Adam Hartung made a simple observation in his keynote for Energy Summit 2010: markets shift; companies that don’t follow the shifts disappear.
As an antidote to obsolescence, Adam offered four pieces of advice: be future-oriented, obsess about competitors, disrupt yourself, create and maintain whitespace.
1. Plan for the future, not the past
It doesn’t matter what you sold or did last year. Don’t plan with a rearview mirror. You have no choice but to go where the market is going, not where it’s been.
Not surprisingly, this observation reminded me of Landmark Education’s teaching about the pervasiveness of the influence of the past. Facing a truly open future is a lot more uncomfortable and more difficult than living backwards with the market we already know and have had success in. The past provides data that can be analyzed; the future requires more guesswork. The past is known; the future is unknown. The past has already rewarded you; the future includes the possibility of failure. The past has known competitors; the future may have wholly new competitors.
2. Attack competitors lock-in
You don’t get new product insight from customers. Customers tell you they want what they already have, just cheaper, faster, better. Stop listening exclusively or too closely to your customers.
Adam offered several famous examples of significant innovations that came about by ignoring incremental improvement. Apple seems to be one of his favorite sources. (Apple and the iPod, Apple and the iPhone, etc.) He also offered stories about newspapers ignoring fringe competitors like Craigslist, Ebay and Google to their peril. The seemingly fringe competitors might be the ones that disrupt your business in the future.
This was the most interesting point in that it is in apparent contradiction to the idea of user-centered design. I think the contradiction can be resolved by moving your product research a level higher. Asking a customer what she wants might not give you valuable insights. Asking her what she cares about, what her pain points are, what her goals in life are, aren’t questions obviously related to your product, but may provide insights and ideas for innovation.
3. Utilize disruption to change thinking
Don’t find yourself saying, ‘That’s not a market we’re in; we need a partner.’
Adam’s best example here was Honda. Honda has developed a medical device to assist walking. This business evidently came about from their experience building industrial robots. They recognized that a walking robot was a big challenge that would cause them to learn. This lead to ASIMO, a humanoid robot that could eventually handle stairs. ASIMO lead to a walking assistance device.
According to Adam, Honda did this work in the medical device field without a partner because they’d “never learn” if they “had a partner.” This contrarian approach reminds me of the idea of beginner’s mind and how it might explain why frequent pair rotations increase development velocity. Learning drives innovation.
4. Disruptions open white space
Adam’s final point was that established companies need to create space for disruption and innovation to take place. Part-time assignments, teams from the corporate matrix, comparisons to existing products, short-term ROI—these aren’t conducive to disruptive innovations that may ultimately be highly successful.
