[#limerick - 01] About change.

Even if change can make you feel scared,
it's probably come the time for you to dare.
Leave the former you behind
and just keep in mind
not to forget that, if you want to get the most out of you, you'll have to share.

Limerick, a form of poetry I came across while studying English.

[#strategy - 01] The Gaza conflict according to game theory.

Here I'll expose a few considerations the recent recrudescence of the Israeli/Palestinian led me to think of. I'll strive to abstract from the relative size of the forces, who's supposed to be right or wrong, the role and relative importance of involved allies, that of the United Nations, the external involved countries and the international press.

The Israeli/Palestinian contrast, if we try to read it according to the Theory of Games (Nash), emerges as a "competition" between two parties that dispute (sorry for the crude simplification) a "market" (territory). Specifically, it is a sequential game with a finite number of moves. Actually, both parties act as if the number of possible moves can only be limited; as if both actors expected that one day the conflict must necessarily end with one of two that definitely prevails over the other, which succumbs. Every war has this assumption. 
In this kind of "game", the strategy with the highest individual benefit looks the opportunistic/selfish one: each party wants to maximize their individual benefit at the expense of the other. That happens even if the game would allow, in case of collaboration (eg. a peace agreement), a major individual benefit for each of the contenders ("prisoner's dilemma"). 

                            

To have a possibility to the end of the conflict, the game should turn into an infinite sequence of moves. Like when two people get married: they sign a contract stating that their confrontation will last indefinitely (or until death of one or both partners or termination of the contract). This is a necessary precondition to enable collaboration as the best strategy for each party. In this kind of game the optimal strategy would be to pursue a higher collective benefit for the individual value of each of the interlocutors. 

How could that be? 
If I had an answer I would be a candidate for the Peace Nobel Prize. 
Of course having a common objective would be of help. 
I think this would probably be a good chance for Europe to start acting a unique, common foreign policy, gaining a third party role which would have some possibility to be recognised as neutral and balanced.

[#innovation - 08] When Vulcan meets Mercury.

How would it be if two cultures (apparently) antipodes could talk in the name of a common objective, namely to transform innovation into value?

In ancient Roman mythology, Vulcan and Mercury were both sons of Jupiter. They are used to acknowledging their different mutual perspectives.

Vulcan, with his strong, long lasting ‘managerial’ experience, gained in well-established business contexts, represents focus; that is constructive concentration. He is the self-confident master of processes related to incremental innovation, he strives ceaselessly to improve the value chain. Determined to pursue targets coherently with his tradition, his role and his responsibilities.

Mercury, wannabe entrepreneur and start-up founder, is on the other hand emblem of “harmony”, that is the participation to the world surrounding us.

As they meet, they realize naturally that they represent two essential, inseparable and complementary functions: Vulcan’s concentration is the necessary condition to enable Mercury’s metamorphosis; Mercury’s lightness (sometimes recklessness) is the necessary condition to allow Vulcan’s tiring efforts to become drivers of new meanings.

Injecting innovation effectively in established companies requires to take into consideration different times. Mercury’s and Vulcan’s times. A message of agility and spontaneity, expressed by persisting with accurate and tenacious adjustments. An instantaneous intuition that, as soon as formulated, becomes as conclusive as something that could not be expressed differently. But also the time that flows with no other interest than letting young ideas mature, detaching from any ephemeral impatience.

This meeting needs to be renewed daily and transformed into concrete value.

According to our professional and personal experience, there can be many chances to consider the start-up phenomenon, especially from a perspective of contamination of the dominating culture in established companies. It is worth sharing a common thought on how to create opportunities for those willing to experiment and recover the original confidence with uncertainty, chaos and change.

What will make the difference is the resolute, strategic will to observe the reality with an open and dedicated mind-set and to look at things around us with revealing eyes.

Massimo Pelaia, Daniele Pes

[#innovation - 07] Do not fear change.

Companies, like people, while growing and maturing, tend to develop habits.
Habits are part of a natural process through which we continuously learn to better do what we already can do.
Habits are comforting, because they give us the illusion the world around us won't change.

Companies, like people, are nevertheless daily exposed to an external context which is continuously changing.
And they have to (or can) promptly act to take the most advantage out of the opportunities these external contexts offer them.

If companies and people want to prosper, they both need not to fear change.

I suggest having a look at +Denise Jacobs TED entitled "Transmuting Fear" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7cXDrAvTgs

[#innovation - 06] Do you want to innovate in an established company? Then just create short circuits.

The more I struggle to set up an innovation engine inside the company I work for, the more I get the idea that it is not just about creating a dedicated Innovation function and having an Innovation Manager.

Innovating an established environment is all about CHANGE. And, probably, there is nothing as difficult as changing an environment where few are committed to change. If you're the CEO, believe you need to invest in innovation to set up a sustainable future for your company and think that by creating an Innovation function you've done your best ... well, probably no, that's not gonna be enough.
Such change is a cultural one, more than anything else.

The main mission of an Innovation function should be that of nurturing such cultural change and spread a new strategic vision among all of your colleagues. That's gonna be a long term investment. Your contribution as CEO is to promote such function with strong commitment and lead it by your concrete commitment and example. Change needs awareness and courage.

In an established company lots of good but also bad habits have settled along the way. The need for efficiency and dominating the complexity related to a growing company usually lead to a deep, structured hierarchy. The main consequence is that the distance between any individual contributor and the managers having the accountability to decide (e.g. to allocate the budget) has extended a lot. And the company has meanwhile lost its original agility.
Since the company still needs to support the usual, mainstream business (that which is financing innovation, as well), you cannot just "rape" the hierarchy you've already set up. That's where the innovation function might come to some help. Indeed, another mission is to shorten the hierarchical distance between individual contributors (or idea champions) and the high managerial layers, those in charge to decide about the deployment of any new valuable proposal. Doing so actually means that you've to become able to gather, classify, select and turn any simple idea to a project proposal in a very short time (no more than a few weeks, that's your differentiating value proposition). It takes agility and common sense.

Another short circuit to create, another distance to shorten, is about communication. Your function needs to become very effective at reducing the language distance between the problem solvers and internal investors. That means any new idea needs to be "translated", from the language in the feasibility domain to that of the customer/market's. An easy pain-solution-cost-benefits approach is gonna be effective: no more than 4 slides, which means a 5 minutes presentation.

Synthesis and communication will be keys.

DP

[#innovation - 05] No need to rush, but don't let the ideas you collect quickly become obsolete.

After you've tested your brand new innovation process through a pilot test and got some new ideas, little time is left to evaluate them and give proper feedback to contributors.

FEEDBACK
The feedback is a psychological contract between you and anybody who has provided you with some new idea. It's very important, especially when the idea cannot be deployed (and the feedback is actually negative), because too complex and/or expensive, give a feedback being as less generic as possible. This is to actually give back proper recognition of the value related to the fact that the provider has spent his time, effort, creative and professional talent to give you his idea. The contract must always be respected: any idea has a value, which is the commitment of the provider! Otherwise you'll prematurely dry your innovation, internal spring.

IDEA TEMPLATE
The best way to be welcoming for idea providers is to ask them fill up very basic idea templates. Complexity may be the worst entry barrier and, ideally, the best template should be a plain, white sheet.
But having a basic template including the most essential data (such as: a pain, the solution, potential benefits and reflections on feasibility) will be of some important help for the providers, to make some order in the possible disorder of any original proposition.

EVALUATION CRITERIA
Asking the providers to self-evaluate their idea propositions is a good way to:
- anticipate the feedback you'll provide them;
- help the provider to anticipate some cost/opportunity analysis;
- help yourself for the evaluation phase.
A very basic, still helpful self-evaluation criterion might be:
1) complexity (feasibility)
    - low: the provider can develop the idea by itself;
    - medium: he needs cross-competence coming from other functions;
    - high: extra competence is needed; I mean competence which takes to be bought from outside the company.
2) benefits:
    - low: the deployment will give value (efficiency/effectiveness) focused to the function the provider comes from;
    - medium: a cross-functional benefit will come from the deployment of the idea;
    - high: the idea will provide the company with new revenues (new business).

You can make a first classification of the ideas you'll receive on a two dimensional matrix, based on this starting evaluation criteria. This will help you understand which are the ideas you can spend some extra analysis effort on and identify those for which a "negative" feedback must be provided.

[#innovation - 04] Manage the innovation team like a startup.

OK, you've spent the first couple of months working on a brand new innovation process to be set up inside of your established company. Together with the team you're part of, you've thought of an entire set of initiatives to collect and process ideas. You've worked hard to think of an internal communication model to effectively spend your value proposition to the final target, which is the entire working people.
Now what?
You (wisely) still hesitate to publish your communication through the intranet channels because you're aware you're gonna benefit from only one chance, just one token. If it'll be credible to prejudiced people, those being disappointed after years of feeling little consideration upon their potential and competence, then they will provide you with some valuable contribution, in terms of incremental ideas. Otherwise they're not taking your implicit request for some extra contribution into consideration and you're not gonna have any further possibility to involve them.
It is all about credibility.
You cannot demand for such extra, contribution, which is complementary to what they usually do at work, for free. In such tough times, when your company needs to compete to survive and make up a future for itself and their working people, still there are so many colleagues acting as if the company has much debt to pay them for their former contribution. In these times innovation is not an option and anybody should feel the responsibility to contribute, to set up the basis for their company's future and for their future in the company. But you cannot act as if everyone must be aware of that.
In this context, setting up some rewarding policy and instruments is not only a duty, but a crucial task, if you want your new innovation process not to fail. Rewarding can involve: extra income awards, visibility, integrating innovation contributions to already existing career drivers and extra corporate education possibilities. Configuring any of these possibilities will take interacting with and asking help from several company functions (such as HR, Legal, Internal Communication). For this to work, concrete commitment and sponsorship by the top management will be needed.

Another main point to consider, not to waste your only, precious, single chance to involve the working people an get them to contribute, is that you cannot assume your innovation process and communication is mature enough and ready. The best thing to do is to test the market ahead, to anticipate the potential feedback which might come from the target in terms of new ideas contribution. What you can do is to ask some of the organizational functions inside of your company to select some of their people and ask them to help you test your idea template. This will help to refine it and get it to a more "saleable" model.

It is also important to give the needed consideration to all those colleagues actually contributing with their preliminary ideas and suggestions. One way could be to give them some visibility through your intranet website.