In previous columns, I've written about the importance of vision and seeing over the horizon to anticipate future needs, and of the power of storytelling to help identify nonobvious needs. Recently, I've been pondering another important ingredient for disruptive innovation: bravery. Rarely is innovation a Eureka moment realized by a single individual. Rather, it is the result of a series of discoveries and decisions executed over time--more evolutionary than purely revolutionary. Regardless of your beliefs about the trajectory of the change or the time period over which it develops, innovation is executed through a series of choices. But over the past three decades, I've seen many companies making choices in a way that stymies innovation and stifles creativity. Instead of visionary individuals or teams choosing between clearly articulated alternatives, the more common approach is to make choices by committee through consensus. The result is a reduction to choices between alternatives that reflect the lowest common denominator of features that satisfy the needs of most members of the committee. Far too often, these alternatives emerge as a series of PowerPoint presentations (often put together as decks) that reflect the elements of the choices, but neither their underlying logic nor the tradeoffs required to reach them. For example, when I worked at Intel, it was not unusual to see product features emerge through a series of PowerPoint decks, created over the course of many meetings, and eventually decided upon by a senior-level committee. There are three aspects to the decision-by-committee that bother me. First, a committee--whether formally constituted or emerging through participation in meetings--is not a team. On a team, individuals interweave their efforts to attack a common challenge, motivated by a clear sense of the problem at hand and a clear set of indicators for success. The team develops a point solution that is optimized for the specific problem at hand. But a committee is not focused on a single problem and must balance the needs of a set of individuals. Thus its choices, while acceptable from many perspectives, are not necessarily the best solution to any single problem. Second, a slide deck does not make a vision. Not to pick on PowerPoint specifically, but this type of software was developed to facilitate public speaking, not to organize and illuminate ideas. Edward Tufte (2003) argues that the linear nature of these presentations obfuscates the real choices that are made in the creation of the slides themselves. The presentation reflects the logical argument, but in doing so, ignores the richness of the underlying discussions that led to the argument. Tufte further asserts that PowerPoint and other slideware fragment information; by their very nature, they force the presenter to rely on a thin version of the story. In other words, the story is lost in the facts. In the context of new product development, it is essential to understand the genesis of the choices presented to fully determine the underlying risks. Third, choosing among a set of alternatives that reflects the lowest common denominator waters down the innovation potential. Truly disruptive innovations are bold and often aimed at a very specific target of potential users or customers. Lowest common denominator solutions, on the other hand, are generally acceptable, but not exceptional. In today's fast-paced, information-overloaded environment, a product or service must be exceptional to stand out. When taken together, these three factors explain why so few companies can conceive of and execute disruptive innovation, and instead settle for incremental innovation: the decision-making process itself is complicit. …
Read full abstract
Aug 16, 2017
Robert W Faff 
Open Access