I was fortunate to attend the bi-annual International Coaching Foundation’s Converge Conference in August and see the keynote, Diana Kander.  She brought up some innovative ways to change up problem solving for individuals, teams and organizations.  Kander is a petite woman yet she owns the stage with thought provoking concepts and humor.  She was a refugee from Ukraine at the age of 8; and is an author, entrepreneur and a fireball of determination. 

Here are her 4 ways to kickstart innovation:

Is this the right problem? Think about your current offerings; are they solving the right problem or are they focused on “Is this the right solution?” I think of a tortilla manufacturing company who decided to retrofit the manufacturing plant to make tiny fried tostada shells.  They focused on the solution of increasing sales by adding another item on the grocery shelf but the real problem was producing enough regular tortillas to meet demand.  I remember looking for a box of Ritz crackers few years back and all I wanted was a “regular” box of crackers and there were upwards of 15 different types on the shelf. Some were even football shaped and/or low sodium.  What problem were they trying to solve? I think of managers who look to tighten deadlines to get more productivity as a solution when the problem is really the process in which items are handed off within the team or that someone needs more training on the team.  If someone needs more training, a tighter deadline is not the right solution if the problem is productivity.  Be sure to focus on the right problem.

Who else can we ask? It’s important to be focused using the right resource instead of on what else we can try. Kander brings up an issue at a children’s hospital in Great Britain that had a high mortality and complication rate after children were transferred after surgery.  They were able to reframe the problem and ask folks from a Ferrari race car team to come in and look at the time and communication it took to transfer the patient after surgery.  The Ferrari pit crew was able to reduce the time and mishaps significantly by focusing on communication problems and breakdowns during handoffs. When I coach people and I ask, “Is there another resource you could talk to about this that you haven’t thought of before?” It’s amazing to see the light bulbs go off.  Sometimes you realize that you have a cousin who’s really good at time management or have an old friend that is great at finding a deal.  Figure out who else you can ask. 

Is it a 1-10? How does the solution rank on a scale of 1 to 10 instead of “Is it a yes or no?”  I can think of a product an old employer added several years ago and I remember the discussion the leadership team had about adding the product.  I can tell you that if we had asked everyone in the room how they felt about this new product on a scale of 1 to 10, we would not have spent the next five years trying figure out how to add the product into into all of our systems and processes. Focusing on the binary view of yes or no is so limiting and it’s not an expression of confidence in the product or service.  So, if you ask your partner if they want to go to Aruba or Switzerland, ask them how they feel about it on a scale of 1 to 10. As a coach, I ask clients how confident they are in completing whatever task they committed to on a scale of 1 to 10.  If they are a 7, I ask what would it take for them to get to a 9.  To say you are going to do something is not the same as measuring your motivation on a scale of 1 to 10.  Focus your efforts on the 8, 9 and 10’s. 

What should we stop?  This was a big learning for me.  Kander mentioned something called the additive bias.  This is where we are constantly adding to do more instead of less.  My clients (and I!) fall into this bias all the time.  The way to better time management is through using a new app or getting up earlier or being more efficient with email.  We add more things to the list instead of subtracting.  It’s quite easy to buy stuff at the store but it’s an entirely different thing to get rid of stuff I don’t need or use any more.  Managers will feel like they have to attend every meeting instead of delegating one or two meetings to someone who could grow from it or to ask a peer to give them the notes.  We attend the meeting and then “multi task” doing email or slacking and aren’t really present for the meeting.  To multitask during a meeting is one of the most exhausting things to do because we are skimming everything…the emails, the slack messages AND the meeting.  We aren’t present for any of it. Think about what you can subtract. 

One last thing to point out is that you should innovate but you have to be able to cut your losses.  Kander calls these Zombies.  Things that are more effort than the value they add.  She showed over 15 products that Amazon had added and then torpedoed in the last ten years because they were more effort than the value they added.  What zombies are in your life?