When your brand has been poisoned...

Those attempting deliberate approaches to innovation leadership are often rejected because their clients, managers or organizations have had a bad experience with someone else using the same name for their approach.  Companies with valuable brands spend a lot of money defending their brands and their reputations, but little is done in the areas of deliberate creativity and innovation.

There are some incredible potentials and competencies in areas such as team building, brainstorming, organizational development, value engineering, Six Sigma, TQM, etc. Unfortunately, there have been some really bad implementations using these names that now cause people to reject anything with those labels.

Since Alex Osborn and The Creative Education Foundation started promoting the concept of brainstorming in the late 40's and early 50's, everyone in the world seems to use the word.  They often use it for awful meetings in which ideas are thrown up and immediately shot down, in which rigid problem definitions make it obvious that nothing can be done.  Others endure forced silliness with no resulting insights.  Trying to sell a brainstorming session to people with repeated experiences like this is basically impossible.

Ironically, one reason for this situation is that few of these processes are done right because many managers will only embrace crippled versions of these techniques. Managers who really need culture improvement seem to select consultants who don't require them to actually do culture improvement. In TQM, Deming warned that it cannot be about motivational programs and banners, but those are the programs that got hired and implemented. Re-Engineering as described is an incredibly powerful process with lots of great benefits, but generally was used to sell computer hardware and software services, rarely taking a functional look at processes, especially when that made it obvious the computers were not needed.

Part of the problem is "experts" who think they understand a process, but actually have a shallow and inaccurate view.  I have seen people who think they understand brainstorming completely blow up a meeting into chaos and conflict.

This means that those who intend to be innovation leaders need to address two issues. The first, obviously, is to make sure you are actually competent in the processes you are using.  The other is to make sure that decision-makers understand the differences between your approach and the ones they have heard about or experienced.

When I sold my first 40 hour value engineering workshop to my employer, even though I had strong support from a very strong general manager, I visited every member of the general manager's team and discussed the program and its benefits for them, and especially how it differed from the cost reduction programs they had experienced in the past.

I also explained its benefits to their departments.  I asked the engineers if they were tired of marketing asking for impossible features and explained that the process would give engineering a chance to push back.  I asked marketing if they were tired of engineering designing stuff they could not sell, and explained how the process would let them clarify their needs with engineering.  And so on with each department head, showing how improved interdepartmental communication in a creative meeting would resolve many of their frustrations.

When I made a short overview presentation to the division manager's meeting, I had complete support.

This fits the "instant salesmanship" course I often teach to my students.  Step one is sell to their pain, not yours.  You may love innovation, but they often just want things to work better. You have to disconnect them from all the pain they have about "flavor of the month" programs, and show how you will effectively and safely address their key concerns.

The second element is that as soon as they raise an objection, you say "You are absolutely right, and that is why you should accept my plan..."  then use your creativity to finish the sentence.  If they say that innovation is a waste of time, you say they are absolutely right and but your structured process gives much better results in the time used, or whatever.

Most importantly, remember again and again that your mind is a bad predictor of the perspective of another.  You may see group brainstorming as one of your favorite uses of time, while the other has countless painful memories of awful meetings labeled brainstorming.  Until you break that "brand identity" link, you will not get their cooperation.

Once they start to attach an image of quality to you and your approach like a brand, you will get busier and busier.