Have you ever thought that you could be more innovative if you just had fewer constraints imposed upon you? That’s the dream of many leaders; to be free of constraints so they could let their minds wander and do truly innovative work. After all, how can you be innovative when you have to hit margin targets, improve sales and reduce costs? In reality, that’s the time when you can be most innovative. In fact, without a constraint, innovation cannot occur.
Innovation is overcoming constraints
What is the most innovative product, service, or process that you’ve seen? What made it so innovative? Chances are it isn’t following the same rules as the others. What made it innovative was that it overcame some constraint or assumption.
In his book,Why We Buy, Paco Underhill explains this from a slightly different perspective.
“Whenever you encounter shopper improvisation in the retail environment, you have found poignant evidence of one person’s failure to understand what another person requires.” (p. 88)
In other words, shoppers improvise when stores place constraints on their experience. In this case, Underhill is talking about how men use displays, platforms, or any other horizontal surface as a seat (when none are provided) while waiting for their spouse/girlfriend to shop. People are incredibly adept at finding simple solutions to every day constraints. So are businesses.
Amazon overcame the constraint of not having human sales associates in an on-line environment. By using smart data mining algorithms, Amazon is able to help customers find other products that might be of interest – just like a sales person (sometimes even better).
Netflix overcame a distribution constraint making on-line video rental feasible and competitive with bricks-and-mortar stores.
Other companies now provide recommendations based on past purchases and “customers like you” recommendations. A new company is now renting video games over the internet using a Netflix-like model. However, those don’t seem as innovative. The constraint has been broken.
Those are just a few simple examples. Every major innovation overcomes a constraint. Good leaders embrace those constraints and use them to fuel innovation.
