What do a business author, a financial journalist, a medical illustrator, and a software architect have in common? If I said advice on innovation, would it surprise you?

Practically Radical, William C. Taylor’s latest book, is a wonderful thought provoker, full of stories of companies and leaders taking a novel approach to improve profits and create new enterprises. One of Taylor’s main concepts addresses the idea of engaging customers and in some cases any interested persons for ideas for new products, for solutions to business and technical problems and even for product design. Although companies are constantly receiving feedback from customers, Taylor encourages reaching out beyond customers and well beyond the responsible employee group to consciously track, value and encourage participation from the human race.

This is very reminiscent of the “wisdom of crowds” data presented in detail by James Surowiecki, a financial journalist, in his 2004 book, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations. Here, he suggests that ideas submitted by a wide range of people are of higher quality and greater innovation than those by a single individual or an ongoing committee of people. Continue reading…

[Employers] are all looking for the same kind of people — people who not only have the critical thinking skills to do the value-adding jobs that technology can’t, but also people who can invent, adapt and reinvent their jobs every day, in a market that changes faster than ever. Tom Friedman, 7/12/11] 

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Succeeding in today’s global, fast-changing employment market requires a consulting mentality. Traditionally, recent graduates entered the labor market with a “football” mind-set – start from your own goal line and go down the field. As people aged, they expected to move towards the goal by climbing the corporate ladder. Organizational charts were fixed, just like football fields’ dimensions.

This strategy does not work for today’s world. From corporate finance to consumer products, most goods and services are available worldwide. Political demonstrators communicate via Facebook, instant messaging, and U Tube.

Spurred on by an ever growing, technology-savvy adult population and the recent challenging economic environment, businesses are rapidly revising their business models to maximize what technology affords them. The result: meeting younger customers’ expectations and reduced operating expenses, a double win. Continue reading…

A 1980s CFO taught me a simple mantra, “Liquidity, Liquidity, Liquidity.” For him, a firm could not have too much of it. The rationale: a liquidity crisis, the inability to meet daily cash requirements, could put you out of business faster than any other risk.

While in the intervening 25 years new risks have emerged, his lesson continues to be on the money. Insufficient cash flow results in bankruptcy. 

Examples abound

In the corporate world, Lehman Brothers, Drexel Burnham Lambert, and PennCentral are examples of firms that collapsed because of their inability to re-finance their overnight obligations. During the recent financial crisis, Harvard University had trouble meeting its cash obligations despite its multi-billion dollar endowment and Boston-area real estate.   

Sovereign nations face liquidity problems too. Current events in Greece and other Eurozone countries vividly demonstrate the challenges of dealing with a nervous bond market. Experience shows that defaulting will prolong the pain. Access to the capital markets may be closed for years. Ten years ago, Argentina defaulted; that country still cannot issue sovereign debt.

Individuals are not immune to this problem either. While the details are slightly different, the result of a liquidity crisis is the same, bankruptcy. Not a happy result for any entity – whether a country, a corporation, a not-for-profit, or an individual.      

Lessons for a Leader Continue reading…

In her June 16th article on The Whale Hunters blog, Dr. Barbara Weaver Smith reminded me of the importance of doing what you promise, what I call getting it right the first time around. Barbara’s story touched some of my own raw feelings about bad performance or a betrayal of trust. Companies touting quality and then delivering less are prime offenders.

Dr. Smith’s joy of creating something luscious for dinner was interrupted when she found that a premium grocery store had sold her husband rotten potatoes and mushrooms that were unfit to eat. She explains, “From a very expensive, high-end so-called “luxury” grocery story, I had two high-priced items on the same day that were unfit to eat.”

Despite the apologies and the manager’s gracious attempts to make her happy, Barbara raises the crucial question:

“So do we ‘trust’ them? The answer is unequivocally NO. Trusting them to rectify their mistakes is nowhere near to trusting them to deliver fresh, edible produce in the first place. When I shop in a high-priced store whose brand is all about superior quality, then superior quality is what I expect.”

She then makes an even more powerful point:

“There is a big difference between MAKING IT RIGHT after a big screw-up and DOING IT RIGHT from the get-go.” Continue reading…

Although I orginally wrote this article for small business owners on the Whale Hunters blog, the ideas explored here can empower companies of all sizes. If you are aiming to grow your business, consider how you can hitch your star to the trends that are taking business by storm:

#1.  Business Innovation Is Transforming Some Businesses, Making Others Unique
I am not referring to the kind of costly innovation that requires a scientific degree. Business innovation is just as exciting - which means doing business differently, creating new business models or updated processes, landing new customers by re-packaging or enhancing a current offering.

Think about what could be different about your business that would make it truly different. What can you do to advance your mission?  What are you seeing that the mass markets are missing? Are you driving the right behaviors internally to capture new business?

In medicine – health care is a business too – non-technical innovation drives effectiveness and “market position.” Dr. Fred Sklar, President of Neurosurgeons for Children in Dallas, worked solo for 11 years as he built an extremely high level of activity. In business terms, he was building a new market in the Southwest. He then figured out how to scale the practice and structure it to provide the same quality of care to both paying and indigent patents. The dream came true. His group became a leader in its field, and Sklar, with a multi-specialty team, separated the conjoined Egyptian twins at Dallas’ Children’s Hospital in 2005.

Dr. Sklar says that their innovative business model makes them unique. Every surgical partner at Neurosurgeons for Children is equal. There are no super-stars, no room for less than exceptional. “Our group is unique in many ways,” he told me. “We pay our expenses and divide the earnings evenly. That’s not how it usually works in a surgical group. I don’t want one patient to be more or less desirable than another.” Clearly unwieldy egos can’t tolerate this culture. What about yours?

#2.  Digital Leadership Creates New Avenues for Growth

Digital is leveling the playing field, empowering small business to do more, know more and grow faster. Technology will continue to transform industries and blur the boundaries between them. All businesses are advised to operate in real time, which is what the consumer is expecting. Continue reading…