Selling More Isn’t Always About Selling Here’s a classic 5-minute video of the late great Harvard Business School Professor, Clayton Christensen, explaining how the jobs-to-de-done (JTBD) innovation approach can help any business sell more. The breakthrough jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) approach he is describing has nothing to do with “selling.” 3 Takeaways: First, being “customer-focused” is not ...

Why Most Organizations are Failing at Innovation Study after study has shown that the #1 reason for startup and new product failure is “no market need,” i.e., misunderstanding customer needs. The primary challenge of innovation is not to come up with ideas, develop and commercialize them; it’s to gain clarity about the opportunities in your ...

How to Make the Competition Irrelevant Most leaders agree that obtaining competitive information is essential for developing an effective strategy. Gaining competitive intelligence is often viewed as similar to gaining military intelligence. The big difference is that in capitalism we are fighting to earn the business of customers. In war, there are no customers, and ...

Testimonial by Christian St-Onge, Director of Global Strategy, Can-Am Off-Road Vehicles, BRP What if you knew where to focus and what to do to address your target customers’ unmet needs, create unique value, and drive growth in a repeatable manner? Could that change the game for you?

How to Clean Up Your Innovation Mess According to the late Wharton Professor Russell Ackoff, attempting to innovate without first validating customer demand is a “mess.” Indeed, any situation that has “arguable issue definition and arguable solutions” is a mess. In other words, if you are trying to solve a problem that has not been ...

The First Thing Every Innovation Team Should Do Until an organization establishes accurate, precise, and agreed-upon meanings for the key concepts of innovation, its innovation efforts will flounder. “The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.” – Socrates Can you imagine an attorney attempting to prosecute a negligence case without a clear and agreed-upon definition ...

Innovation Sets the Stage for Creativity

How to Create New Products that Customers Want Some people believe that the most innovative companies create customer demand with breakthrough new offerings. They say things like, “Nobody knew they needed an iPhone until Apple created it. Apple created needs that people didn’t even know they had.” Hence, if you want to be an innovation leader, ...

If You Think Innovation is Risky, Try Irrelevance If you think innovation is risky, try irrelevance. Three mistakes that cause leaders to unduly pull back from innovation: 1) Failing to validate customers’ unmet needs before investing in the development of solutions. Study after study has shown that the number one cause of innovation failure is ...

How to Get Online Classes Right In mid-March, COVID-19 forced America’s K-12 schools and universities to change their delivery platform from traditional classrooms to online programs. This has been a massive challenge for all involved. Not surprisingly, the online programs have fallen far short. Although most schools and universities are opening in the fall, their ...