next time you start a project, don’t just ask “Who is my customer?” as “Who are my stakeholders?” The answers my surprise you.  Putting those answers into action through the solutions you create and the results they produce will delight you.

Originally published on March 23, 2020 on Forbes.com