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What you measure matters. Consider a bridge built in Laufenburg, a town that straddles Germany and Switzerland. As the two halves of the bridge being built came together, it became (embarrassingly) clear that they would not align because they were at different heights.

As it turns out, how you measure “sea level” varies from one place to another. Britain measures height above sea level in relation to sea levels in Cornwall, and France measures it in relation to the sea level in Marseille. Germany measures height in relation to sea level in the North Sea while Switzerland does so in relation to the Mediterranean Sea.

When measurements miss the boat

While visiting Stockholm several years ago, my wife and I visited the Vasa Museum, which pays tribute to one of the most impressive warships that in 1628 sank less than a mile into its maiden voyage.

The cause, again, was in choosing how to measure. Workmen working on one side of the ship were calibrating their measurement in Swedish feet (about 12 inches per foot) and on the other side in Amsterdam feet (about 11 inches per foot). The resulting asymmetry in weight caused the ship to tip over.

Why innovation fails to measure up

A macro-study of innovation success shows that 83% of innovation efforts fail. Maybe we get innovation wrong so often because we have been measuring the wrong things.

Scan the most popular innovation research and you will see that experts tend to focus on one of three units of measure:

  • Entrepreneurs
  • Organizations
  • Leaders

Entrepreneurs

The vast majority of recent innovation research has focused on entrepreneurs: why are they more innovative and agile than larger organizations? We have formalized the entrepreneurial approach into frameworks like “lean start-up” or “design thinking” with the goal of implementing it beyond start-ups.

While an important part of the innovation puzzle, most such efforts fail. Look no further than GE, which soon after broadly injecting “lean start-up” approaches was quickly humbled into a shadow of its former self.

Note, I’m not suggesting applying lean approaches caused GE to stumble, but it certainly did not solve GE’s problems.

Organizations

There is plenty of research using organizations as the unit of measure. If you take a broad scan of this research, you will find actually that a lot is already known about what elements of culture, organizational structure, incentives, and talent correspond with higher levels of innovation.

What is surprising is how few of the best practices learned from this research are actually known by innovators. The fact that most innovation organizational transformation efforts fail is perhaps a hint that the organization is not the best measure either.

Leaders

Finally, I am asked regularly to talk about leaders. How can leaders create the context of innovation? What does it mean to be an “agile” leader or a “purpose-driven” leader who can inspire people to act innovatively?

While my research shows that leadership does matter, it is only one part of the equation. Most of society’s big innovations – from the internet and email to DNA sequencing and solar energy – were created within organizations (and not by entrepreneurs) in which leadership did not particularly ask for or encourage innovation.

The importance of employees

After four years of research, I have come to firmly believe that most innovation research is measuring the wrong thing … or at least is overlooking a critical unit of measure: the employee.

We should be looking at the habits, characteristics, patterns of behavior, tools, and journeys of employee innovators. You will find that the people behind society’s greatest innovations were not entrepreneurs, did not work in organizations particularly supportive of innovative behavior, and were not led by leaders who really asked for innovation.

If we start measuring innovation using employees as the unit of measure, maybe we can finally build the bridge from ideas to execution. We can finally sail innovations out into the world without them sinking.

Conclusion

In my upcoming book Driving Innovation from Within, to be released in a month, I attempt to do just that. I package what I have learned over the past four years, after interviewing over 150 employee innovators, and analyzing the unknown heroes behind society’s most impactful innovations.

I will be sharing my findings in upcoming blogs and would be honored if you would pre-order my book here.

Leverage
Point
“8Ps” of StrategyOpportunity
for Disruption
Recommended Leverage Points
Position- The farmers, individual and corporate, that you are targeting.

- The need of the agricultural industry that you seek to fill.
3- What technologies do you control that can help you tap into market
segments that you previously thought unreachable?

- What are the potential business alliances you could think about with key players in the segment to serve your customers with integrated solutions? (Serving customers with more integrated solutions example: serving farmers with fertilizers, crop protection and other).
Product- The products you offer, and the characteristics that affect their value to customers.

- The technology you develop for producing those products.
8- What moves are your organization taking to implement Big Data and analytics to your operations? What IoT and blockchain applications can you use?

- What tools and technology could you utilize or develop to improve food quality, traceability, and
production?

- How can you develop a more sustainable production model to accommodate constraints on arable
land?

- What is the future business model needed to serve new differentiated products to your customers?
Promotion- How you connect with farmers and consumers across a variety of locations and industries.
- How to make consumers, producers, and other stakeholders aware of your products and services.
8- How are you connecting your product with individual and corporate farms who could utilize it?
- How could you anticipate market and customer needs to make customers interested in accessing your differentiated products?
PriceHow consumers and other members of the agricultural supply chain pay for access to agricultural products.7- What elements of value comprise your pricing? How do each of those elements satisfy the varying needs of your customers?
Placement- How food products reach consumers. How the technologies, data, and services reach stakeholders in the supply chain.9- What new paths might exist for helping consumers access the food they desire?
- How are you adapting your operations and supply chain to accommodate consumers’ desire for proximity to the food they eat?
- How could you anticipate customer expectation to make products more
accessible to customers/agile supply chain?
- Have you considered urbanization as a part of your growth strategy?
Physical
Experience
- How your food satisfies the needs and desires of your customer.
- How the services you provide to agribusiness fulfill their needs.
9- Where does your food rate on a taste, appearance, and freshness
scale?
- Could the services you provide to companies and farms in the agriculture industry be expanded to meet more needs?
- What senses does your food affect besides hunger? How does your
customer extract value from your food in addition to consumption?
Processes- Guiding your food production operations in a manner cognizant of social pressure.8- How can you manage the supply chain differently to improve traceability and reduce waste?
- How can you innovate systems in production, processing, storing, shipping, retailing, etc.?
- What are new capabilities to increase sustainability (impact on the environment, or ESG) components?
People- The choices you make regarding hiring, organizing, and incentivizing your people and your culture.- How are you leveraging the agricultural experience of your staff bottom-up to achieve your vision?
- How do you anticipate new organizational capabilities needed to perform your future strategy (innovation, exponential technologies needed, agile customer relationship, innovative supply chain)?
- How do you manage your talents to assure suitable development with exposure in the agrifood main challenges/allowing a more sustainable view of the opportunities/cross-sectors?
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