The Servant as Innovator?

Posted on November 2, 2010 by Gary R Schirr

A message from the idea of open innovation is that traditional transactional or even transformational leadership may not be sufficient to draw innovation from EVERYONE. A leader who wants to draws on the creativity of the entire organization must be empowering.

Several types of empowering leadership are practiced: one, servant-leadership, has been promoted and practiced since 1970 and has been heralded in such companies as Service Master and Starbucks (see good book by Howard Behar). The main message of servant leadership can be summarized in a few lines from Robert K. Greenleaf’s 1970 essay:

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead…“The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons?”

Does servant leadership lead to innovativeness?

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Innovation Week in Review – Oct 30, 2010

Posted on October 30, 2010 by Gary R Schirr

Short post this week as my tweeting/blogging suffered as I had to prepare my mid-tenure review packet and a conference submission on top of my teaching duties.

Tweets/articles on innovation

WSJ.com – A Web Pioneer Profiles Users by Name NoPrivacy

Creativity with Topspin -Interview w/Fred Burt – London #3 TennisAnyone @SiegelGale via @ckburgess

RT @gayas111 Nice article on “Blocks to creativity” BlockNTackle RT @careersherpa @HarvardBiz

7 Keys to Switching from a Big Company to a Small One ThinkSmall

And of course my posting on Effectuation and innovation (Part I) – see following post!

My next blog post will discuss some ideas on Servant Leadership and Innovation and the following will continue the effectuation and innovation discussion. Happy Halloween!

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Effectuation and Innovation I: avoid market research

Posted on October 26, 2010 by Gary R Schirr

Effectuation (Sarasvathy) is a theory of entrepreneurial activity based on experiential learning by organizations. Efffectuation is a prescription for innovating when the risk is unknown and unknowable. Effectuation comprises four principles presented in contrast to the causal model of marketing strategy (Sarasvathy 2001): 

  1. Affordable loss rather than expected returns,
  2. Strategic Alliances rather than competitive analysis,
  3. Exploitation of contingencies rather than exploitation of preexisting knowledge, and           
  4. controlling an unpredictable future rather than predicting an uncertain one.

In essence under “Knightian uncertainty”– where outcomes and probabilities are unknowable — an entrepreneur: enters a market based on his/her knowledge, experience and networks; keeps investments small to retain future options; and plans to shape the development of the nascent market with the help of customers and stakeholders (Sarasvathy 2008).

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Innovation Week in Review – Oct 23, 2010

Posted on October 23, 2010 by Gary R Schirr

Friday research issue: Real-time market data not market research!

Most of my twitter community seemed to approve of these themes. A couple sharp readers noted The Gap as perhaps a counter-example

I attended the annual PDMA conference last week and delivered two papers on innovation. I will likely have more to say about the conference in the weeks ahead, but one observation – the Just Do It! theme of innovation was prominent. Internet innovation is influencing all product and service innovation.

These themes are expressed in numerous ways:

  • “many crummy trials beat deep thinking” – #Fogg 2008
  • “The cost of trying is lower than the cost of analyzing” #Shirkey
  • “If you are not embarrassed by your first release, you waited too long”
  • The theory of Effectuation- entrepreneurship theory (one of my papers) – Sarasvathy

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Innovation Week in Review – October 16, 2010

Posted on October 16, 2010 by Gary R Schirr

This Friday’s question: I was hard at work preparing for presentations at the annual PDMA conference – the leading conference on product innovation – and posting a couple posts on the dangers of PPT usage:

  • Friends don’t let friends use PowerPoint – T. Stewart Fortune Mag
  • Do you think straight line progression & 3-5 points per slide format of #PowerPoint warps our brains & thought processes?

Interesting responses included the following. I only had one respondent doubt the assumption that PPTs warp the mind:

  1. I think any method that allows us to process concepts down a fore-sought path, warps our brains @KAITHACK
  2. I draw. Sheet of A4 and an idea to explain is my heaven :)) Only people keep wanting to #PowerPoint my pics. Loses impact 😦 @rossahall
  3. I’m trying prezi.com @RickShort21
  4. Probably not much more than reading left to right, front to back, and with sequentially-numbered chapters, IMHO.@agossen
  5. “Friends don’t let friends use PowerPoint~T. ->UNLESS they follow @presentationzen wisdom @ExpatCoachMegan

Innovation articles or postings of interest this week:

A warning from the discoverer of lead users: Attention Companies: Your Users Are Your Competitors LeadCompetitors – Alexis Madrigal – The Atlantic

‘What Is Creativity’s Value–In Marketing, In Biz? ‘Creativity$Valure – depreciated or simply misunderstood? @Forbes (via @ckburgess)

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This week in Innovation – October 9, 2010

Posted on October 9, 2010 by Gary R Schirr

This Friday I referred back to an article I originally wrote for the inaugural issue of SMM Magazine. Friday Innovation question: Will Social Media take a lead role in innovation? How? SMM Innovation

The question generated a lot of affirmative responses. Some interesting replies included:

I agree here’s an example of an “idea” SMMMIdea from @bernadmartin

@copywriter4u Yes it can. Enterprise 2.0 and social tools behind the firewall are enabling innovation, which should benefit customers.

@CMEGroup We’re doing this with our Idea Exchange… Idea exchange blog CME Blog Idea exchange site CME Idea EX

Student excuses – there was an interesting discussion on student excuses this week which is the subject of the following posting  ( or Excuses  )

Innovation articles or postings of interest this week:

‘What Is Creativity’s Value–In Marketing, In Biz?’ Creativity Value Is CREATIVITY depreciated or simply misunderstood? @Forbes (via ckburgess)

Collaborative Consumption is not a niche trend, CollabCons via @fredzimny RT @rachelbotsman: Harvard Business

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Did I miss anything? Excuses we hate.

Posted on October 7, 2010 by Gary R Schirr

A decade ago, I listed some innovative and some of my least favorite student excuses on Twitter. Here is a summary of mine and other examples that were offered by my community on Twitter…

Hated excuses

  • Top of the list – where we rate: “I had to meet with prof. so and so” (@theATfiles) or “I had to study for finance” (mine)
  • Universally hated: I missed class last week, did I miss anything important? (@drbret, myself and others)
  • from @J_RME “my parents already bought my plane ticket, they didn’t know we had class that day” (of course the calendar is online for a year)
  • Not the excuse itself but a student’s mother coming to school with the student to deliver his excuses. (via @PingTweets)
  • I had a chance to be in a movie last evening! (The “movie” was an installment of “Girls gone Wild”; a feminist professor was not amused...)
  • Here is a poem about “did I miss anything” question by Tom Wayman: http://www.delaneykirk.com/2006/05/did_i_miss_anyt.html (via @delaneykirk)

Regional differences

  • I was really prepared for the presentation but then I ran into my ex at Seven Eleven and we hooked up, so I didn’t make it to class (when I taught in Chicago)
  • I was prepared and keeping track of time…But I shot a six-point buck and I had to follow him (when I was new to VA)

Updates on classics and innovative new ones:

  • The dog chewed my hard drive and my project was lost (from a colleague)
  • Does your attendance policy apply to FRIDAYS? (@laurelschirr)
  • A blank paper e-submission – the student claimed it was virus problem! (from @steveshu )
  • ‘My daughter is caught up in a mudslide in Guatemala’. (@Kip_Jones)
  • ‘I had to go home to have the dog put down’. (@Kip_Jones)

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Innovation – week in review: October 2, 2010

Posted on October 1, 2010 by Gary R Schirr

Friday Innovation question: Do six sigma and other process management systems necessarily stop innovation?

This question generated a lot of retweets and interests…but a surprising limited amount of six sigma and process management defenders!

The Fortune Magazine article that started the discussion: How 3M got creative again. New management and slavish devotion to six sigma process management nearly killed the innovation tradition – but it is back! 3M back

A former blog posting of mine that discussed possible danger even for a process management system designed for new product development: Process management & innovation – danger! Process MGMT is the problem

A book review that also mentioned six sigma as innovation’s enemy: Making Ideas Happen Making Ideas Happen RT @ctmarcom

Innovation articles or postings of interest this week:

Innovation and constraints: The Genius of the Tinkerer Tinkerers #WSJ.com  

Wanted: Big Ideas from Small Fry Small Fry

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Innovation Week Sep 25, 2010

Posted on September 25, 2010 by Gary R Schirr

Friday Innovation question

The Friday question was why do organizations still use group methods – focus groups and brainstorming – for innovation ideas when it has  been shown that those methods kill ideas, especially the very best ones? Reference:

Evidence – http://servicecocreation.com/2009/07/23/brainstorming-groups-still-kill-ideas/

Zombie theory – http://servicecocreation.com/2009/08/12/zombie-theory/

Answers from twitter included you need “better moderators” [spoken like a consultant] and to increase group involvement [I believe this is key].

Articles or postings of interest this week:

How 3M got creative  again. New management and slavish devotion to six sigma nearly killed the innovation tradition – but it is back! 3M #Fortune Magazine

Looking to innovate? Get out of the office:WalkAbout via @strategicsense #Forbes [innovation by walking around?]

Move on Groupon? Innovate or Die… Groupies  #Forbes

Companies need to be opportunity focused to create an innovation culture What is an Innovation Culture? CultureClub  @Micheal_Myers  @innovate

Don’t Innovate Italian Soccer StyleItalianStyle” stretching an analogy. via @farukcapan @HarvardBizRT @farukcapan @HarvardBiz

Must read: Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution OriginofIdeas #innovation

Innovation in Education

B-Schools discover Africa Africa

What if lectures were viewed at home and “homework” was done in school? Innovation in education? (Is it legal?)  Flip “Flip-Thinking” via @DanielPink  #HR @KateNasser

Keys to Innovation

RT @McKQuarterly: McKinsey Classics: The psychology of change management ChangeMGMT

7 things to keep in mind for a crowdsourced campaign crowds  [Ndubuisi Ekekwe @HarvardBiz]via @GeorgeDearing

Is innovation a privilege of the few, or the possibility of the masses? What are you seeing at your firm? Unwashed #PWC

BMW Announces 2nd Co-Creation Lab Co-BMW

Co-creation, not focus groups for customer ideation! CrowdsourcingBW Social Media Marketing

Don’t worry about Google, fear FB! R.I.P. 3 Ways Facebook is Killing Your Website WatchFB via @nowsourcing

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Innovation: Week in Review Sept 18, 2010

Posted on September 18, 2010 by Gary R Schirr

Interesting articles, blogs and tweets on innovation that came to my attention this week:

Innovation in Education

I focused my Friday tweets on issues in education. Many twitter friends seemed to agree that innovation is especially hard in education because of (1) third party payers, (2) institutional inertia, (3) focus on professionals not “customers” and (4) government inertia. Some other thoughts included:

What if lectures were viewed at home and “homework” was done in school? Innovation in education? (Is it legal?)  Flipping “Flip-Thinking”  via @DanielPink @KateNasser

Case for free, open & timely access to world university rankings WorldEd from @schools4me @GlobalHigherEd –

Keys to Innovation

Co-creation, not focus groups for customer ideation! ForgetFocusGroups

The Path to Improved Innovation Performance – Innovate – Drew Marshall @innovate

The Surest Way to Destroy an Innovation Initiative HowtoKillInnovation #HBR @HarvardBiz

An interesting – part interview with the creative director at Saatchi on the ‘Seven Keys to Creativity’. Interview w/ @Tim_Leake Creative Dir. Saatchi (Part 3 – also see parts 1 and 2)  SaatchiWisdom @ckburgess

Buyer Experience Innovation: Five Management Principles BuyerExperience RT @socialmedia2day

Social Media Marketing

Don’t worry about Google, fear FB! R.I.P. 3 Ways Facebook is Killing Your Website MeetTheNewBoss via @nowsourcing

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