Successfully innovating in today’s markets is hard. Switching from product-centric thinking to service or total value thinking is the key, but how do you break out of the mold to create true competitive advantage? According to Bruce Merrifield, breakthrough innovations have to be uncomfortably outside the boundaries of traditional industry practices. So how can you escape groupthink in your next planning meeting to uncover new, out-of-the-box ideas for your business? Merrifield offered suggestions in an end-of-year article back in 2006 that may still apply today.
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For starters, avoid spending most of the meeting in reviewing financials. He recommends doing most financial performance reviews by email ahead of time and spending just 20 percent of what you usually spend on these figures in the meeting. Focus on highlights.
To get participants to open up, send them information and related questions ahead of the meeting; also ask all participants to send in advance their own questions or ideas. Summarize these questions and guarantee anonymity for contributors if desired.
And finally, we all know big ideas don’t always see successful follow-through, so during your planning meeting list the big ideas from the past few years that were discussed but never implemented. Use this to facilitate a conversation on how to better manage change initiatives in the organization.
Related Resource: Change Management Tactics for Distributors – DVD
Related Article: Bruce Merrifield on Innovation