Lately I’ve met with a number of potential clients who are frustrated
that their innovation efforts aren’t creating a bigger splash in the
market. It can be difficult to identify the limiting factor in any new
product or service. Perhaps the customer need wasn’t as strong as we
anticipated, or we built features and attributes to appeal to the wrong
need or client base. Perhaps the product is too early, and difficult to
adopt, or too late and missed the market window. Or perhaps the concept
was too narrowly conceived from the beginning.
Reach and Grasp – the Alligator Arms effect
The idea of reach is one I talk about often with my clients. In many organizations we have what football commentators call “alligator arms“.
You’ve seen the phenomenon: when a wide receiver runs a route over the
middle of the field and a pass is thrown his way, he may make a
half-hearted attempt to reach out and catch the ball, but then
immediately retracts
his arms to protect his body. Rather than leave his torso exposed and
catch the ball, he makes a quick but futile attempt to snatch the ball
and then protect his body. All too often innovators have alligator arms
when it comes to their vision. They know a big, interesting concept
matters, but aren’t willing to push the idea for fear of rejection. So
they pursue ideas that are less than compelling, and given the time,
energy and resistance to overcome to commercialize a new product, they
are never happy with the results.
Reach should exceed Grasp
Robert Browning wrote that
“A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
His concept is that people should constantly reach further than they
think is practical or safe, or risk living a life that is unsatisfactory
and cramped. In the same way innovators should constantly have visions
of ideas that exceed their grasp. If you know exactly how you will
implement a new idea or concept today, then your idea is too practical
and too easily copied. If your idea doesn’t face some internal
skepticism and headwinds, it is already too incremental. One of my other
favorite sayings in this regard is:
Don’t worry about someone stealing your idea. If it is truly new and original, you’ll have to ram it down their throats.
Houston: We have a problem
Many corporate innovators suffer from alligator arms, or have limited
reach, which is unfortunate, because there is an increasing gap between
what is expected and needed by senior executives and the market, and
what is produced by innovators and product development teams. Many times
I hear CEOs explaining that their staff must not be very innovative,
because all they produce is safe, incremental ideas. We recently led an
innovation activity in the insurance industry where the CEO kicked off
the event expounding the need for real “game changing” ideas. Once he
left the team to its devices, they reverted to real “small ball”
concepts. Mid and senior level managers have been taught to pull their
punches and rely on small, incremental changes, but the expectations and
markets have shifted. CEOs desperately want interesting,
differentiating ideas and products, but our reach is completely within
our grasp. Many innovators and product developers are frustrated by the
limited reach, but don’t believe new, interesting, disruptive ideas will
be well received.
We have a solution
So we have a quandary: executives are asking for the big idea, the reach
beyond the grasp, while innovators and product developers are still
locked into small ball and incremental innovation. Paul Hobcraft and I
developed the Executive Innovation Workmat
to address the root cause of this issue: executives saying they want
innovation but failing to put the frameworks and programs in place to
ensure its success. If your reach is limited to your comfort zone, if
you are frustrated by the incremental ideas your team creates, contact
us. We can create a framework that bridges the gap between expectation
and capability.
