A number of speaker’s even drew from social scientists and psychologists on human nature and our response to change in order to search for ways to help make the management of change and innovation easier. Dan Heath, author of Made to Stick and Switch:
We have the wrong mental model on change. It’s not: analyze – think – change. You cannot motivate people with information. Knowledge is not sufficient to spark change. You cannot get change in an organization by going to logic, numbers and a detailed business case. The real model is: see - feel - change. Best analogy is one of a small man (rational brain) riding atop of a huge elephant (emotional brain). We found that when change succeeds it follows a pattern. That provides a three-part framework to push behavioral change forward:
1. Make it crystal clear what the direction of the ride is.
2. Motivate the elephant with emotions – feeling is the fuel.
3. Shape the path – remove obstacles.
More from Heath:
Psychologists have isolated what they call fundamental attribution error where we tend to attribute people’s behavior to their character and ignore the situational influences on them. In many cases, we should be working to shape the situation people are working under rather than trying to change the people. Make the right behavior the path of least resistance for people.
And he adds:
A successful strategy for change is to actively look for what is working that can illustrate your desired change, be on a careful lookout to find the bright spots and try to clone it. Remember that big change usually starts small and eventually snowballs.
Many speakers discussed and offered different perspectives on innovation and how to make it happen. This from Denise Fletcher, Xerox's chief innovation officer:
If you are not partnering with other outside organizations in your innovation efforts, you really don't get what innovation is all about. Things are moving too fast, you need to work with other perspectives and capabilities outside your own firm. Hee what others have to say at the conference.
Soon Yu, VF Corp., global vice president of innovation: Lesson I learned is that there is a big difference between selling a new idea and influencing new ideas. Selling is transactional - idea is sold. Influencing is a big nuance. Instead of just convincing and persuading, you have to listen to have empathy and have willingness to accept your vision may have to be changed, room for improvement, to work to have a shared vision and purpose and common ground. Make it more about co-creation with them.
Sammy Munuswamy, senior engineer, Global Engineering and Innovation, The Manitowoc Company: I don't believe in the Voice of the Customer (VOC) for innovation, maybe good for minor linear innovation. Rather than asking directly, since many clients have developed a certain complacency, better to observe the customer in using your product or service to uncover true pain points and unmet needs ... Customers never knew that all the different products they were carrying around was a problem and that they needed an iPhone till Steve Jobs uncovered pain points and unmet needs and offered them a new option.
A memorable presentation was a talk on the extent you can go to uncover or borrow new approaches and ideas for your business. Alexa Clay, author The Misfit Economy: Lessons In Creativity From Pirates, Hackers, and Gangsters and Other Informal Entrepreneurs:
The Misfit Economy project and book "has done case studies you will never find on Harvard Business Review. We study and isolate the entrepreneurial mindset in the black market economy that has the potential to translate into the formal economy. It’s not looking through the lens of good or evil but really trying to understand the real lessons that we can learn from people away from the mainstream economy and translate that hustle, the experiences that they have honed and develop an incubator for these people to be more connected to the formal economy and where we can isolate principles from speaking to con artists, hackers, gangsters, as to what were the things that they were doing that we may be able to apply to main stream institutions.
On how to structure a serious innovation effort for your firm, Fidelity Innovation Labs hosted a tour of their facilities to describe their structured innovation process. Richard Smyers, vice president of accelerated innovation, and Jon Slote, vice president of relationship management, say:
At Fidelity Labs, we have 150 people across eight different locations globally where we have developed a process on looking three years out as to new technologies, challenges, and opportunities ahead of us. Our process can be broken down to three key steps: Scan, Try and Scale. Scan: in scanning we follow closely emerging technologies, bring in key thought leaders every two weeks, have partnerships with academic institutions, and we play an active part in the VC and startup community. Try: we actively prototype and try new ideas through our group here but also have a separate business incubator, run hackathons, and actively engage with customers. Scale -- we have a three part stage-gate type of process to vet best ideas to continue to invest and work on. Upon determining best new ideas to move forward with, we have a patent program and develop collaborations through appropriate Fidelity business units to move the idea to deployable products or services. In hiring for our group, we look for people with a high sense of curiosity, who are comfortable with ambiguity, and are nimble and and flexible in their thinking. We also run a social media platform across the firm to engage all employees, solicit ideas, and keep everyone aware of what we are doing.
The 2016 Front End of Innovation Conference further reinforced the serious full-time effort that innovation as a management practice is gaining across all industries, across the world, and the need for financial advisors and financial services leadership to be aware and start incorporating more innovation best practices to their businesses.
The Institute for Innovation Development is an educational and business development catalyst for growth-oriented financial advisors and financial services firms determined to lead their businesses in an operating environment of accelerating business and cultural change. We position our members with the necessary ongoing innovation resources and best practices to drive and facilitate their next-generation growth, differentiation and unique community engagement strategies. The institute was launched with the support and foresight of our founding sponsors - Pershing, Voya Financial, Ultimus Fund Solutions, Fidelity, and Charter Financial Publishing (publisher of Financial Advisor and Private Wealth magazines). For more information click here.