Andy Eklund is founder and Managing Director of Aqus, an Australian-based consulting organization that facilitates creative thinking, be it for strategic planning or corporate communications. He has worked with over 500 clients around the world. And he has seen, all too often, sticks poked in the wheels of creativity, stopping even the best ideas in mid-spin.

Let’s face it, the market for new ideas is as bearish as that for IPOs. New ideas imply risk because they always come with elements of the unknown.

In his blog, Creative Streak, Eklund lists 10 ways ideas are stifled. I will expand on a few of these and then add a couple of my own.

Eklund Stifler #1: Lack of Oxygen

This seems to be a good place to start: are you capturing all the ideas available? Unfortunately, not all ideas get to bubble up to the surface. Shyness, uncertainty, lack of empowerment, fear of ridicule…any number of reasons, real or imagined, will inhibit people from coming forward and presenting an idea. In other words, ideas die in the womb. The fertility of these people’s imagination is wasted.

Corner Office Killer App: “Yes, But…”

When an idea is proffered up, there is an instant when it hovers weightless, somewhere between the rise and the fall. There is a silence, a tension, an apprehension. It is at that moment when the most common squelcher of ideas usually rears its ugly head. Someone says: “yes, but…”

“Yes, but…” is akin to the spider drawing prey into its web, wrapping it up in sticky goop, and then eating it at leisure. “Yes, but” means “nice try, but if you had thought it out first, you would have realized that it can never work.” The ‘but’ can be any number of things that have contributed, lo these many years, to corporate inertia: more important priorities; lack of resources; channel conflict; upcoming negotiations. It may or may not really be that important or relevant, but it is almost always deadly. Like a highway robber, it waylays, it leaves poorer, it spoils the trip.

“Yes, but…” is at its destructive best in the mouths of superiors. Regardless of the intent, a “Yes, but…” from your boss is a kick in the gut. It is now clearer to everyone in the room why he and not you is in the corner office. Everyone is now staring at that chunk of very green spinach stuck between your front teeth. If you are one of those shy, uncertain, unempowered, ridicule-fearing types, you will have nothing further to say.

If an idea is not allowed to breathe, to percolate a little prior to intervention, even a well-meaning attempt to improve it will likely hasten its demise.

Eklund Stifler #2: Budget

Budget is at the top of the list of Buts.

There are two ways the budget bogeyman makes its presence known. One is the zero sum expense game. There is only so much money available for, say, marketing, and while a good idea may move ahead of the pack, it cannot change the bottom line. If there’s no extra money, a new idea means cutting into a long-running campaign or cutting back on a new product launch or cutting out someone else’s pet project.

There is also the issue of capital. Some investments may have a good return and a relatively quick payback. But there is always a threshold at which the organization will balk. In my old company, the magic number was $1 million. Any project that Operations did not want to entertain suddenly required a million dollar investment. Even more magical was when the numbers were so attractive that the million dollars might not have been a deal breaker. Ta duh! Suddenly, without warning, the cost was $2 million. The hissing sound you may have heard was the air seeping out of the idea balloon.

Eklund Stifler #3: Mutilation

The natural successor to Budget. Most good ideas cost money. Not all ideas, to be sure, but most. And not necessarily a lot of money, but money nevertheless. Which means the idea has to be sold. Sometime in the future, I will discuss how to present an idea to Senior Management, but for now consider that the timing must be appropriate, the framing i.e., (rationale) impeccable, the excitement palpable, the packaging tidy (no loose ends), and the support (with the necessary documents and from the right people) fully in place. And, to Eklund’s main point here, you have to choose the right person to present the idea, the right person not necessarily being the one who had the idea in the first place. The key to the successful presentation of an idea is more often the presentation than the idea itself.

Corner Office Killer App: Where’s the Beef?

If you are going to put an idea out there, it should have some meat on it. It is easy to pick at the bones of a skeleton. It is somewhat more risky to take cheap shots at a 600 pound gorilla. If you know you are going to a meeting where ideas on a specific topic are to be bandied about, come prepared. Have numbers to back up you claims. Have answers for any possible objection. Have back-up documents. Have one or more colleagues in place to jump in with credible support. In other words, be prepared to bully your idea’s way into the spotlight and keep it there.

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Percy Williams Bridgman, in his book The Intelligent Individual and Society, wrote “There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against the impact of a new idea.” The real stupidity is wasting a good idea or dismissing what is, at least, the seed of a good idea.

My former company was not, in my opinion, adequately engaged in R&D, nor was it completely wedded to the concept of market tests. That relegated us, for the most part, to the class of companies launching me-too and second generation products with incremental improvements.

This strategy is not wholly without merit. Nor is the Poison Apple (let-someone-else-take-the-first-bite) strategy. Let others do the development work in the lab and the pioneering work in the field; once the product has proven itself but before it becomes established, swoop in with a clone and nifty marketing that ostensibly shows differentiation and you’re set. You have to be quick, however. An aggressive pricing strategy would also help but, generally, that was not our way. We were always about value-added, if not value-creation.

The Drivers

In the evaluation of new product potential, success was measured against a set of criteria. We would ask the tough questions: Does the new product play off existing strengths and to existing customers? Is it easily explainable (and, therefore, marketable)? Does the potential return justify the investment required? Clearly, incremental improvements, line extensions and value-added me-too products, which leverage existing brands and customer loyalty, would more likely give yes answers to these questions.

One study of 11,000 new product launches conducted by Kuczmarski & Associates (a Chicago-based management consulting firm specializing in accelerating growth through innovation) listed the primary motivations for launching new products. In order of importance:
-    Attract a new customer or market;
-    Gain or maintain a competitive advantage;
-    Retain customers;
-    Fill a growth or profit gap;
-    Arrest margin erosion;
-    Utilize new technology.
All but the last could be accomplished without adopting ‘risky’ innovation strategies.

In a business with small margins, a success rate of 10-15% for new products is unacceptable. And that’s after the cost of trials and errors getting past the development stage and finally to market test in the first place. Or is that second place. At any rate, market testing is far from foolproof and not universally accepted as the perfect way to go.

This includes market testing new merchandising concepts.

The Best Buy Example

In the September 15, 2008, issue of Marketing magazine, Lesley Young reports on Best Buy’s recent penchant to skip a step (ref. Launching Pad) when initiating new retailing options. Its new Best Buy Mobile mall store concept, for example, went straight to market launch.

Test marketing and launch marketing use basically the same techniques. But tests can eat up time (3-6 months) and save little on costs compared to, say, a true, though geographically-restricted launch. As well, with increasing ethnicity and socio-economic diversity blurring demographics, and with the spillover of regional media diffusing erstwhile targeted messages, there are few perfect test markets available anyway.

Best Buy also created Geek Squad departments inside their stores without testing. They found, probably to no one’s surprise, that the techies were as valuable on-site as they were on the road.

Again, back to my own experience, we found that segment-specific marketing was almost fail-safe as direct-to-launch programs. Of course, in-house specialists worked with customers during the entire design process so that we always knew we were on-target.

At the end of the day, despite all the budget and time restrictions, you’ve got to get results. If you are not introducing a whole new technology, market tests do not circumvent the restrictions, nor do they guarantee the results. The merits of the product or service, the simplicity of the message, and excellence in the execution of the launch will be the determining factors of success.

Last point: I referred several times to the issue of explainability. Will people ‘get’ the new product or program? Can the marketing message be simply defined and easily delivered? It is extraordinarily difficult to change people’s perceptions or habits. I would never consider launching a true innovation or a new technology (which tend to do both) without market testing first. There is a right time and place for everything.

Rethinking and remaking the corporation means that some measure of innovation – in product, process, technology, distribution or whatever it is that drives the business – is imperative. You don’t have to be innovative in all things (though you should be competitive in most), but you must look to lead in what is fundamental to your business’ success.

Fast Company’s March issue features its own list of The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies. These companies span a range of industries, geographies and drivers. They include known quantities like the ubiquitous Google (which sits comfortably atop the pile) and a small quantity of others soon certain to appear in fine portfolios everywhere.

The magazine makes no claim that this list is definitive. But the things that motivate innovation and that ultimately make the innovations successful for their respective companies are clearly defining. Put another way, what is different about these companies is, ironically, what binds them – and other innovators – together.

It begins with recognizing the need for innovation. From there, creating an organization where innovation is a primary focus and second nature is somewhat akin to planting and nurturing a garden.

The Innovator’s Garden

It doesn’t really matter whether the seeds for new ideas come from within an organization or are made available to it from outside sources (via partnering, JVs or independents). What matters is that these seeds are properly germinated, watered, and then provided copious amounts of sunlight (visibility) and TLC by their constant gardeners.

It goes without saying that the architect of the innovation landscape is, in all cases, the CEO. There is no question that an organization-at-large takes its cues from its leader. He or she sets the tone and the ground rules. Critical funding, i.e., fertilizing, comes from senior management budget approvals. Without proper funding - ‘proper’ referring both to the extent and continuity of funding - there will just not be enough topsoil to enable the crop of new ideas and technologies to take root.

You will also need patience to ensure that these ideas and technologies become established. Too often, companies set unreasonably short payback horizons (as little as two years) and excessively high return-on-investment goals (30-40%). Projects and programs that don’t pass through these target filters never see the light of day or are turfed before given a reasonable chance to succeed.

Senior management support notwithstanding, it is the day-to-day tending of the garden, from the tilling of soil to the propagation of new species, that ensures success. You have to invest in the right people and give them the right tools to do their jobs. And then let them go at it.

Hopefully I haven’t overworked the analogy. At least I didn’t try to transform the Nitrogen Cycle into an Innovation Cycle. But, to rework an old and unfortunately anonymous reminder, you can’t plant toads and expect to raise toadstools. You’ve got to understand how your company interfaces with its competitive environment and then…well…work the soil. This is the only way to keep the business growing.