People are more connected than they have ever been and the speed at which they interact is getting faster and faster. This is driving a pace of change that is only going to get quicker as the world becomes an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous place (VUCA).

Existing markets are being disrupted by technology, which is being used in innovative ways to outmanoeuvre current market leaders. The corporate graveyard is filled with companies like Blockbuster, Kodak and Borders who failed to adapt.

Innovation is crucial to success in the long-term. But how do you innovate? How do you set your organisation up so that you can leverage the creativity of your talent?

What is innovation?

The Oxford dictionary defines it as ‘making changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products’.

I think that probably the clearest example of innovation is Dick Fosbury’s use of the ‘flop’ in the 1968 Olympics. He used a completely different technique taking advantage of the softer matting that was now being used in the sport. The Fosbury Flop is still the most commonly used technique in high jump and has allowed athletes to make significant improvements in performance – as shown in the graph below.

‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ but ‘invention’ could easily be replaced with ‘innovation’.

War is an environment that breeds innovation.

At the Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) in Afghanistan, we never had enough resources to do everything that we wanted to do so we improvised – for example; pickets were used to make bars for dips and pull-ups.

Herrick 7 072

But more importantly, we had to innovate to get stay ahead of the enemy.

In 2007, I was based in the Sangin, Helmand Province during Op HERRICK 7. When I look back on my tour, I can with hindsight that the Taliban were loosing the shooting battle.

They’d engage us, we’d fight back and call in air support – they’d lose.

It became necessary for them to innovate and change the game.

During HERRICK 7, we started to see more and more roadside bombs being planted. The Taliban weren’t winning the shooting battles so they changed the game by laying traps for us to walk into.

Herrick 7 010

These evolved from simple devices to ones that could be set off with a mobile phone. Once we started to jam their signals with counter-IED technology, they went back to ‘command wires’ and simple methods.

When they saw us using minesweeper technology on the ground in front, they started to place the devices in the walls.

This process took a couple of years as their ability to build devices improved. They were also learning from the insurgents in Iraq.

In contrast to our enemy, we were slow to get the vehicles we needed into theatre to defeat this threat. I am not trying to attribute blame to the government or anyone in defence procurement – no value comes from blame. I am just using an example of how the Taliban innovated to change the course of the war.

The organisation that can innovate faster than their enemy or competition will stand the best chance of success in the long-term.

In business, the market is our theatre of operations and our competitors are the enemy. Our ability to innovate in the market directly contributes to our success in the long-term.

So how do we innovate whilst managing the present and without creating chaos?

Well, innovation is dependent upon the creativity of your organisation’s people. But this needs to be managed. You can’t have someone working to deadlines on projects and get them to spend some time ‘innovating for a couple of hours’. It simply won’t work.

If you’re serious about innovating, you need to get people away from managing the present and get them to spend time thinking about the future.

What changes are likely to happen in our market?

For example – what demographic shifts are occurring?

What does that mean for us and how do we take advantage of it?

They cannot answer these questions if they are ‘stuck in the present’. They need to move their mindset into the future and start looking for trends that dictate what is ‘likely to happen’.

beetlemini

It is no surprise that VW and BMW chose to re-launch these two iconic cars when they did. For many people in the baby boom generation, the Beetle and the Mini were the cars of their youth. This demographic group had since grown up and were a market of decision-makers with a disposable income.

VW and BMW bought these cars out when the baby boom generation had the money and were at an age when they might want to be reminded of their youth.

Both products have been very successful – but consider how they’ve ‘stacked the deck in their favour’ by looking at demographics.

In the Military, we used a couple of tools that allowed us to ‘create space for innovation’. These formed part of our planning process.

Intent, End-state and Main Effort

Intent – what do we want to do and why?

End-state – a clear picture that tells us when we have arrived at our destination

Main effort – what is the one thing that MUST happen in order to achieve the above? Not the ‘top three priorities’… the ONE thing.

I will bring this to life with an example. In 2011, I was fortunate enough to lead the recapture of the MV Montecristo from pirate control. This 55,000t vessel was being hijacked. Somali pirates were on-board and attempting to gain access to the crew to take them hostage.

montecristo

The intent and end-state were described as follows.

‘It is my intent to SEIZE the MV Montecristo in order to release the crew.

The end-state will be met when the crew have been secured and the pirates have been arrested or killed.’

I then told a short two-minute story of what we were going to do – an outline plan of how we would seize the vessel. This was called a Scheme of Manoeuvre.

I then told them the main effort, which was to ‘get on-board the ship’ because if we failed to achieve this, we would fail our mission.

In a few concise sentences, I have explained what I want to do. What the end-state looks like and what the single priority is.

I didn’t invent this structure – this is a standard approach that is used across NATO. But it works. It means that if required, I could have commanded a group of US Marines and delivered them a set of orders in a style that they would have been familiar with. We could have even combined a USMC/Royal Marine team if required.

These principles provide a structure for decision-making and priorities and  I use them in my business.

It is my intent for my ‘scale-up leadership model to be the preferred operating model for companies that are growing rapidly in London’. 

The end-state will be that ‘leadership forces will be the first choice leadership partner for venture capital firms investing in London.’

These create boundaries for me to act within – and it is those boundaries that allow other people to use their initiative, to think on the spot and overcome whatever the enemy throw at them.

This is important because we can’t control what the enemy are going to do. They have an impact on the success of the plan and they are going to do whatever they can to disrupt it and prevent me from achieving my mission.

Mike Tyson famously said that ‘everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face’.

We use the expression that ‘no plan survives first contact with the enemy’.

We know plans don’t survive and we accept that fact. So we mitigate this fact by telling our people what we want to achieve and what is important. We create boundaries and structure for them to operate within. The ‘how’ is largely up to them.

This is why we recruit Marines who can think for themselves – not just point a rifle and pull a trigger.

So what do you fall back on when things don’t go to plan?

Archilocus was right – we fall back on our training – and our training is based on a combination of standards and principles.

Methods, like recipes, are too prescriptive. They don’t allow you to innovate. In business, there is no recipe for success. Like in war, there are too many variables that you cannot control. If you follow a recipe, you will follow a method that someone else has created. It might have worked for them – but you are not ‘them’.

It is principles and standards that allow you to innovate without creating chaos.

Principles give you things to think about – standards build habits, which mean you don’t have to think.

Principles

Principles allow the individual to think – to adapt his behaviour to his environment and context so that what he chooses to do will have the best chance of success.

There aren’t standards or instructions for how to ‘clear a room’ or ‘how to defend a fort in Afghanistan’ – but there are principles that can be adapted to the environment. In the Royal Marines, we were taught principles for how to conduct ambushes, patrols and a range of other actions. Principles give you something to consider and apply to your environment in line with your own intuition and experience.

In business, there might be principals for developing a marketing strategy. These are things to think about and discuss with the team to make sure you have covered all the bases. If you try to follow a method for a marketing strategy – it is unlikely to work as it will be based on someone else’s business, experience and market.

Standards

Standards are different – these are processes that must be followed. In the Corps, we had standards for weapon handling and fitness. These were clearly defined in training manuals and regularly tested.

It is a leadership responsibility to check that your standards are still in place. For example, if I never checked that our weapons had been cleaned, the underlying message that I was giving was that I didn’t care – there were more important things to me.

This is about how you behave as a leader – the standards that you walk past are the ones that you accept.

In the nuclear industry, we used to ‘walk the plant’ to go and see what was happening on the factory floor. We were checking standards because they were important.

Standards are dependent upon your business and sector. I am running the show on my own at the moment so the following standards work for me.

  • Do the one thing you need to do to make the day a success. There is only one thing and nothing else happens until that one thing has been completed.
  • Respond to all emails within 48hrs with a commitment on what you will deliver or an explanation as to why you won’t.
  • Treat every interaction with a new person as a potential interview.
  • Write a new piece of ‘thought leadership every Thursday’.
  • Follow the ‘morning routine’ standard – you will have a good day if you stick to the routine.

Boundaries and Control Measures

In the military we used boundaries to prevent incidents of friendly fire. For example, we couldn’t afford to have people firing at an enemy that might have got between two groups of friendly forces.

In business, you would consider creating boundaries around your target market so that any innovation projects tie in with your existing customer base and brand.

In summary – Intent, End-state, Main Effort, Standards, Principles and Boundaries.

What do yours look like? Are they clear in your business? Do your people understand them?

Innovation, like training, is about investing in the future.

If you have either of these departments and you want to make the business more profitable in the short-term – just close them. You will instantly reduce costs, which will probably be reflected, in your margin.

But you’ll be setting the conditions for the rot to start. Innovation and training are the foundations for long-term success.

How are you preparing for tomorrow’s market? It’s going to come along more quickly than you think – just ask anyone who worked at Blockbuster.

If you liked this article – please share it using the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a massive favour!