Greg Shaw leads innovation efforts for DayGlo Color Corporation and did the same when we worked together for a $3 billion privately held manufacturing company called Swagelok Company. While catching up with Greg over coffee recently, I started getting curious about whether his engineering background and market-based approach to innovation might resemble the journalist mindset and creative processes I use to brainstorm, conceive, and write corporate communication.
Could we have more in common than I thought?
From my seat, Greg’s work seemed to begin with a deep understanding of the company’s business strategy, sustained cross-functional collaboration to stay zeroed in on achievable objectives, and extensive study of future-state concepts and technologies to make recommendations to company leadership.
Greg’s answers in this 11-question interview enlightened me on how innovation leaders work, how they stay focused on customers despite the sensational future and landmark new tools at their disposal, and how they don’t just think big but contribute to a company’s competitiveness.
If you ever wondered what innovation leaders actually do, keep reading:
11 QUESTIONS WITH INNOVATION LEADER GREG SHAW
1. Are most innovation leaders and team members voracious readers and naturally philosophical?
I think that most innovators are curious and focused learners. That means that they see lots of opportunities and put lots of seemingly disparate ideas together. How do you find those pieces? Reading from many sources is part of that. Being a keen observer is another. Is voracious reading a part of that? Yes, but seeing the nuggets from fiction, non-fiction, the world around us, and especially from one another is most important. Does that boil down to naturally philosophical? I’ll let you be the judge.
2. What are three attributes you want to be known for as an engineering and innovation leader?
I think the most important word in that question is “leader.” The critical part of innovation leadership is the same as it is in all leadership roles: bringing out the best in others by creating a team and an environment for success. The most successful teams are diverse and cross-functional. The range of perspectives helps to ensure that problems—opportunities—are addressed most broadly. Finally, I think that a great innovation leader needs to be relentlessly focused on customer needs. That is current and prospective customers and spoken and unrecognized needs.
3. How do you move beyond contemplation of the future and toward business benefits (avoiding paralysis by analysis)?
It is critical to experiment—all the time. This doesn’t mean holing up in the chemistry lab or even the machine shop. It means prototyping and testing activities with real people all the time. A cardboard mock-up, a webpage wire frame; it doesn’t matter. Prototype, test, revise, and test some more. This also means focusing on the problem that the customer has and not becoming enamored with the technical solution.
4. While you may read almost everything on a topic such as Industry 4.0 or IoT, you can’t do almost everything. How do you select innovation focus areas and how many years out can you work?
You can’t do everything. Trying to do so is a frequent cause of failure. The first step is to identify an area in which you have a right to win:
What do you know about the problem that others do not?
What capability do you have (technical, marketing, business model, etc.) that makes you unique?
Next, identify the part of the problem/topic area that will bring the most value to the customer and start there. You can grow into the rest of the universe later.
Some things to remember early on:
Focus on the problem to effectively limit the universe.
Identify the set of problems with the greatest potential value, which helps make the scope manageable.
Avoid jumping into the technology first (e.g., IOT/I4.0), so you are not championing a solution, searching for a fitting problem.
Horizon is a distinct issue and I think—most broadly—a company’s portfolio of innovation should be like one’s investment portfolio: diversified and tailored to the risk tolerance of the investor. In my experience, creating a vision on a five to 10-year horizon is best. This frees you from the constraints of current challenges. Your innovation effort, meanwhile, should focus on no more than a three-year time window. If it carries any longer, the risk tends to be much higher than any potential payoff.
5. Communication leaders and program managers run their functions based on a plan that supports the business strategy. We will create and gain organizational agreement on a communication strategy, foundational themes, and key messages, and our deliverables flow through those filters. How does that approach line up with your approach to leading innovation?
Leading innovation should be no different from other functions in this respect. The innovation strategy should be supported by the corporation in the same way as other strategies with clear objectives, strong support, and the latitude to execute as they see fit within the strategic framework.
Innovation strategy must be a critical part of business strategy. Arguably, it should be indistinguishable from the business strategy as a description of the things you will do differently from competitors to better serve your customers.
I would add that we often think of innovation in a technical or product sense, but business model innovation can be and should be incorporated. One example would be discrete component manufacturers working to vertically integrate their business and supply chains. They may create tremendous value in adding services using products they already make. That disintermediated supply chain adds value for core customers, and in turn for the company.
6. Do you carry a notepad or use your phone to capture random thoughts and ideas, strictly schedule solo and team ideation and brainstorming, or what exactly works best for you?
My mind tends to dart around as I’m making the various connections that I spoke about earlier. That means that it’s critical to keep notes and reminders as ideas come to mind. Frankly, most of them turn out to be nothing, but if one quick scribble in a hundred gets legs, it’s worth it! I really don’t schedule time routinely. First of all, I can’t think creatively on schedule. Second, everyone has a day job, so blocking out time in that way is rarely practical. And the challenges of the day-to day-work are among the stimuli for good ideas. As for traditional brainstorming: I have never seen it return the value of the snacks that inevitably accompany the session.
That said, structured innovation ideation is a critical activity. There are many successful approaches, and each is a business process as would be the case for any other function. The approach at any given juncture is dependent on the goals in the moment. Creating strategy may begin with the framework of “a person in a place with a problem.” Identifying potential solutions is often best served by a deep dive on the problem itself. To turn the solution into value, I like to spend time with the team on business model. And then of course, focusing together on the prototyping and testing methodology ensures that the value proposition can be validated.
7. Do you draw charts and graphs or words and outlines?
Yes.
Different phases of a program, and different types of programs, require different types of thinking and planning. It’s also very important to understand the learning styles of the team. If the team is mostly made up of visual learners, pictures should dominate. But the diversity must also be embraced. It’s critical not to leave anyone behind. If they belong on the team, they deserve to be, must be, respected and included.
8. What does your white board look like?
My board is quite eclectic. Long-term lists, short-term lists, flow charts, top-down problem and solution breakdowns, and sketches of various solutions. And lots of colors. Lots of colors!
9. How do you measure success in what you do?
Innovation success metrics are the subject of journal articles, popular press, seminars, workshops, and who knows how many other fora. Why? Because this is a massive unsolved problem. Activity metrics such as dollars spent, number of people, number of patents, etc., are essentially uncorrelated with long-term success. Short-term outcome metrics such as dollars from new products drive bad behavior: almost always driving toward incrementalism. Long-term success metrics that reflect real innovation success have almost no bearing on current activities as they reflect the successes or failures of years ago. This means that real-time, qualitative, leadership evaluation of the efforts is critical. This brings us back to the beginning: leadership is critical.
10, A company isn’t innovative simply because it uses language to position itself that way. How can customers discern if a company is committed to innovation and the benefits it can deliver for them?
To twist a phrase, a company is judged by people it keeps. When the people are truly interested in their customers, when they ask probing questions, and when they routinely bring potential solutions to the problems unearthed together, they will be seen as innovative. The hard part is making sure that the innovations are not too incremental, or worse, exclusively incremental. More impactful solutions come when the innovation team can recognize problems that the customer didn’t even know they had. Customers often step over problems because “that’s just the way it is.” A good innovation team will see those problems and delight customers by bringing unanticipated solutions. That could range from how you get data on your process—moving from notes on paper to IOT; or recognizing that a person doesn’t have to hoist a bag over his or her head to fill a reactor; or seeing the opportunity to use your phone as a fully functional communication device with all the information in the world at your fingertips.
11. Any innovation-themed book, media, or podcast recommendations?
There are a few that I like. Robert Cooper’s Stage-Gate books, such as Winning at New Products: Creating Value Through Innovation, is a classic. I fear people see it as dated and rigid. In some ways it is, but it is also foundational for many of the approaches that followed. While some would argue, I don’t think we would have spiral development methodologies without it. Larry Keeley’s Ten Types Of Innovation was transformational for me. The full range of innovations across the business model from profit model to customer engagement—and the combination of them changed the way I think about creating value. Simultaneously putting product innovation at the center, while emphasizing that it is the hardest way to create long-term value, changed how I approach problem solving. Pam Henderson’s You Can Kill An Idea, But You Can’t Kill An Opportunity: How to Discover New Sources of Growth for Your Organization, helps focus on the need rather than the technology. The business model canvas and value proposition design series by Alex Osterwalder, Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers, help solidify thinking around those opportunities. And books like Science Fiction Prototyping and Vintage Tomorrows: A Historian and a Futurist Journey through Steampunk into the Future of Technology (Brian David Johnson) provide a unique and engaging way to uncover problems that need to be solved. There are plenty of bad ones, too, but I don’t need to share those!
NOTE: Any opinions shared by Greg Shaw in this interview are his alone and do not represent the opinions of DayGlo Color Corp., RPM International, Inc., or its management.
About the Author: Dave Schuellerman is a professional writer and communication consultant with 30 years of experience helping B2B and B2C companies inform and influence targeted audiences. Learn more about his background, perspective, and available services at www.FENDcommunication.com/services. Ready to engage on a project? Reach him directly at schuellerman@gmail.com.
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