INSIGHTS FOR INNOVATION When innovators take time to gather the necessary insights, not only does the process go smoother and faster- they also gain the necessary foresight for breakthrough innovation to happen.
At the start of innovation you either do have enough insights or you don’t- either way you still start. But when you take that line and stretch it out- without the insights- it takes double the time than if you’ve done it right- with insights. So rushing in [as Elvis referenced English poet Alexander Pope - only fools rush in], you are always doubling the time. When I was a Dean of Product Development for PepsiCo, that was a graph I always used. You will spend a year and a half longer than you would’ve, had you done it right the first time. The head of R&D at Pepsico at the time was Mehmood Khan. Indra [Nooyi, Pepsico CEO at the time] came to my lab. And I had known her because I had run programs for her. So we were on a first name basis. I was always harping on, “I’m not touching anything until we have the
data. Why would the consumer want this product? What are they going to replace?” And jokingly Mehmood said, “Yeah, Zeinab has transitioned from R&D to Insights,” So I said, “I’ll wear that as a badge of honor Mehmood.” And Indra said, “Good. We’ll get her into marketing and she’ll be CEO one day.” She was of course teasing him- they teased each other because they knew each other. But that is still a problem at organizations; not doing enough insight work to gain foresights. Breakthrough innovation can’t be done without foresights, because by the nature of it, the consumer has no knowledge that they need breakthrough innovations. That said, there are a lot of startups out there which make big organizations fearful. The startups are out innovating them; they’re nimble. They can get to the market fast. They can fail fast and learn, and then go back. Big organizations cannot fail fast. A global corporation was not designed for that. “But when you take that line and stretch it out- without the insights- it takes double the time than if you’ve done it right- with insights.”
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