Cause a Disturbance: Becoming a Breakthrough Innovator

Introduction: Cause a Disturbance: Becoming a Breakthrough Innovator

When was the last time you caused a disturbance at work? I have your attention, and you must be thinking that I am crazy, but the more disturbances you cause, the more delighted your customers will be. Let me back up for a second. Yesterday, I attended “Cause a Disturbance: Becoming a Breakthrough Innovator” led by Ken Tencer, CEO, Spyder Works, which was part of the Innovation Experts Speaker Series @ Rotman School of Management. The session was very good, and there were several things that stood out for me. Tencer reported that a study showed that 75 percent of your customers who leave your company are satisfied with your products and services.

Read that again!

That means that to be successful in the marketplace, satisfaction is not enough. Customers want more than just satisfaction, you continuously have to educate, delight and engage them. Although you may offer a stellar product or service, there is always something that you can do a little better. Causing a disturbance becomes even more important because you constantly have to disrupt the status quo – you have to be a breakthrough innovator. You always have to be thinking about the new and improved. You constantly have to be innovating.

Ken Tencer defined innovation as having an idea and taking it to market. He emphasized that we have to be more consistent about bringing things to market.

3 Things You Have to Focus on to be Successful as a Breakthrough Innovator

1. Have relevant ideas more often
2. Realize that great ideas don’t have to cost a lot
3. Have really happy customers

3 Important Things about Breakthrough Ideas

1. Begin and end with the customer
2. Can be really simple
3. Comes in three forms: product, service and focus

Are you offering a commodity or a platform? The answer should be platform. You have to build a platform to benefit your customers. What is the purpose driving your idea?  When Tencer said this, it occurred to me that The Invisible Mentor is the platform that offers bite-sized learning for people on the go, so this should inform the blog posts that I write. This was an “aha!” moment for me. Knowing what your platform is forces you to focus on your purpose.

How can you build a platform, and what will it be?

6 Steps to Become a Great Company – a Breakthrough Innovator

Step One: Engage emotions, not numbers. The numbers are important in business because you have to be profitable, but what is behind the numbers? That’s where you start the conversation.

Step Two: Change customer’s life. How will your product or service change a life? Bring your products and services to life through personification. What can you do that’s a little different? Move the conversation from benefits and features to an image that personifies your product and service offering.

Step Three: Connect the dots between your brand and the customer. What are your competitors saying? Differentiate between selling and listening. Because you sell products to your customers every day does not mean that you know what they want. To know what they want, you have to ask and listen to the responses.

Step Four: Identify and rank opportunities. You now have context because you know what the market wants. You have three buckets

1. Global (value, purpose and mission)
2. Sales and marketing
3. Financial (top and bottom line)

For each opportunity, then rank it through each of the three buckets.

Step Five: Build the plan and engage your people.

Step Six: Communicate the plan. Let everyone know what you are doing because it creates momentum to get the product or service to market. When people know what you are doing, you get lots of ideas, and you need lots of ideas to innovate.

Final Thoughts: Cause a Disturbance: Becoming a Breakthrough Innovator

It's always interesting to attend talks like these because you often take away at least one great idea. What's surprising for you? Are you delighting your customers? If you could improve your product and service by 10 percent, what changes would you make?

Cause a Disturbance: If You Can Slice a Melon or Make a Right-Hand Turn, You Can Be a Breakthrough InnovatorThe 90% Rule: What's Your Next Big Opportunity? by Ken Tencer (2010-03-05)The 46 Rules of Genius: An Innovator's Guide to Creativity (Voices That Matter)