Skip to main content

How to innovate - Skate where the puck is going


“A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be” – Wayne Gretzky

This cliché quote from Gretzky has been so overused that people have stopped paying attention to anything that follows it. So why do I bring up this quote in the context of Innovation? I bring it up to highlight that most people using this quote do not talk about difficulty involved in, and practice and patience needed to anticipate where puck is going.

So I want to recognize that anticipating where proverbial puck is going is not easy. It requires physical and mental conditioning, developing specific skills and lot of practice. It also requires being comfortable with going to a place where the puck does not arrive. If we want to innovate, we need to get comfortable with not finding the puck where we anticipated it to go. And keep ‘pivoting’ till we become good at reaching as close to puck as we can.

Same is the case with Innovation – it is not easy, it requires cultural conditioning (collaboration, openness, comfort with failure), development of new skills and lot of patience when expected outcomes do not happen in as quickly as we may want them to. We still need to keep trying and pivoting till we become ‘Innovative’

So how do we apply this for Innovation? Here is an approach that we can use at Blue Shield of California:
  • Identify key areas that impact how we as an Organization perform (where are the big problems? – For any business there are generally 6-8 areas / functions)
  • Look for Indicators that suggest if an area or function is ‘ripe’ for innovation
    • The process is complex and painful
    • Technology is not embedded into the process
    • People working on those functions are stressed

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to go from ‘thought’ to ‘reality - Be comfortable with your ‘naivety’

Most of the times ideas that you have will fall outside of your comfort area and ‘day job skills’. You may be thinking about ‘transplanting’ what you have learned in one area and trying to apply the same in a different area. After the initial excitement, you will realize that you know very little about the other area in which you are venturing. Instead of fearing such situation, you should be ‘comfortably excited’. Here are 2 reasons why: You will have an opportunity to learn about this new area. Not knowing all details about this new area is an advantage, and not a handicap. This naivety allows you to not be bounded by assumptions that people with thorough knowledge and experience of this area have. This allows you to bring in a new perspective. Take ideas, data, experience and inspiration from your current experience to the new area. For more such lessons,  click here.
Post a Comment
Read more

Role of complexity in ‘Keeping it Simple’

" It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience." – Albert Einstein It is not simple to ‘keep it simple’. Process of ‘Keeping it simple’ involves complexity. We need to accept that we cannot keep it simple for everyone involved. Simplifying one constituent would almost always make it a bit more complex for others involved.   However, ‘keeping it simple’ can work wonders when we consciously decide to make it simple for constituent that matters. For most Organizations, ‘keeping it simple’ for the ‘consumer’ is a good strategy. Most Organizations get this right, but they also need to understand that making   it simple for consumer would result into a more complex (or at least ‘changed’) business process or operating principles for other constituents. In this age, it will requir...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to go from ‘thought’ to ‘reality - Plan for ‘best outcome’

Understand that you will be short on resources and know that your Organization does not owe you any special treatment. As we are a big organization, most of the focus and resources will be on ‘keeping the lights on’ and rightly so. But don’t make lack of resources an excuse.  Instead, try to figure out how you can use existing resources while continually exploring ways to acquire new ones.  Instead of focusing on lack of resources, think about what can happen if everything went well and optimistically plan for that.  Be ready when the opportunity shows up. For more such lessons,  click here.
Post a Comment
Read more