Here are five points I presented at the Business School at the University of Richmond awhile back to help Business students understand some factors they may not have learned in class, but I believe are critical in leading innovation.
AFDI (Actually F*****g Doing it)
The ability to execute dreams cannot be stressed enough. Dreaming is easy. Doing is the hard part. We live in an era of hollow mission statements. The denial factor is rampant as companies threaten to change, but rarely do. The acceptance that change/evolution is necessary is as far as it goes…creating a false comfort. In technology, evolution and aggressive improvement is in their DNA, whereas it’s often over-analyzed and polluted with negativity in most other sectors.
AFDI means getting to the heart of that change for real forward progress.
BREAKING THE RULES:
Challenging the rulebook is not anarchy. To break the rules, you must understand them, and knowing that some rules are timeless, others are not, as you cannot design the future without understanding the past. If it requires radical and unpopular thinking, so be it, as America is in a deadly creative crisis and only those who push for re-inventing playbooks that are decades old will move the Country forward. Change will not happen with flowery business plans and an “everything will be fine when the economy improves” sense of denial. We live in an Apple/Google era unfriendly to dated thinking. America has an ‘expert’ problem. Too many ‘experts’ working on a game plan that has been inherited and is subject to dated ‘rules’ that speeds declines into irrelevancy by the minute.
CREATING FANS OUT OF USERS:
Whether its Southwest Airlines or The Dave Matthews Band, these brands have Fans while most companies appear to do everything they can create commodities over fandom. Much of it stems from “marketing lies” and focus group morphine that deadens America’s corporate thinking to a fear driven committee vs. an revolution driven spirit of brilliance mentality. And “The autopilot” syndrome where execution is in a ‘check off the box’ mode vs. an instinctive re-thinking mode. American companies celebrate average…embrace vanilla and live within their own walls at a time of monumental cultural change. The “Cool factor” is often misunderstood, marginalized or written off as overly arty when it is a key new definer of success.
COMPLETENESS:
You must illuminate ALL of the senses. The eye, ear and brain must be stimulated. American media is a good example of one sided stimulation. Is radio “theater of the mind”? Does TV blow away the eye? Does print engage the mind in an A.D.D. culture? Of course not. It needs to…and those are just the obvious examples. We are in dimensional environment where all the senses need to be engaged on today’s terms. Great technology does this where a product looks, sounds and engages the brain on a higher level. Eye + Ear + Brain (done right) =
THE BIG FIVE:
PASSION: That spiritual belief in the mission and high standard that only passion can generate….America can detect passion and respond to it just as they can detect BS and respond it that. America’s BS Radar is on high gain.
CHARACTER: The magic that defines a product…whatever it is. Cultures that allow character to thrive. A balance of artistry and commerce that generates magic that resonates above the noise.
FEARLESSNESS: A willingness to step out for what you believe in to fight the feat of change that pollutes corporate America
QUALITY: Real quality vs. ‘marketed quality.’ The brand isn’t the quality driver, the product is. You can’t market change, you must AFDI.
APTITUDE: Allowing aptitudes to shine and explore. Most Wall Street driven companies are aptitudinally one dimensional. Bottom line and nothing else matters. That is obviously a critical component! Whereas liberating and engaging a wider scope of aptitudes, often beyond the traditional MBA definition is what takes brands to new levels economically, culturally and in sync with the 21st Century.
You will hear how this thinking is idealistic and out of sync with mainstream practices. Maybe it’s those mainstream practices are the reason America is losing it’s foothold of innovation.
— Lee Abrams, former Tribune Chief Innovation Officer
