Woo hoo!
The Kindle version of Best Practices Are Stupid is now available for pre-order on Amazon.
The updated editions of the ebook and paperback will launch on September 29th – the 12th anniversary of the book’s original release.
Note that the original version (with the yellow lightbulb on the cover) is available from resellers only. To get the latest and greatest, be sure to buy the one with the purple cover.
Summary of Tip 6 (of 40) from Best Practices Are Stupid.
With tip 6 (of 40), we move into the “process” portion of the Best Practices Are Stupid book.
We explore the need for diversification.
Too many safe bets, in the long run, are unsafe.
If you only invest in incremental innovation, you may miss big opportunities. Conversely, if you always swing for the fences (i.e., placing risky bets), you may fail too many times before you have a success.
The key is creating an innovation portfolio with four different categories of risk: Continue reading >>
How do you summarize a 40,000-word, 200+ page book into one page?
When the book was originally released, Sacha Chua created this wonderful infographic that summarizes each of the tips.
Although a few of the names have changed in the updated edition, the concepts remain the same.
To save this document, right-click and save on your computer.
After 16 months of waiting, the USPTO has finally approved my FAST Innovation® trademark.
FAST Innovation is more than a buzzword. It stands for the four key steps of the innovation process I have been using for over a decade:
F = FOCUS: Innovate where you differentiate. Focus on the parts of the business that have the greatest impact. This is the topic of my book that will be released in 2024.
A = ASK: Ask better questions as a means to finding better solutions. This is the topic of my Invisible Solutions® book.
S = SHIFT: Shift your focus away from your area of expertise to find breakthrough solutions. This requires collaboration, and my Personality Poker® system can help with this.
T = TEST: Don’t glorify failure. Instead, embrace effective experimentation as a means of reducing risk. Best Practices Are Stupid – my soon-to-be-rereleased book – addresses this topic and more.
Summary of Tip 5 (of 40) from Best Practices Are Stupid.
Today’s tip is about finding breakthrough solutions.
My perspective is that our past experiences can limit our ability to see new and different futures. In other words, expertise is the enemy of innovation.
This was validated by Lee Fleming’s research at Harvard, which showed that breakthroughs often arise from multidisciplinary collaboration, achieving results often more valuable than specialized teams.
How do we deal with this?
If we want to look outside our areas of expertise, one powerful question to consider is, “who else?”. Who else has solved a similar problem but for a different problem set?
One example I love is a toothpaste manufacturer that wanted to create a whitening toothpaste without harsh abrasives or bleach. They found a solution by talking to people in their laundry care division. The blue dye helps make clothes whiter. Armed with this idea, they created a toothpaste with a blue dye that helps make teeth look instantly whiter.
One of the expressions I used during my 2009 TEDxNASA speech sums it up nicely: Continue reading >>
Summary of Tip 4 (of 40) from Best Practices Are Stupid.
This tip is the reason I wrote the book Invisible Solutions. The concept is so important yet overlooked.
Leaders often encourage employees to “think outside the box” to boost creativity. However, this unbounded approach can lead to impractical solutions. A more effective method is to offer a “better box” with constraints, as this can guide and amplify creativity. This aligns with the notion of “Challenge-Centered Innovation.” Companies have an array of challenges, from technical to marketing to HR. The key to innovation is to accurately identify and address these challenges. A challenge-centered approach to innovation has several benefits over the typical idea-driven method:
Summary of Tip 3 (of 40) from Best Practices Are Stupid.
This is a favorite of mine and one that so many organizations get wrong.
Companies often seek innovation by soliciting ideas from employees, but this approach typically yields impractical, low-value suggestions, cluttering the innovation process. This inefficiency underscores the importance of the “signal-to-noise ratio” in innovation. Originally an engineering term, the signal-to-noise ratio differentiates valuable input (signal) from irrelevant or unproductive noise. In innovation, the ‘signal’ represents valuable, implementable solutions, while the ‘noise’ includes impractical or irrelevant ideas. To optimize this ratio in innovation, organizations should reconsider open-ended idea solicitation. Traditional suggestion boxes often get flooded with ‘noise,’ making the identification and implementation of the few valuable ideas time-consuming and challenging.
This chapter goes into a lot more detail and sets the stage for the next tip, which was the inspiration for my Invisible Solutions book: Don’t Think Outside the Box, Find a Better Box. Continue reading >>
Summary of Tip 2 (of 40) from Best Practices Are Stupid.
Lipps Inc, The Sugar Hill Gang, and Haddaway, known for hits like Funky Town and What is Love, exemplify “one-hit wonders.” This phenomenon parallels businesses that shine momentarily but later fade. To prevent becoming a corporate one-hit wonder, make innovation predictable and sustainable, treating it similarly to other organizational capabilities, like finance. Key components for sustainable innovation are:
We are about 40 days away from the relaunch of Best Practices Are Stupid: 40 Ways to Out-Innovate the Competition.
Therefore, each day leading up to its publication, I will share highlights from one of the tips.
So let’s start at the beginning.
The key to surviving and thriving is nimbleness. It’s not about the size of your organization but rather your ability to adapt, evolve, and change as needed.
To drive consistent change, most organizations go through three levels:
Level 1: Innovation as an Event: This is where most companies find themselves. They conduct brainstorming sessions or hold random contests to generate new ideas. If a good idea is produced, some value is added to the organization. In some cases, the idea may even lead to tremendous value. However, a considerable amount of work generally needs to happen between idea generation and its realization. Continue reading >>
September 29th, I will be re-releasing my award-winning book, “Best Practices Are Stupid.”
This updated version includes new chapters, commentary on all 40 tips, and more.
Stay tuned!
