Nurture Innovative Ideas — Loonshots
Have you ever imagined how great inventions come together? They started as crazy ideas, the loonshots, whose creators were regarded as lunatic. But when these loonshots are nurtured and supported by an organization, they have the potential to influence things globally.
Apart from many other factors, failure is, perhaps, the most important one in the process of nourishing loonshots. Most companies don’t fail enough. Worse, they only fail once. They keep doing the same thing, over and over again. Until it’s too late, and things have changed so much, they are no longer able to catch the train.
The author of Loonshots distinguishes two different types: The P-Type (a breakthrough in the product) and the S-Type (a breakthrough in the strategy). Usually, we tend to favor the first one, as it immediately impacts the way we do things. But without strategy innovation, loonshots tend to diminish as a company grows in size.
“Rather than champion any individual loonshot, they create an outstanding structure for nurturing many loonshots. Rather than visionary innovators, they are careful gardeners. ”
Nokia was one of the most profitable companies in Europe because of the innovations provided to the market: the first cellular network, the car phone, and the GSM phone. In 2004, the invention of the touchscreen phone with a camera was not accepted by Nokia’s leaders. After a few years, the iPhone was launched and Nokia was left behind.
But why didn’t Nokia leap on this world-changing invention, the smartphone? After the success of a company, the stakes are much higher, and nobody wants to be associated with a failing idea and risk losing a job, position or promotion. Instead of pursuing innovation, they keep doing their thing and ignore risky but necessary changes. Those same leaders, who took on new ideas at the beginning of the company, stick to the same route. Nokia’s culture was indeed open to creative ideas, but the structure changed as a consequence of market growth, which later led to its decline.
“As teams and companies grow larger, the stakes in outcome decrease while the perks of rank increase. When the two cross, the system snaps. Incentives begin encouraging behavior no one wants. Those same groups—with the same people—begin rejecting loonshots.”
Organizations should then nurture a structure that encourages its members to innovate and create — the S-type should encourage P-type loonshots. Was the previous innovation a product of the structure, or pure luck?