By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Jul 15, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET  The key to unlocking the next wave of economic growth may be as simple as enabling more people to try more stuff. The industrial era was all about scale and squeezing out the possibility of mistakes. As a result we are too afraid to fail. Companies only take on projects with highly predictable results. Employees fall in line for fear of making career-limiting moves. How will we get better if the fear of failure prevents us from trying anything new? How will we make progress on the big system challenges of our time, if every time someone tries something transformational and fails, we vilify them? What if we reframed failure as intentional iteration?
Take the example of Better Place, the startup that set out to create a world full of electric cars with a novel battery swapping business model. In my book, The Business Model Innovation Factory, I highlight Better Place and its founder Shai Agassi as one of the best examples of business model innovation and the importance of a real world test bed.
 In 2005 Agassi attended the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. He was inspired by a framing question asked by WEF’s founder Klaus Schwab at the beginning of the conference, “How do you make the world a better place by 2020?” Agassi took Schwab’s question seriously and decided he would make the world a better place by reducing the world’s dependence on oil by creating market based infrastructure to support a transition to all electric cars. Agassi knew that the only way to accomplish his goal was through business model innovation and industry system change. OK, it didn’t work. After 6 years, raising $850 million in private capital and launching commercial operations in Israel and Denmark, Better Place filed for bankruptcy.
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Saul Kaplan: Reframe Failure As Intentional Iteration
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Jul 8, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
I had the pleasure of speaking at the 2013 Amplify Festival in Australia. Now that my jetlag has subsided I’m able to reflect on what was a wonderful event hosted by AMP, a leading financial services company in Australia. Congratulations to AMP and Annalie Killian, the festival’s remarkable curator, for catalyzing a week overflowing with inspiration and insight. More companies should consider hosting similar innovation immersion events open to employees and the local community. It was an easy invitation to accept for this innovation junkie. They had me at the event’s theme, Shift Happened Transformation Required!
One of the highlights of my trip down under was meeting Lucy Marcus, provocateur and global expert on corporate governance best practices. Lucy is a force of nature in and out of the boardroom and I thoroughly enjoyed our conversations on the oversight role of the board of directors for a company’s innovation agenda. We agreed that the board of directors has an important role to play and Lucy asked me to appear on her ‘In The Boardroom’ show on Reuters TV to share my top five board innovation imperatives for the board. The short video of our conversation below also serves as proof that we actually were in Australia. Check out the Sydney Harbor in the background!
5 Innovation Imperatives: Inside The Boardroom
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Saul Kaplan: Innovation in the Boardroom
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Jul 1, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET I successfully avoided government throughout the first 20 years of my private sector career. But in 2003, after a career first in industry and then as a road-warrior strategy consultant, I found myself as an accidental bureaucrat in the public sector.
I never saw it coming. After a weak attempt at retirement, my wife wasn’t in the market for a strategy consultant to advise on household operations. What I hoped would be a year at home to sort out options quickly became a not so subtle nudge out the door to find my next gig.
I naively raised my hand to the newly elected Governor of Rhode Island and the Executive Director of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation (RIEDC) and asked how I could help. The next thing I knew I was at the RIEDC, first as the agency’s lead for strategy and development, and then as a member of the Governor’s Cabinet and Executive Director of the agency. I had become an accidental bureaucrat.
I spent six years in the public sector and loved every (well almost every) moment of it. It was an innovation junkie’s dream to catalyze a statewide conversation on how to transform from an industrial era to a 21st century innovation economy.
During my time with the state, many friends asked, “Doesn’t the public sector move too slowly for you”? After twenty years of working with big companies I am not sure they move too quickly, themselves. While it’s true government moves slowly, neither of these structures move quickly, have adequate capacity for trying new models and approaches, or work and play nicely together.
But given my background as someone who has worked in both sectors, I think there is much that the public and private sectors can learn from each other.
There’s a reason it’s called the public sector: Everything is public. My schedule, emails, comments — everything — was all out in the public and transparent. The private sector could take a lesson in this kind of transparency. It took a while to get used to but it was good training for today’s social media world.
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Saul Kaplan: Confessions of an Accidental Bureaucrat
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Jun 24, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET Don’t go to war with current models and systems. Too many are in love with them and you will lose. Create the future through connected adjacencies.
Why are innovators so quick to go to the mattresses? Like a scene right out of The Godfather innovators are wired to assume a war footing. Innovators start from a premise that intransigent models and systems are the enemy and the only way to win is to gear up for an inevitable fight. Status quo is the enemy in an innovator’s cold war and must be vanquished. Innovators prepare for war by steeling themselves, building large armamentariums, and recruiting passionate soldiers to join their fight. War cries may get people’s attention but taking to the warpath, as a theory for change, doesn’t work. There are too many people in love with current models and systems. Going to war might feel good but in the end you will lose.
 Existing business models and systems have evolved over a long period of time. It’s true most were built for an industrial era that is long gone. It’s also true we need to design, prototype, and test new models and systems if we are going to solve the big social challenges of our time including health care, education, energy, and entrepreneurship. However going to war with the current systems will not work. Too many people are vested in them. Anything threatening status quo is too scary to contemplate for most.
Big bang approaches to change seldom work. Occasionally we see examples of organizations that disrupt and transform themselves because they are either one payroll away from crashing nose down into the K-Mart parking lot (IBM comes to mind) or they have an other-worldly leader that personally wills the organization to transform (Steve Jobs comes to mind). For most organizations transformative change is elusive and we need another way. To enable transformative change consider creating connected adjacencies as innovation platforms.
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Saul Kaplan: Innovate Through Connected Adjacencies
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Jun 17, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET If Boston, NYC, and San Francisco are the top three U.S. innovation cities why do their economic, education, health care, and energy systems produce the same poor results as cities around the rest of the country? I read the recent Top Innovation Cities of the Global Economy report from 2thinknow ranking the top 100 global innovation cities with great interest. Of course I quickly scanned the rankings to see which U.S. cities made the list. While I was disappointed my hometown of Providence, Rhode Island didn’t make the cut I was pleased to see our neighbor Boston was ranked number one. Two other U.S. cities joined Boston in the top ten, NYC ranked fifth and San Francisco ranked seventh.
Seems logical to ask if the top ranked innovation cities are delivering more value to their citizens or making more progress on the big social challenges of our time than other cities. What’s the point of innovation if not to deliver value and solve real world problems?
After barely scratching the surface of examining output measures the obvious question is this, if Boston, NYC, and San Francisco are the top U.S. innovation cities why are their poverty rates so high? Why are their education attainment levels so low? If these cities are innovation hot-spots and models for the rest of the country shouldn’t they deliver better economic opportunity, and better education, health care, and energy solutions, as well as a better quality of life to their citizens? I thought innovation was about delivering value and solving real world problems.
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Saul Kaplan: Measure Innovation Outcomes
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Jun 10, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET We can learn a lot about innovation by observing the social behavior of honeybees. Who hasn’t been riveted by devastating stories of colony collapse? This is serious stuff. From a honeybee’s perspective watching 35% of your fellow Apis mellifera get wiped out is no joke. From a human perspective, think of it this way, one out of every three mouthfuls of food we eat is dependent on honeybee pollination. Bees are responsible for about $15 billion in U.S. agricultural crop value. Colony collapse really matters. It’s worth paying attention to bees.
The term colony collapse disorder was first applied to a drastic rise in the number of honeybee disappearances in 2006. It’s an eerie phenomenon where one day worker bees swarm together in great numbers and the next they are gone, poof they just disappear, leaving behind an empty hive. It’s not as if they leave to join another colony. They leave to die alone and dispersed which is strange given the social nature of honeybees. Scientists have been working feverishly to determine the etiology of colony collapse disorder.
 I read with great interest the recent announcement that researchers collaborating from academia and the military had found the answer. I am a sucker for a good collaborative innovation story where unusual suspects tag team across silos to solve a problem that neither of them could solve on their own. This one is a classic. Army scientists in Maryland working with academic entomologists in Montana solved the mystery. They applied proteomics-based pathogen screening tools to identify a co-infection comprised of both a virus and a fungus. They found the combination of pathogens in all of the collapsed colonies they tested. Hopefully their findings will quickly lead to pathogen mitigation strategies dramatically reducing the incidence of colony collapse disorder.
While I am glad the mystery is solved I can’t help asking, what is it about organizing in colonies that prevents bees from innovating themselves. And closer to home, aren’t bee colonies like hierarchical corporate structures? Maybe understanding the social behavior of bees in their colonies will help us understand why corporate structures are also vulnerable to colony collapse.
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Saul Kaplan: Innovation Lessons From Bees
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Jun 3, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET Ever want to throw a shot put into the middle of an intransigent organization or system? I know I have. With a shot put weighing in at 16 pounds most of us had better either be very close to the target or consider a better way to catalyze change.
You probably haven’t heard of James Fuchs, who passed away on October 8, but he was a classic innovator. Fuchs was the best shot-putter in the world from 1949-1950. He won 88 consecutive meets, set four world records, and changed the sport forever. Fuchs teaches us about the difference between best practices and next practices.
Fuchs was a fullback on the Yale football team but injuries kept him from playing. He was also on the track team and while recovering from surgery for a leg injury he was limited to competing in discus and shot put. Fuchs became best known for shot put. Fuchs’ leg injury prevented him from using the standard and universally accepted shot put technique. State of art at the time was for a shot-putter to come to a complete stop before releasing the shot. Before Fuchs, shot put was all about brute arm strength. Athletes focused their training on weight lifting. All shot putters competed on a model of arm strength equals distance. That is until James Fuchs came along. Fuchs didn’t lift weights at all and weighed only 215 pounds, small for a shot putter.
Because Fuchs’ leg injury prevented him from using accepted best practice he invented a new practice that worked for him. Innovation is more about next practices than best practices. Fuchs came up with a fluid catapult motion that didn’t require him to stop short aggravating his injury. His innovative technique involved rocking back on one leg, swinging the other in front for balance, hopping forward and propelling the 16-pound iron ball forward. He had learned from a physiology teacher that legs are three times more powerful than arms. Fuchs, like all innovators do, took advantage of both existing constraints and insights missed by current competitors. His innovation became known as the ‘sideways glide’ working around his injury and taking much better advantage of the power of his legs. In 1949 Fuchs set a new world shot put record of 58 feet 4 ½ inches. In 1950 he beat his own world record three times with a personal best of 58 feet 10 ¾ inches. He had changed the sport forever. Fuchs’ sideways glide became the new best practice for all shot-putters. That is until innovation struck again and it wasn’t.
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Saul Kaplan: 16 Lbs. of Solid Iron Innovation
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon May 27, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET Beware of random collisions with unusual suspects.
Unless, that is, you want to learn something new. In that case, seek out innovators from across every imaginable silo and listen, really listen, to their stories. New ideas, perspectives, and opportunities await in the gray areas between the unusual suspects.
It seems so obvious and yet we spend most of our time with the usual suspects in our respective silos. One of the most important silos we need to break down is the one between generations.
We keep youth off to the side while the adults talk and talk about how to improve the world. To youth, it is a lot of talk and little change. It’s ironic and sad that youth, with the biggest stake in the future, are so often seen and not heard. Think of all the areas where adults are monopolizing a conversation in which youth have the largest stake.
 We should recognize that young people seek purpose and want to impact their surroundings. We should listen to and give them access to the tools they need to design the future they will inherit. Would they imagine a world they are more likely to engage in and commit to? What if we connected youth, our burgeoning innovators, with today’s most successful innovators?
Choose2Matter and the Business Innovation Factory (BIF) are doing exactly that.
Choose2Matter recently launched the Quest2Matter, which challenges students to accept that they matter and act to solve problems that break their heart. Imagine connecting these impassioned young leaders with today’s leading innovators and transformation artists.
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Saul Kaplan: Breaking Down Generational Silos
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon May 20, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET Time spent in the public sector as an accidental bureaucrat has made me a keen observer of how states and countries use tax incentives to attract and retain corporate investment and jobs. I have watched companies extract mind-boggling incentives from the taxpayer simply by either moving or threatening to move jobs across state and country borders. While tax incentives may be great for corporations they make little or no sense when viewed through a community lens. Corporate tax incentive deals are a terrible use of taxpayer dollars.
Communities everywhere have lost leverage to companies who now have all the buying power. Corporations have disaggregated their business models moving capabilities around the world like chess pieces. Companies are no longer dependent on a single location and force communities to bid against each other competing on who will offer the biggest tax breaks. Communities are treated like commodities. The pricing food fight is intense and all at the taxpayer’s expense. There is no net new value created when companies move activities and jobs from one community to another. Consider Captain Morgan & The Hobbit.
My favorite example of bad tax incentive deals gone crazy is the movie industry. Community leaders and politicians fall all over themselves to bring movie productions to their localities. It must be about having pictures taken with movie stars because it isn’t about the economics of the deals the movie studios cut playing communities against each other. The going discount to attract movie production in the U.S. ranges from 30 to 40% of the total production costs in the form of tax credits that can be sold to local taxpayers. I have reviewed several of these deals and can’t begin to make economic sense out of them for anyone other than the movie studio.
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Saul Kaplan: Captain Morgan & The Hobbit
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon May 13, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET Have you ever heard someone say they want to be a polymath? Have you ever heard anyone ask, how do I become a polymath? I haven’t. The word comes from the Greek polymathes or having learned much. A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. When we think of polymaths we tend to think of dead scientists from another era like Aristotle and Leonardo da Vinci. Rarely do we apply the moniker in modern times. We need more polymaths. We need a generation of youth who want to be polymaths when they grow up.
It’s easy to wrap our minds around the idea of a polymath in the context of ancient eras long gone. The entire body of knowledge on earth was accessible to an elite few. Those with an exceptional mind, privileged access, and the freedom to focus on interdisciplinary study, could become polymaths. In 384 – 322 BC Aristotle studied under Plato in ancient Greece. His writings spanned many subjects including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theatre, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology. In the late 15th and early 16th century Leonardo da Vinci was a prototype of the universal genius or Renaissance man. He was a painter, sculptor, engineer, astronomer, anatomist, biologist, geologist, physicist, architect, philosopher and humanist. Where have all the polymaths gone?
Polymaths need not apply in an industrial era defined by specialization. As the entire body of knowledge exploded beyond human capacity to absorb it, silos creating manageable chunks were inevitable. Each silo represents an opportunity to develop expertise and deludes us into thinking the brightest and hardest working among us can absorb all the available knowledge within it. The industrial era constrained knowledge access, limiting it to the privileged few. Barriers to entry proliferated along silo and socio-economic lines with exclusive professional credentials established in the name of protecting the public interest from charlatans without prerequisite experience and knowledge. In the industrial era, knowledge in the wrong hands was thought to be dangerous. Our current education and workforce development systems were designed for an era defined by specialization. It worked fine until it didn’t.
Three important inflection points have emerged calling to question an over reliance on specialization.
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Saul Kaplan: Calling All Polymaths
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