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August 10, 2009 By: NCTechNews Category: Innovation

November 4, 2009

Poised for Success: Five Steps to Ready Your Business for “The Comeback”

by Lea Strickland, CMA CBM CFM

“What to do, what to do?” That is the key question on everyone’s mind during these tough economic times. Resources are tight and may get tighter, but you don’t want to be unprepared when things turn around. So, how do you pull back and keep the business in survival mode, while strategically preparing to come out of the blocks ready to sell, sell, sell and get the business growing again.

First: Understand your financial situation and that all actions require CASH—not sales; not profits; CASH. What is your current and projected cash position? This means having current, accurate financial statements—both income statements and a balance sheet. It also means having budgets and forecasts of your financial spending needs and resources, which means addressing the other four points below.

Second: Know what your core business is and where the existing capacity issues lie. This means understanding where your business is going to have the biggest issue getting capacity back in place or where you will need to upgrade. Does it take a long time to recruit, train, and get workers capable of providing your product or service to the customer? If so, you need to be able to identify the signs of demand for your business increasing and have a plan and all the elements in place for recruiting the people you need: Recruiting ads or placement firms, job descriptions, cash for payroll, employment agreements, training plans and manuals, and all the other details of who, what, how much, when, and how many people of what skills sets. This will enable you to start ramping up the capacity to serve the returning customers and prospects. And don’t forget: In addition to product-oriented people, you will need administrative support and equipment, as well as other resources.

Third: Invest in capital equipment and property and the “big ticket” items where they really make a difference. If you are going to invest in deals, “can’t pass up opportunities” or cool gadgets, then the latest technology you really need may get passed over if you aren’t careful. Identify the constrained resources, where capacity is going to be limited and keep you from serving the maximum number of customers. For example, if you have one printer and you do thousands of pages of printing, you may need to look into contracting printing out or buying another printer. What if your phone system is unreliable or you have only one phone number, your sales force doesn’t have cell phones, the company doesn’t have accounting software or a CRM (customer relationship management) system? Maybe you need to upgrade your website or your computers are dinosaurs. Each company will have different constraints and different needs—not wants, but needs. Be sure to differentiate between the two.

Fourth: Invest in marketing and business development. Accounting may tell you that business development, marketing, advertising, and sales activities are expenses, but that’s the accounting perspective. Done well they are truly investments in your business’s future, so managerially and strategically they are investments. If you make the decision to invest, do so with careful analysis and sound advice, understanding the customer need, the competition, and what you need to do to communicate effectively with the customer. Also, make the connection back to your capital investment analysis. If you are going to roll out an investment in marketing and sales, know that your capital investments need to be made to increase your capacity to be scalable and responsive to the customers you are bringing into your organization, bringing them physically in your door. Think about your physical space and staffing requirements. Are you having customers call you? Then what is the capacity of the phone lines? Who will be answering them? How are these people trained to answer, how much product/service information do they have, and can they take the orders? Are customers ordering from your website? What does your website look like; how does it function? Do you take credit cards? Is that secure? Can customers chat with or instant message your company? If a million people simultaneously visit your website, will it crash? Are you able to handle what you are creating?

Fifth: Plan for success. Establish relationships with other companies that you will think you’ll need, including suppliers, service providers, delivery companies, and potential strategic alliance partners. Be ready with the ability to turn on additional services, capacity, and have answers or know people who have answers and resources. Oh, and you will need to be talking to bankers and credit card companies, too, even though they may not be someone you are particularly fond of at the moment. Remember, cash is needed and having a banking relationship and credit will be a necessary part of your growing and successful business once again.

F.O.C.U.S. Resources founder, Lea Strickland, is a nationally recognized consultant on strategic business issues, both operational and financial. Her expert opinions have appeared in national publications such as Entrepreneur Magazine’s Be Your Own Boss and Small Business Technology Magazine. She is also a featured columnist, contributor, and guest expert for publications that include: Carolina News Wire, Business Leader Magazine, North Carolina Career Network Magazine, and North Carolina Journal for Women. Her own publication, The F.O.C.U.S. Resources Newsletter, is read around the world. Companies of all sizes and industries frequently consult Ms. Strickland on issues that include: Strategy Formulation, Strategic Planning, Financial Projections and Budgets, and Growth Issues. For more information visit www.focusresourcesinc.com.

*****

September 30, 2009

The Pros of Cons

by Lea Strickland, CMA CBM CFM

They seem to be in every aspect of life and are as common as a cold: They are “professionals” who can convince anyone and everyone that, despite a lack of results inside a company or without building a successful company of their own (or a successful track record of visible measurable performance anywhere), they are the ones to “trust.” These “pros” are “the ones” to do business with. They can persuade you to trust your dollars, your company, your time, your resources, and your reputation to them. They can persuade you to pay them, trade with them, do things for them, all on a promise of what they will do—or can do—for you. They will make you as “successful” as they are.

Razzle Dazzle Dance
They are good. No, they are great. They have the gift of persuasion. The personas may differ. Some don the demeanor of the seasoned executive with decades of experience. Others take on the milder image of the helpful and well-meaning missionary with a purpose and higher calling, drawing you into their cause … then they “help” you.

These pros are very capable of selling. They are artful in moving from group to group and target to target. They manage to deliver nothing but promises, and as they move along leaving chaos and dissatisfaction (at a minimum) behind them, they are able to maintain an aura that prevents criticism from sticking, and NO success. They perform their “razzle dazzle,” and the next victim steps up to dance and lets them lead him down the path.

The Art of the Pro’s Con
How does it happen? It happens as does any good con, because of the belief that we are different and smart and we are able to tell the difference. What others may caution us about, or what others may actually share as their experience, is brushed off by the pro as “sour grapes.” The pro assures us that the other person didn’t “get it” or “wasn’t willing to do what was necessary, wasn’t of the caliber, or missed the point.” It’s always “all the other person’s fault.” It will always be a result of “the other person,” according to the pro. And we will be different because we know (and so does the pro) that we have what it takes.

What the pro uses is our smarts, our intelligence, our savvy, and our self-confidence; that’s what reels us in. It is our own abilities that enable the hook to be set when the pro starts fishing. We take the bait, because we are capable and we do have the ability to get things done. If we didn’t, the pro wouldn’t be fishing for what we have.

The Cost of the Con
At this point, it is important to make a distinction between the occasion when you will hire a consultant or a professional that just isn’t the right fit. Say the professional works hard and knows their business, but the methods and your style just don’t mesh. In those cases, the professional will be a professional and preserve his/her reputation and your funds and part ways with you. You can tell the difference because the professional will quick to tell you about:

* potential overruns on the project;
* a need for your team to take ownership of the deliverables;
* places where costs could be saved;
* other issues and opportunities.

The con lets you be surprised and avoids giving you the list of things your organization needs to do and make happen, the deliverables and milestones that are critical to achieving project success, or points out when another professional (lawyer, accountant, marketer) may be more appropriate or cost effective to use.

The Pro Fishes for Capability and Resources
The pros of the con are capable of persuading you to use what you have and what you know, make it available for their cause, and pay them for their assistance in improving your results. And when results don’t materialize for you, the lack of results will be from your inability to execute or grasp the concepts. You will join the crowd of those who have gone before: “the incapable and dissatisfied,” the former customers and associates who experienced the cons. If your pro is good, you may for a time wonder if you are missing the point, if you are missing the opportunity, and you just need to put more time, effort, thought, resources, and commitment into the project or venture. What you are experiencing is the pro fishing for deeper commitment, looking for an opportunity to reel in the prize. Don’t take the bait! Slip the hook and run for deeper water!

Open Water: Swim, Swim
The reasons the con works again and again is that the pros know how to fish. They have perfected the art of the lure. They know how to conceal the hook inside the bait. They also know how to identify the fish with the best potential: real ideas, capability, credibility, resources, and ability to execute. The pro of the business con is a person that has some degree of basic content enough to make the bait look real and enough to conceal the hook. But look beyond the surface and check before you bite. Don’t swallow the line that is being cast hook, line, and sinker before you get a chance to see who is really doing the fishing.

*****

August 10, 2009

The Grant Proposal Budget: Seven Things to Remember

by Lea Strickland, CMA CBM CFM

The grant proposal budget is an often-overlooked opportunity to improve the proposal’s chances of winning. The budget is a communication tool to the reviewers, just like any other element of the proposal. What the budget does or doesn’t do is let the reviewers know what you do or don’t understand about your research project in terms of cost and resources, how it fits into the total scope of your business financially, and what you understand about the particular rules and requirements of the grant programs and agency guidelines and rules. The proposal budget can become a make or break for your proposal and business if you don’t understand its role and implications-both during the review process and after an award has been received.

Number One: Understand the Context of the Budget, Both Proposed and Awarded
When submitting a grant proposal, one of the most critical elements (and frequently one of the items that receives the least amount of time devoted to its creation) is the proposal budget. Unfortunately, this part of the proposal can have far-reaching impact on the success of your proposal and ultimately on the financial performance of your business. Taking the time to understand the importance of the proposal budget is-crucial, especially within the context of the proposal as well as in the award process, and-if you are fortunate and receive the award-in the execution of the project.

The proposal budget conveys to the agency and its reviewers what you know about your project, your business, and what it will take to accomplish the scope of work proposed. Keep in mind that you are expected to execute the full scope of work unless the technical aspects of the project are unsuccessful, so the proposal budget showcases the costs that are being submitted to the agency for the project to cover. But these are not ALL the costs of the project or the business.

Number Two: Not All Costs Will Be Allowed and Only a “Fair Share” of Others
This is the second thing that is important to understand: under the grant funding process and rules, the total costs incurred by a for-profit entity will not be covered by the government project. The government grant funding is funding assistance and is meant to cover direct costs as identified, submitted, and approved in the proposal budget, and a fair share of common costs. These common costs are known as the indirect costs. An important point to understand with the indirect costs (and direct ones) is there are categories of these costs that cannot be included these are specifically unallowable or may be excluded by the agency, program or by agreement.

Number Three: You May Have Only One Project, But That Doesn’t Mean It Gets 100% of the Costs
This is the third thing to understand. While the business will incur costs associated with the project, and it may only have that one grant project, not all costs will be billable to the project. There are different types of costs that from the governments view are not “allowable” as charges to the project directly or indirectly…hen there are some charges that the project only gets a “fair share” of. In these cases the business must fund the remaining costs from other sources. This is a critical point to understand. When it comes to costs that are not directly caused by the project and wholly owned by the project then those indirect costs or common business costs must be identified, understood and calculated to be in the indirect rates so as to fairly maximize the costs recovered in each project.

Number Four: Make the Effort to Calculate Your Actual or Projected Indirect Rates
Calculating an indirect rate and negotiating for the rate that reflects your organizations business infrastructure is the fourth thing to remember. Many organizations find it “simpler” to accept the standard or maximum rate that is allowed without having to negotiate a rate and they also accept the base upon which that rate will be applied. For instance, a proposal submitted into the National Science Foundation (NSF) may include a rate up to 50% of direct labor costs as its indirect rate without requiring a negotiation on indirect rates.

Wow! That sounds great, right? What happens if your organization’s business costs and infrastructure are more accurately represented by having a fringe rate of 25% on direct labor; an overhead rate of 37% applied on modified total direct costs; and a general and administrative rate of 10%; how will your business be impacted? Let’s compare. (Note: This is a simplified example of how the rates are applied and meant only to illustrate the compounding of the rates and not necessarily the specifics of the NSF or other agency base definitions.)

Direct Labor: $50,000

Materials: $1.500

Subcontractor: $23,000

Travel: $500

Equipment: $10,000

Total Direct Costs: $85,000

Indirect Costs based on Direct Labor
with NSF Indirect Rate Applied: $25,000

Total NSF 50%: $110,000

Direct Labor with 25% Fringe: $12,500

Applying Overhead Rate

Total Modified Direct Costs Base

(includes Subcontracts excludes equipment):

$75000+$12,500=$87,500*37%= $32,375

Applying G&A Rate

$87,500+$32,375=$119,875*10%= $11,988

Total Indirect Dollars: $69,363

Number Five: Accepting the Maximum Indirect Rate without Negotiation Acts as a Ceiling Rate for Most Agencies
If you accepted 50% of direct labor as your indirect rate, only to find that your actual rates were those indicated in the example above, you come up $44,363 short of getting the project to bear its “fair share” of costs. For most agencies, if you don’t have a negotiated indirect rate, then you won’t be submitting to recover the difference because the “standard” or “maximum” indirect rate without negotiation also acts as a cap or ceiling for the award on indirect costs.

So the fifth thing you need to remember: If you accept a maximum indirect rate in your award, then you forfeit the ability to recover the actual costs incurred above that rate. Even if you have a cost reimbursement award, if the award has a ceiling or a maximum rate or dollar amount contained in the award, you will only receive cost reimbursement up to that ceiling amount.

Number Six: Understand the Direct Costs Related to People
The sixth recommendation relates to the direct costs included in the proposal and specifically those direct costs that are related to people. When it comes to including the costs associated with your personnel (employees) and with subcontractors, consultants, consortiums, and subrecipients, it is important to understand the requirements, the rules, and the expectations of what your budget will impose on the business. For instance, the principal investigator must be an employee of the small business concern under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The principal investigator (PI) cannot be a full-time employee of any other organization and be the PI. The minimum level of effort requirement for many agencies/programs for the PI is 10%. When it comes to level of effort, the percentage is applied to the hours worked. If someone works 40 hours, then the level of effort is applied to the 40 hours; if the person works more hours, then the percentage is applied to the higher number of hours.

Also, from an overall project perspective, the proposal budget needs to reflect the appropriate level of effort by each organization. If you are suppose to do at least 40% of the effort as the small business, and 30% of the effort in the research organization (Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) programs) then ensure you are meeting those numbers. However, this effort has to be spent on the technical research as it is conducted, and not on a big, expensive piece of equipment. Make sure that you are appropriately apportioning the work effort and you are translating that information into the proposal, which translates into the budget dollars and how they are spent.

Number Seven: You Live with and Comply with What You Propose.
The seventh and final thing to remember is that money is left on the table and compliance issues are often created by how the proposal budget is written and submitted. Because the proposal budget is often accepted unchanged or with only slight modifications (often made by the agencies themselves without your input), it is important to make sure that the proposal budget is something you can live with and that you understand what it will impose on you when you are executing your project. Changes to the budget will often require approval by the grant manager. For example, if you commit your key personnel to 100% effort on a project to make sure you can charge all of there costs to the project then remember that your key personnel can only work on that project. Don’t box yourself in the budget by treating it as “simple math” and accepting the “default values.” Use the proposal budget as the tool to enable your business and maximize what you will be able to get out of the project, both financially and technically. Make the proposal budget one more reason for the proposal and the project to succeed.

*****

July 14, 2009

Business Plans: Not Fill-in-the-Blank or Academic Exercises

by Lea Strickland, CMA CBM CFM

Often, it seems that anyone and everyone doing business plans are filling in blanks or using templates. For many organizations, the creation of a business plan is an exercise that gets put in the drawer or on a shelf to be forgotten until it’s time for the next exercise.

A successful business plan must be a strategic plan and an action plan AND a living document. It should be dynamic, and viewed as the tool that the organization uses to see where they are going and how things are changing as they move forward. The plan includes assumptions, forecasts, and periodic revisions to keep the organization moving forward and thinking forward with new information and revisions of the strategy, etc.

When I speak to students and entrepreneurship/business plan groups (or lead them), I push them to engage in the process more than the actual creation of document. In other words, they need to be focused more on the analytical and strategic thinking skills for developing the insights and plan content and less on writing a document. They need to know how and why they need the strategic vision, the competitive information, the financial forecasts, and then they need to be able to know when, why, etc. they are varying from that plan when running the company. (The document when it is ultimately written needs to be well-written, grammatically and structurally, but that is a given.)

When working with clients to raise funds (e.g., government grants, private equity, bank financing), the business plan becomes a key strategic document. The business plan and its components—which must include sound financial forecasts and the strategic thinking behind developing the plan—are required elements of the process. The business plan is a building block, a foundation for the communication documents that are created to seek any funding. Even when potential investors only want to see a presentation, the information for that presentation should be based on the organization’s business plan.

Who Else Uses the Business Plan?
The business plan is of interest not only to potential investors but also to the auditors for certain groups (such as state tax investment status-qualified business ventures). Auditors use the information contained in the business plan to assess the potential of new entities and to gain an understanding of the “going concern” potential of these organizations. They definitely aren’t looking for routine, fill-in-the-blank analysis.

Templates and Fill-in-the-Blanks Aren’t “Good Enough”
When making a case for someone to make an investment in your company or for an auditor to decide whether your business has positive potential, treating business plan development as a “fill-in-the-blank” or “paint-by-number” process similar to doing homework that’s merely “good enough” to “pass.” To acquire funding or to be a “going concern,” you aren’t just trying to get a grade good enough to pass; you need to be one of the A students. There are hundreds—even thousands—of competitors out there with ideas and businesses who are willing and able to do more than “good enough” when presenting their ideas and business propositions. Effort definitely counts when preparing a business plan; you must put your best ideas and information forward. As the saying goes, “You get one chance to make a good first impression … or a great one.”

Articulate the Idea and Virtually Close the Deal
Have you ever read an article or a book that is so well written that you immediately want to act on the information? As you read the book, each page, each chapter makes you want to read more AND take an action on what you just read. You want to DO something to be a part of the story, to join in the success of what is happening in what you are reading. If your business plan doesn’t have at least some of that punch (keeping in mind that this still is a BUSINESS plan) then you are missing out on an opportunity to hook your reader into YOUR STORY.

Give Them a Story Line and an Adventure
There is an exercise that is frequently recommended when trying to develop creative and unique advertising copy for print ads. Look at your ad and those of some competitors. If you can interchange the name of your company with those of your competitors in the ads, then you aren’t saying anything new, noteworthy, or meaningful to your customer or prospect. The same type of exercise can be applied—with a bit of twist—to business plans: use “find and replace.” Take a business plan from your industry, then find and replace company X’s name with your company’s name. If you are “just like all the others,” go ahead and do a fill-in-the-blank or find-and-replace business plan. Don’t stand out from the crowd and certainly don’t tell a compelling story about your great idea and how your technology, product, and team are different. Be like everyone else; better yet, don’t even bother with a plan. Just show up with a few PowerPoint slides and no answers about the long-term potential, your competitors, current technology, alternatives, financial information on how much you need to get the product developed and to market, or any other crucial information. I suspect you will have a great deal of difficulty acquiring investors or any interest in your business.

The business plan is a sales tool. If you aren’t putting the effort into creating a unique, compelling, and investable story. Then you might as well BE doing a fill-in-the-blank, a find-and-replace, or even a paint by number. If you aren’t unique. If you don’t stand out from the crowd and you can’t be bothered with the effort to tell your story and know who you are competing with – even if you don’t feel like they are much of a competitor. If you don’t want to have to tell your story and convince someone you, your team, and your technology is the best and should be invested in. Don’t. Let your competition do it and get the investors money and get to market ahead of you with more resources and you can run to catch up.

When it’s time to tell the story of your business to potential investors, to the media, to customers, to prospects, to potential employees, and to anyone and everyone who will listen, it’s important to have that story clearly written, not only in your own mind, but on paper. You may not be asked to hand everyone a written business plan, but having a document that clearly explains your business to your audience helps them to understand where you are going and how you intend to get there. They get pulled into the story and want to make it happen with you. With a plan, more things are possible because the goal and the route become clearer.

*****

May 10, 2009

The Business of Technology

by Lea Strickland, CMA CBM CFM

As the pace of technology innovation increases and as more and more players are able to enter the markets and provide alternatives (to each other and existing solutions), differentiation and adoption is fostered by the ability to put sound business practices, processes, and capability behind the technology.

Build It and They Will Come…Maybe
It isn’t enough to have the newest and greatest technology. The “build it and they will come” approach doesn’t take into consideration that a significant part of your potential market may need to be convinced to take a chance on a new technology and a young business. Individuals and businesses are risk adverse or at best risk reluctant. If what they are currently doing or the technology they are currently using is “good enough for now”, then persuading them that they need to “risk” a new technology and/or a new business may be a greater obstacle and take more time than you anticipated.

The Obvious Isn’t Always Obvious
All the reasons someone should be willing to do business with you and adopt a new strategy or technology are usually obvious only to the internal team and knowledgeable outsiders. Often that core belief in your “product” is based more on enthusiasm for the technology and less on the certainty that you know how to deliver the “goods” to the customer.

The founder of a business or the creator of a technology has the passion for the product. If that passion isn’t accompanied by sound business then the degree of risk - real and perceived - to be an early adopter is greater. Creating the technology is only part of the equation. The technology has to be commercially viable - replicable, reproducible in quantities sufficient to meet demand, and at a price that the market will pay while generating a profit.

Any technology – even the best technology – which can’t be sold at price that includes profit isn’t going to sustain a business. The same technology packaged with services or another product or solution may command a highly profitable price.

Proof of Concept and the First Customer
Businesses and technology go through the proof of concept - demonstrating that they work and that there is a market. They can go through the proof of concept phase individually, concurrently, or consecutively. Both the technology and the business can “work” individually and still not be able to succeed together. An individual technology may not be sufficient to sustain a standalone company. Instead, it may be either a platform for the development of many products within a larger business or it may simply not have a market large enough to justify commercialization.

Maximizing Technology through Sound Business
It isn’t the always the best software product or other technology which captures the largest share of the market. It is most often the technology which has the best infrastructure, marketing, and business savvy that sidelines the competition. There are numerous examples of products that are “the” brands to buy which, if taken on merit alone, aren’t the logical winners in the business wars. They shall remain nameless in this article, but I bet you can name them yourself:

•    Operating system software?
•    Herbal energy drink?
•    Hybrid car?
•    PDA?
•    Cell phone?

When you look at market successes, the “superior” product doesn’t always survive or win the biggest market share. The customer decides. Customers aren’t always logical.

Every business needs more than its product to thrive. It needs to do “business” well in order to compete and win. Some successes come whether the product or technology is the “best” or whether or not the customer service is “excellent”, but those successes aren’t predicable nor are the replicable. To succeed you need some of the “IT” quality and a large quantity of business know-how and hard work. It ain’t always pretty, but sweat equity and sound business build bottom-line success.

*****

April 20, 2009

Time Out for Innovation

by Lea Strickland, CMA CBM CFM

One of the biggest mistakes businesses—or any organization today—make is a failure to allow time for working on the business itself. Current business practices have created a mindset that has every worker (theoretically at least) working every moment in the business on the day-to-day tasks of the activities of what the business is currently engaged in. If you think about it, even the “strategic” activities and levels of what the business is engaged in working on are about today’s organization —what the organization is, does, and how it will continue with its line of business, products, operations, and its “known” universe. The “strategic picture” that most organizations are thinking about (when they are thinking strategically at all) is how to do more of the same: maximizing their existing potential; acquiring more of what they are; acquiring more of something else that already exists (e.g., competitors, products, markets); reducing costs; and so on.

Innovation Outside the Box
In most organizations, innovation is about improving the existing product or product lines. This mindset is innovation “within the box,” constrained because most of these innovation strategies are asking for something that doesn’t change the core of what the organization is today. Organizations aren’t seeking to change the entire business or product paradigm and walk away from their past successes. They want the next great thing—as long as it fits with what they’ve been doing. For these companies, innovation is incremental improvement, or worse it becomes something to be talked about or carved on a plaque.

Innovation, to be more than a slogan, has to be a living, breathing, tangible thing that everyone in the organization understands, something that everyone can define, demonstrate, and identify in day-to-day activities and roles. Innovation is something you can point to and say, “There it is! And even more important, here is the result!” Innovation moves the organization “outside the box.”

Results Come from Efforts
In order to get results, you must have effort. Effort requires time. Time requires the organization to commit resources: people and funds. Oh, and sometimes, even though you are going to be able to point at the results and you will be able to point at innovation, the starting point and subsequent ideas require what appears to be people sitting and standing around, seemingly doing “nothing.” It’s important to remember that ideas take time: Time for thinking; time for contemplation; time for problem-solving; time to define the problem. They require time to process issues; quiet time (individually and in groups); time to brainstorm; time to meet; and time to evaluate.

Structured for Innovation
There are few organizations that truly understand what it means to be structured for innovation. Note the contradiction: structured for innovation. How do you have structure and innovation? Innovation is creativity. Structure is well, corporate, constraining, the antithesis of innovation … right? Not necessarily. Structure is direction; structure is recognition that without recognition for the need to have time to create, then corporations tend to—let’s just say it—kill innovation. Do any of these look familiar to you?

“Oh, that’s not in the budget.”
“We don’t have time for that.”
“Who said you could do that?”
“Is that in your project scope?”
“What line item are you charging that to?”
“What are you doing? Are you just sitting there thinking?”
“What’s that you’re drawing? You’re supposed to be working on X!”
“Are you part of the innovation group? Only the innovation group gets to work on that!”

Come on; you’ve been there. You’ve heard those comments. You can hear them right now, with just that little bit of “tone” in them.

Contrast that with an organization that recognizes that all its employees are charged with innovation—of business processes, of customer services, of products, of technology. It’s an organization in which employees are empowered to take time out to think about how to improve their jobs; time out to discuss product changes or potential new lines of business; time out for crazy new ideas and brainstorming; time out for innovation.

Innovation requires the ability to step back and look at the business, the competition, the market, the industry, other industries, trends, technology, and the world around you. Innovation requires the ability to stop, look, and listen. Innovation requires time to say “Hmmm … what if … what’s missing … why couldn’t we? The competition is doing X, so we could do X + Y; or we actually need to Z, PDQ.” When we get caught up in the day-to-day, we become blinded to the long term and can get left behind or spend all our time running to catch up in a competitive market that goes faster and faster. With a little time out to think, to plan, to reason, to innovate, we could make significant progress and even jump ahead of the competition. Have them be the ones running to catch up to us.

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