Wellington
As a bit of a sucker for an allegory, attaching thoughts about innovation to the seven deadlysins is a clever ploy and play.
That said though I’d be hard-pressed to name them (pride, sloth, gluttony, lust, envy, wrath,greed).
Scott Anthony directs the Asia-Pacific office of Innosight, and has recently published a book
Innovation Excellence
highlighted the 7 DeadlySins in a recent blog by Matthew E May (see
These sins have a strong parallel with the
But, given the attractions of its allegorical nature, here’s the 7 Deadly Sins of Innovationlaid out in sticK.
1. Pride
The sin of pride innovation is forcing your view of quality ontothe marketplace, which often results in overshooting. The easiest way to avoid the sin of pride isby taking an external viewpoint to make sure you understand how the customer measures quality. Makesure you are grounded in what the market wants, not what you want.
2. Sloth
Are your innovation efforts slowing to a crawl? That’s sloth.More often than not, innovation simply takes too long. By the time a company gets around to doingsomething, the window of opportunity has closed. Why does innovation take so long? It’s not reallylaziness. It’s that people work on the wrong activities, typically by prioritizing analysis overaction. It’s all too easy to fill your day with activities that make it feel as if you are makingprogress tackling a problem.
Avoid it by releasing your inner Edison: “genius is one percentinspiration and 99 percent perspiration.
3. Gluttony
Gluttony is suffering from an addiction to abundant resourcesand leads to overly slow, overly linear innovation efforts. Deep pockets allow companies to spendtoo many resources following the wrong strategy. They throw bodies against a problem, but everyoneknows that small teams typically move faster than large teams.Avoid it by practicing selectivescarcity: constrain resources in the early stages of innovation to enable creativity.
4. Lust
It’s easy to get tempted and distracted by pursuing too manybells and whistles, too many bright, shiny objects. Avoid it by focusing your innovation efforts,remembering that destruction often precedes creation. Stopping is as important as starting. Lustafter too many things, and you’ll find that you end up with nothing. Good innovators carefullychoose the opportunities they go after.
5. Envy
Envy occurs when innovators inside a company proclaim themselvesthe chosen ones, and create an us-vs-them relationship between your main business and your newgrowth areas. Remember, without that core business, there is no corporate innovation. Activelycelebrate the efforts and successes of both old and new business areas to avoid the sin of Envy.
6. Wrath
A wrathful leader punishes innovation failures, using lines suchas “Failure is not an option.” But in innovation failure is most certainly an option. What kindof message does it send if you punish people who take well-thought-out risks that don’t pan out?Beautiful business plans don’t always turn into beautiful businesses. Avoid wrath by rewardingbehaviour, not just outcomes.
7. Greed
Greed has its advantage, but innovators need to make sure they aregreedy for the right thing. Greed is sinful when you’re being impatient about growth, and can leadto prioritizing low-potential markets and opportunities. If you look for quick growth, you areforced to look to what exists. The best innovators avoid the temptation to go after large, obvious,immediate markets. These people can be patient for growth. They should absolutely be greedy forresults that demonstrate that the approach they are following has merits.