Tip 4: Don’t Think Outside the Box; Find a Better Box
Summary of Tip 4 (of 40) from Best Practices Are Stupid. Don’t Think Outside the Box; Find a Better Box 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 […]
Tip 3: Asking for Ideas is a Bad Idea
Summary of Tip 3 (of 40) from Best Practices Are Stupid. Asking for Ideas is a Bad Idea 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 […]
Tip 2: Avoid Becoming a One-Hit Wonder
Summary of Tip 2 (of 40) from Best Practices Are Stupid. How Can You Avoid Becoming a One-Hit Wonder? 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 […]
Tip 1: Not Survival of the Fittest – Survival of the Adaptable
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. Tip 1: Not Survival of the Fittest – Survival of the Adaptable […]
Best Practices Are Stupid
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!
Best Practices are Stupid
I previously started posting the 40 strategies from my Best Practices are Stupid book. But I completely forgot to include the introduction. So I am going back to that for this post. As you read this and the other chapters, please remember that this book was published back in 2011. Although the principles remain the […]
14. Your Market Research Sucks! (part 2 of 2)
Here is the second half of tip 14 from Best Practices are Stupid. Be sure to read the previous post before reading this one. Your Customers Don’t Know What They Don’t Know Innovators looking for input from consumers must assume that consumers cannot always (and may not want to) explain themselves, their behaviors, their attitudes, […]
14. Your Market Research Sucks! (part 1 of 2)
Tip 14 from Best Practices are Stupid…remember this is from over 10 years ago. Splitting this into two posts. Imagine you are a hearing aid manufacturer and you want to develop the next generation of product. You conduct surveys and focus groups and discover that nearly 80% of the hearing impaired population, despite the recommendations of […]
13. Lessons from Indiana Jones®
Tip 13 from Best Practices are Stupid. Here I explore the lessons from one of my favorite movies of all time. In 1989’s “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” the nerdy archeology professor Indiana Jones advises students to “forget any ideas you’ve got about lost cities, exotic travel and digging up the world. We do […]
12. Avoid Mobsourcing
Tip 12 from Best Practices are Stupid… Imagine you are the former Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Your state is struggling with myriad issues ranging from a perpetual and growing deficit to a decaying education system to an infrastructure that can’t handle the ever-increasing population. What do you do? Like any good innovator, you turn to […]