I am a huge fan of the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, and I consider Bill Watterson, the genius who brought to life the colorful world of a little boy named Calvin, to be one of the great innovators of recent times. Calvin’s world was made richer by his stuffed animal, Hobbes, whom only Calvin realized was the walking, talking, teaching Tiger that he was. My favorite story had to do with Calvin’s invention called a Transmogrifier, which is a machine that can turn one thing into another thing, all you had to do was step into the upside down cardboard box and turn the dial to whatever you wanted to be. Awesome!!! Alas, Calvin’s attempts did not always turn out to be…quite-so-right. While this particular storyline is funny, I relate it to my attempts at innovation throughout my career, because it does not always turn out to be…quite-so-right. Sometimes it feels like the tools of innovation, provided to most of us, are nothing more than cardboard boxes, tape and crayons.
Which makes it ironic that innovation is a foundational element of sustained growth. But for many of us working in Sales, Marketing, Operations, or Finance, innovation just does not seem to be built into the fabric of our day to day jobs. So, unless you happen to be Steve Jobs or that dude who invented the paper clip, how can you, sitting in a meeting, or working through your weekly sales forecast, help your company drive sustained growth through innovation? Thinking about Calvin’s many unsuccessful attempts at transmogrification, has made me realize that my job, helping companies improve their Value Propositions and increase Customer Value delivered, is actually one of the most practical forms of innovation in the business world today.
But first, what does Value Proposition improvement actually mean? Well, since I was unable to get in touch with Bill Watterson and ask him what Calvin would say about Innovation in today’s workplace, I found a great substitute. I asked my 7 year old son Daniel, what he thinks it is that I do, what he thinks improving Value Propositions and Customer Value is all about. His answer is pretty straight forward and most certainly elegant:
“Hmmm….Well you work with companies, you go to companies to help them do better work.”
You help companies do better work. Wow, very cool. Daniel gave me my breakthrough. So, according to Daniel (and to me) improving your Value Proposition means helping your customers “do better work”. This means you are helping your customers improve their profitability or helping them better achieve their goals (i.e., not-for-profits, healthcare providers, government entities, etc.).
By extension, if you help your customers “do better work”, that is indeed Innovation. In fact, improving your customers profits, faster than your competition year after year, is the stuff of “big I” Innovation. Valkre’s solution to improving Value Propositions is focused on collaborating with your customers to help them solve today’s problems faster than your competitors. In other words, Innovation is not just about discovering a new polymer that will extend the life of a tire by 10X. A recent NY Times editorial echoes that sentiment:
“Today, because knowledge is available on every Internet-connected device, what you know matters far less than what you can do with what you know. The capacity to innovate — the ability to solve problems creatively or bring new possibilities to life…is far more important than academic knowledge.” From: Tony Wagner, quoted in Thomsa L. Friedman’s Op-Ed column, “Need a Job? Invent it”, NY Times, March 30, 2013)
What you know matters far less than what you can do with what you know: A great first step is to go out and talk to your customers and ask them how you can help them grow. Your customers will have definite opinions on how you can help them grow, so go out and ask them, then work with them to bring new possibilities to life!
What is your working Transmogrifier for growth?
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