The Conundrum of Innovation

The Innovation Race: How to Change a Culture to Change the Game – Andrew Grant and Gaia Grant (Wiley)

Full confession: Since it arrived on my doorstep, I have picked this book up, struggled through some of the concepts it present and put it down. Later I would return, pick it up and put it down. It reached the point where it became a challenge for me to work my way through the book and develop a meaningful review.

As I worked my way through the ups and downs, I finally reached the conclusion that the problem I have, is understanding exactly what innovation really is. Innovation is a word/concept that gets tossed around by all sorts of business folks, but what does it really mean?! Naturally I went where I always go; the dictionary.

Innovation – The action or process of innovating. Really!? Alright, how about this one- change, alteration, revolution, upheaval, transformation, metamorphosis, breakthrough, modernization. Well that certainly didn’t solve the problem I faced.

So I shifted the focus to what is truly at the root of innovation? Think about the concept of innovation; in the process of “innovating” you are often simultaneously causing obsolescence? Now ask what role does disruption play in the process? How do we find that magical delta between innovation and obsolescence? Are you getting the drift here? The Grants concept of the pace of innovation and the so-called purpose driven route to innovation certainly is a challenging one. Are we innovating just for the sake of innovating and is that really serving the needs or fixing the problems that lead to the desire to innovate.

Not sue I have come up with a helpful review here, other than to say that this book is certainly challenging and thought provoking.

Not So Disruptive

The Airbnb Story: How Three Ordinary Guys Disrupted an Industry, Made Billions and Created Plenty of Controversy – Leigh Gallagher (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

There is something just this side of ironic about a business book written about a company that is touted for disruptive to and entire industry. Fortune editor and the books author, Leigh Gallagher gives a nod to that irony in the introduction to the book when she acknowledges that Airbnb founder Brian Chesky intimated at the time she pitched him the idea for the book, that by the time it would go to press, it would be outdated.

So is the nature of the guys and the business profiled in Gallagher’s new book, The Airbnb Story: How Three Ordinary Guys Disrupted an Industry, Made Billions and Created Plenty of Controversy. While the idea is far from groundbreaking, it is the way that the idea was accelerated and the nature of the platform that they built to speed the process that is at the heart of this story.

The disruption really comes down to the selling of two ideas; one that you have space, a spare room, and extra home, or maybe something more unique, so why not monetize that space? And second, wouldn’t you rather have a unique experience or save money the next time you travel. It is certainly not a proposition for everyone, but it is one that seems to have caught fire in some circles.

Gallagher spells out that Chesky and company certainly seem to have a clear vision of the future of their company; expand into areas of the entire travel experience. While that makes sense because the shine may wear off on the initial disruption and results could dwindle; it’s hardly disruptive to offer discounted flights and rental cars. The focus will have to evolve into selling experiences, which may be a tougher market to hack.

Gallagher does a nice job of detailing the companies first decade and spelling out the challenges ahead as it moves into it’s second.   

A Nice Addition to the Go To Library

If Not You, Who? –Cracking the Code of Employee Disengagement – Jill Christensen (Knightsbridge Press)

I have taken on the habit of keeping a strip of Post-It flags while I am reading new business books. Maybe it’s a case of OCD, but I have never really felt that highlighting was a very useful why of truly marking things that I wanted to remember and use in my business. These handy little flags are easy to place the exact line on a specific page that I want to circle back to.

As I review books, I can get a pretty good sense of how good a book is based on the number of flags that dot the outside edge of the book. While I have utilized many of the tactics that Jill Christensen, an employee engagement expert outlines in her new book, If Not You, Who, this concise collection is a great reminder and a useful tool to have within reach on the go to books shelf. One look at the pile of red flags will easily illustrate why what this book teaches, makes so much sense.

If you are struggling with keeping your staff engaged, recruitment and retention of good employees and rewarding and recognizing those folks who make your shop hum, then this book demands your attention. Christensen lays out the statistics, but the fact of the matter is it, is common sense that an engaged workforce can make a huge difference to your bottom line.

Like I said, I have used a lot of this stuff before; while it’s not necessarily groundbreaking, what Christensen succeeds at doing is synthesizing the engagement process under the cover of one easy to read, easy to implement cover. She even spells out action steps at the end of each chapter that boils this stuff down to an easy 1, 2, 3. I found myself implementing the stuff I could do myself right away and then put the team stuff on the agenda to roll out to the larger group.

While Christensen will tell you how to take this on in bit size chunks, she also explain that there is some heavy lifting involved and while the process works, it does take some time. What better reason to get started today do you need?