Have you ever attempted to drive a car with both feet? If so, you may appreciate the inefficiency of figuratively driving a business with both feet.

One foot is trying to go and the other is going for the stop. There is opposing management of the directions. The two actions start to overlap and cause opposition.

Business leadership and strategy should cut this out; Every division, every role, every customer interaction traveling in the same direction. 

Why do so many leaders drive their business with both feet?
Some people don’t know where they should go; others don’t know how to drive. Start/Stop; Start/Stop.

Tips and strategies for personal organization are very important. However, the ability to determine the next important action is mandatory.

Why hold things together with organization when things are not important?

Another key trait for Innovation Glue is the ability to solve problems. Life is full of problems and that means that life can be full of solutions. However, the ability to spot problems is not good enough. We must target and shoot.

You may call it planning and execution; others may rely on stage-gate decision, missions statements, visionary leaders, fish bone diagrams and even kaizen.

The people that spot and shoot are driving all of these things. They are holding things together.

Can you do both?

A trite question like ‘What do you sell?” may sound like a waste of time to you.  It could seem like a mere philosophical question.

The answer to the question can appear to be simple; “We sell widgets.”  Some may say that there other  important  questions like “Did we charge enough?”, or “When will the purchase order be here?”, or “Do we have materials?”

Perhaps, the answer to the question is not only “widgets.”

Are you selling things, or are you selling an experience; maybe both? Do you sell trust and confidence?

If you can’t articulate what you actually sell then you can’t articulate how you will succeed.

The word innovation generally conjures images of iphones, lightbulbs, and new to the world products. The new products cause excitement and wonder in our minds and in reality.

Innovation can also mean valuable service bundled with valuable ideas. The key word is value.

The Anticipation Triangle:

1. EVALUATE your customer’s Position:  Needs, Goals, Movements, and Desires.

The forces, environment, and struggles that shape your customer yields a customer position. View this position with qualitative and quantitative observation.

2. ANTICIPATE-Create value where your customer’s position will be in the future.

The act of Anticipation involves creative planning, design, investment and dreaming.

3. DELIVER the value when the customer needs it most.

The delivery is the  commercialization and communication; the outputs of the evaluation and anticipation.

The Result of the Anticipation Triangle is Customer Excitement and Fulfillment.

The customer may not realize their new position until you deliver, yet your level of effort and  investment depend upon anticipating the customer’s position.

You must anticipate it. Your team must anticipate. You must realize that the triangle exists.

Your next new role, business or project is an opportunity for success.

The opportunity is lik a wooden platform lying on the ground. You can choose to step over and bypass the opportunity or turn the platform into a step up; an opportunity to make progress. This applies in both business and  personal relationships.

To turn your platform into a step, you must elevate it with legs.

The legs of your endeavor are the fundamentals; the foundations.

The legs include your buildings, processes, profit and losses,  customer relationships,  experiences; whatever requires your focus and supports your platform.

The challenge is to focus on constructing all of the legs; something that is stable and will not fall.

A business can’t focus on P&L without due attention to customer value and operational processes. A parent must focus on instruction, demonstration, love, and time. The fundamentals are mutual and related.

If you want to be the innovation glue that can help build, grow, develop and advance, then look around at your platforms. Are you focusing on a few fundamentals and forgetting the others?

Don’t be surprised that your platform is not sturdy and your success is unlikely; are your legs the same size?

Can you imagine a  circus that shows animals dressed up in weird clothes and jumping through imaginary hoops?

Sad isn’t?

This may be an odd spectacle of theater and  insanity but “imaginary hoop jumping” happens all the time.

Excitement builds around a new product line extension shelf-space opportunity, new customer, etc.

The “imaginary hoop’ has formed and everyone starts jumping……..UNLESS…someone with some innovation glue can hold on and resist.

Someone with Innovation Glue will piece together some actionable insights, pointed questions, and target deliverables; If that happens, the rest of the group may cease jumping through those imaginary hoops?

Ideally, the true customers and markets materialize and the jumping can commence with passion and reason; through real gates of success.

Getting the cart before the horse is a plague on business:

- Not understanding the customer requirements before development begins.

- Starting production without proper specifications.

- Developing markets without the right people.

- Buying companies without the proper due diligence.

Why do we do these things?

Because the new cart is exciting…..and we can find an old horse later.

Recognize and understand the value of actionable insight and informed decisions. Be the Glue!

If own a business, work in a business, or sell your services to an employer, you have a customer.

Want to create value for your customers?

You need to see the interconnected webs of people, tasks, goals, failures, and signals.

It’s a connected system.

Imagine a business as a large spiderweb; Why does a gentle tug on one side of the web yield a movement on the other?   How does your brain count, remember and dream? The connections work together for the good of the whole.

Innovation Glue is the mixture of  human qualities and skills that foster  new ideas and growth. it  requires a bit of systematic thought and problem solving.

Just a few examples of the results of systematic thinking:

- Understanding the interplay of business processes,

- Improving the quality of goods and services,

- Understanding the needs of a customer

- Manufacturing efficiently and effectively

Whether we are creating new business or improving old ones, we need people that can see  the problem, the solution and the way to get there.

Are you weaving  spiderweb systems?

Last week, I watched a co-worker figuratively slam his head into the wall of corporate reality. You see, both his expectations and his manager’s did not meet reality. Thus, his employment was terminated.

I’ve seen a similar outcome with product development projects that did not yield profitable fruit. When expectations do not meet reality, then success is difficult.
Holding your innovation efforts together and commercializing a valuable commodity needs A Realistic Expectation of Success. Otherwise, you hit your head!

Developing an innovative business concept or embarking on an entrepreneurial venture demands a leader with vision, but the leader must also support the many talents of the team to accomplish the results.

“Support” is the key word here because it includes adherence to “chain of command,” commitment to strategical objectives,  and fostering thought and debate.

If this type of support is not available, then you don’t have effective leadership. You have “fire drills” and other desperate attempts at obtaining your business aspirations. When you rely on hope more than your leaders for vision and support, then you may have already lost the hope you desire.

On the flip side, real leadership is excellent Innovation glue…..holding  innovation and marketing together.

Excellent people and thought comprise a major portion of Innovation Glue.

A company’s physical and intellectual assets contribute to great innovation and marketing success, but people hold it together.

Insightful leadership, focused strategies, and actionable consumer insights have at least two things in common.

Fundamental contributions to great innovation and marketing and excellent people.

A product development process is an important tool that helps mobilize and focus an organizations innovation efforts.

Decisions, ideas, and goals are gathered, processed, and refined.

If innovative organizations have a process to guide product development efforts, should you have a personal process to guide your own development, career progression, or personal branding?

Why would you let another company, another group, or another person run your business? If they can do a better job, then so be it, but can they?

You are a business. You produce, you consume, and you profit. Are you managing yourself like a business?

If you are letting others “guide” your career, your happiness, your self-worth, your value, or your effectiveness, then stop. They are probably busy managing other things.

Instead, run your business and make it grow. Create new value for people and make things better, innovate. This personal drive for forward momentum is an ingredient for innovation glue, and it is not an external stimulus. Rather, it is internal awareness that your are a business, and you are the leader.

As this blog has formed within the past few months, I’ve learned a valuable and simple lesson.

Thinking and doing creates more thinking and doing.

I love to learn and think.  I discuss and draw my thoughts. There’s a lot of learning going on as I verbally and visually arrange my thoughts.

Doing is much more satisfying than talking; so progressively

Talk, Draw, Think, Learn and Do.

When I hear the phrase, “Jack of all trades, master of none,”  I tend to cringe because this pithy little quote implies that you can’t be a master of many things. Napoleon Hill also got into the topic when he said, ” The jack-of -all trades seldom is good at any. Concentrate all of your efforts on one definite chief aim.”

In this age of constant information, fast computers, accelerating time lines, and reduction of workforces, what is a knowledge worker to do when faced with these challenges? What do we need to stay a float and swim?

We need the ability to do many things well and know how to find the people and information to fill in the gaps.

The innovation team can be more productive when the members fully understand the different thought processes. Knowing what marketing managers need and appreciate allows R&D to anticipate opportunities, test and research in advance. Conversely, why should a marketing manager throw up the hands when confronted with the inner workings of the very products, processes, and designs that the business markets? Preposterous!

If you’ve ever been tempted to say “I don’t know much about this technically… I’m just a marketer.”, then you probably need to learn about your business and products with a different perspective.
In the military, I’m told that officers are encourage to specialize and rotate amongst assignments. This rotation may not be mandatory in every case but it is supported. Likewise, when developing products to market, if two people are equally qualified on paper, highly recommended, and have demonstrated success, then I’d hire the fellow that has seen more parts of business or market.

It is valuable to specialize and master something, yet a lifetime of learning and doing can create many opportunities to master, apply, and repeat. Learn about science, learn about economics, learn about marketing, learn about web design and printing. More than anything, commit to learning.

The full “jack of all trades” quote that is usually edited by the “specialist” crowd reads,
“Jack of all trades, master of none, though ofttimes better than master of one.” Now this is more like it.

When we create products, there are times when a problem appears. A cross functional team that develops the products for market will have some surprise “issues” and, collectively, they will have to make quick judgments on how to proceed.  Innovation Glue requires the wisdom of a great team leader to make good decisions, but I’ve learned that another ingredient of Innovation Glue is the decision making abilities of the team members.

What are some types of innovation project problems? When a product idea is under development, a packaging failure, a cost misalignment, or a customer change request can cause a derailment of your progress. This issue of innovation project problems and decision making may be related with the Squirrel and Nut analogy.

Let’s say you’re driving a car down a happy little road (Bob Ross’ The Joy of Painting anyone?). A small, furry problem with a tail scrambles into your lane and starts doing his “confusion dance.” There’s the squirrel. 

Now your automatic response to this issue will take effect and there are several responses that people tend to have. Your automatic response to the squirrel can dictate both your safety and others. Likewise, your innovation project may hit some snags if you mishandle a furry problem.

Some automatic responses from decision makers:
1. Stop Hard and Fast
This response is the automatic decision that you’ve got to avoid the problem and that stopping will help. If your project problem were a “white tailed deer” then stopping may help. It may not help for smaller problems. Stopping hard and fast may still hit the animal and cause something else to hit you  as well.  This response decreases momentum and, naturally, slows things down. A very hasty response.

2. Swerve without Thinking
This response is dangerous because your trying to change direction. If you’ve set clear goals and deliverables then changing direction takes you away from your course. Swerving with little thought is a rash decision….over a “squirrel!” You might just crash or go somewhere else. The valuable product that your driving to the customer needs to go straight.

3. Steady and Straight
I like this response because there is perspective.  Crashing  or hitting the problem head-on may not be pleasurable, but tackling the problem may be the easiest. To me changing course or stopping fast are “easy wrong” decisions, but steady and straight says,”I’m not wrecking our momentum for a small problem.” Reflection and decisions are required; not hasty reactions.

4. Speed up and Hit that Thing
I am sure there’s at least one of you that says this when you see a squirrel. I don’t personally speed up, but at least your not swerving and running off the road.

The 4 responses above can relate to innovation and marketing projects that come across some minor problems. The problems doesn’t really pose a serious threat until we react incorrectly….hasty. The hasty response to the small furry problem is involuntary without some training, wisdom and perspective on “what are we creating?”, “where are we going?” and “why?”.

Often,we tend to look fora figure head to make the decision about , “What should we do?” Since Innovation Glue requires good team decision making by all individuals, its important that we view problems as obstacles to overcome.

The Latin word problema has its roots with proballein that indicates a problem is a difficult question that is proposed for a solution.  From the Latin , the prefix pro- + ballein translates to “throw or put forward.” A problem is an opportunity to move forward.

Now, I’ve surely left out other responses in this analogy. One particular response may be familiar. It’s the person that wasn’t looking ahead and wonders why there is an ugly mess on the bumper. He’s oblivious. I suppose ignorance can be bliss, but your innovation project demands forward progress, awareness, and looking ahead. That fellow that’s not looking for obstacles? There’s your nut.

Innovation Glue is a “substance” that makes great products successful. This glue metaphor describes the human characteristics, skills, and strategies that effectively connects people,  ideas and actions.  The result are successful, innovative product that drive business.

It’s what holds Innovation, Marketing and Entrepreneurship together.

If you create something or you develop something then you know about the “Innovation Glue,”  BUT, too frequently, companies, processes, and groups grind to a miserable halt and plans change. You may have  heard that less than 10% of new products succeed.

Peter Drucker said,

“Business has only two functions — marketing and innovation….”

Holding it together is vital….Let’s categorize, formulate, and  identify the Innovation Glue so that we can use it.