Waiting for an elevator can be so annoying, especially in Vegas or during conferences: You have four elevators to choose from, four different crowds are assembling, betting on that specific elevator. If you bet on the wrong elevator, you might have to wait for the next one. Or the fourth one.
Even worse: Little kids that push every button. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, 56,57,58, 59. If your room is on the 60th floor, you just lost 10 minutes of your life.
They solved these little annoyances of business travel rather elegantly: When you push the up/down button, an arrow immediately indicates what elevator will be the next one to take you to your destination. Even better: Inside the elevator, when you push a button by mistake, you can undo your choice. Kids just got less annoying.
Companies often focus on the big things: the big strategies, the big changes. More often than not, all that it takes is a small change. Thoughtful. Insightful. Valuable.
There is always a fair amount of conversation surrounding innovation in business. It’s one of those curious words that people are familiar with but don’t really grasp. I felt this way, so I did what I often do and stepped back to look at the origins of the word and its definitions:
Now, when innovation is typically referred to in a business setting, it generally implies something completely new, revolutionary, or groundbreaking.
Does it need to be?
I’d like to focus on the origins of the word – from the perspective of renewal or altering – instead of focusing on bright shiny objects we typically bill as innovative (FourSquare, your new Social CRM, iPad, Twitter, Sales Force Automation tools, Facebook fanpages, etc).
Let’s focus first on renewing and altering our foundations. Redesign or “innovate” organizations not only from a tool perspective but from a people perspective.
I’ll leave you with a great talk by Roger Martin surrounding the concept of Design Thinking. I recommend listening to this (and reading his book) and hope it inspires you as it did me.
