We have the wrong mental model on change. It’s not: analyze –think – change. You cannot motivate people with information. Knowledge is not sufficient to spark change. You cannot get change in an organization by going to logic, numbers, and a detailed business case. The real model is: see-feel-change. Best analogy is one of a small man (rational brain) riding atop of a huge elephant (emotional brain). We found that when change succeeds it follows a pattern. That provides a 3 part framework to push behavioral change forward:
- Make it crystal clear what the direction of the ride is
- Motivate the elephant with emotions – feeling is the fuel
- Shape the path – remove obstacles
- Dan Heath, author of Made to Stick and Switch
Psycholgists have isolated what they call fundamental attribution error where we tend to attribute people’s behavior to their character and ignore the situational influences on them. In many cases we should be working to shape the situation people are working under rather than trying to change the people. Make the right behavior the path of least resistance for people.- Dan Heath, author of Made to Stick and Switch
A successful strategy for change is to actively look for what is working that can illustrate your desired change, be on a careful lookout to find the bright spots and try to clone it. Remember that big change usually starts small and eventually snowballs.- Dan Heath, author of Made to Stick and Switch
We currently are experiencing history’s highest rate of change but are brains are still the product of thousands of years of evolution, effectively as farmers, which comes with a series of neurological and organizational traps that block smart people from realizing their potential. Consistently the brightest teams in the world, from rock star companies, have missed ideas that were so close within their grasp. So I spend a decade studying chaos. I want to make you better by teaching you how to overcome the 3 neurological traps that block successful people and faster by teaching you an actual method, a system that we have learned from studying 300,000 ideas at Trendhunter, and measuring 130 million people and 3 billion of their choices. Put more simply, we conducted the largest innovation study in the world to ideally make you better and faster. – Jeremy Gutsche, CEO Trend Hunter and author Better and Faster: The Proven Path to Unstoppable Ideas
After thousands of years of evolution, we became farmers, simplest metaphor we like to use. Once you find ways of doing things, how to execute an idea, how to rollout a product, we are pre-wired to repeat and optimize whatever was last year’s harvest. The 3 traps of the farmer are once we become successful as brands, as people, as team leaders, we become complacent, we lose the hunger that we had. Next we become repetitive, continue the process that got us to where we were last. And finally we become very protective, especially of our egos. So let me give you a different way of doing business to get to the hunter instincts. Fight complacency with instability - always be testing, learning. Instead of repetition feed your curiosity, look at other industries, trend spot, find ways to collect interestingideas. And be willing to destroy - egos, old ways of doing things. - Jeremy Gutsche, CEO Trend Hunter and author Better and Faster: The Proven Path to Unstoppable Ideas
Mathematically the average duration of a company on the Fortune 500 list in the 1950’s was 75 years and now its 15 years. A recent Mckinsey study stated that 40% of the current list will not be around in a decade. The reason why is that companies are not structured to adapt. We are structured to find a value proposition and put in rules, policies, procedures to brand, structure and optimize that value prop. And in the 1950’s that was great, that was fine. But now it’s changed. You are now required to shrink the innovation cycle, to accelerate it. I want to show you how to get to a different level, an acceleration of innovation, to do 10x more deep dives, 10x more projects and show you ways to do that. Take you from a linear way of thinking where we are great at predicting next year and instead get into a more accelerated mode of understanding of how chaos and new ideas work and how that accelerated pace is something that you can get control of. We can awake your inner hunter to find overlooked opportunities that others are not capable of finding because they are just not putting the effort in. Jeremy Gutsche, CEO Trend Hunter and author Better and Faster: The Proven Path to Unstoppable Ideas
At Fidelity Innovation Labs, we have 150 people across 8 different locations globally where we have developed a process on looking 3 years out as to new technologies, challenges, and opportunities ahead of us. Our process can be broken down to 3 key steps: Scan, Try and Scale. Scan: in scanning we follow closely emerging technologies, bring in key thought leaders every 2 weeks, have partnerships with academic institutions, and we play an active part in the VC and startup community. Try: we actively prototype and try new ideas through our group here but also by having a separate business incubator, running hackathons, and actively engaging with customers. Scale – we have a 3 part stage-gate type of process to vet best ideas to continue to invest and work on, upon determining best new ideas we have a patent program and develop collaborations through appropriate Fidelity units to move the idea to deployable products or services. In hiring for our group, we look for people with a high sense of curiosity, who are comfortable with ambiguity, and are nimble and flexible in their thinking. We also run a social media platform across the firm to engage all employees, solicit ideas, and keep everyone aware of what we are doing and learning. – Richard Smyers, VP Accelerated Innovation and Jon Slote, VP, Relationship Mgmt, Fidelity Labs
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