Below is a list of reasons NOT to innovate taken from this article on Linkedin. I tried to let it go but I can’t stop feeling nearly flabbergasted at the suggestion from a thought leader on innovation.
In my opinion, we are suffering from a dirth of innovation in most work environments and social systems. Schools have barely changed in decades. Most work environments actively water down initiatives and ideas brought forth by front line employees. Innovation depends on the cost. That is not innovation in its truest form.
I almost hope this is a sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek article but I fear it is not. I simply cannot understand why someone would push the message that there are times when you should not look to innovate.
The author was speaking about innovation in general, non industry specific terms but let’s imagine where craft beer would be if the 21 situations below occurred. Follow along in blue.
21 Situations when you should not innovate:
- When you are sure your market is not changing in the coming five years.
- Yeah, umm where did this mentality leave big beer?
- When your clients are even more conservative than you are.
- We’d all still be drinking macro
- When your old formulas are still giving great risk-free results for the coming years.
- Big beer should be kicking itself in the ass for following this one!
- When brand and line extensions bring you a lot of extra turnover and profits.
- I guess Dogfish, Lagunitas, Stone, etc…should’ve quit thinking up new beer recipes years ago.
- When the urgency to innovate is completely absent.
- You get the 1980s macro beer market.
- When you don’t receive enough money and manpower to do it.
- All of the new breweries going live should’ve just given up on their dream.
- When your company is in a short-term crisis.
- You can’t be serious. There’d be no Dogfish, Sam Adams, Stone, Lagunitas, New Belgium, New Glarus, Blue Moon, Brooklyn Brewery, etc…I think you get the picture.
- When your organization is working at full capacity to meet the current huge demand.
- Sam Adams would’ve stopped at Boston Lager. Oskar Blues would’ve stopped at Dales Pale Ale. Sierra Nevada would’ve stopped at Pale Ale.
- When everybody says: “Innovate!”, but no one wants to be responsible.
- We’d all still be waiting for BMC to bring forth an interesting product.
- When you´re clueless about what you´re looking for.
- Yep. All of those people who changed careers to craft beer were wasting their time soul searching. Sam, Garrett, Jeremy, and Kim should’ve all stayed right where they were.
- When there is no real business need and it’s only nice to have.
- Yeah, we don’t need a larger selection of delicious tastier beer anyway.
- When you can’t form a capable harmonious team that really goes for it.
- Sam should’ve stayed home and curled up in a ball the first time he felt all alone in making Dogfish a reality.
- When there is no support at the top.
- Each craft brewery would still just offer one flagship style.
- When the people in your organization are not (yet) prepared to break their habits.
- Can you say macro mentality?
- When people in your company are lazy; content to copy from others.
- What big beer is up to these days because they adhered to the other 20 reasons not to innovate.
- When the organization doesn’t have any kind of vision about its future course.
- See #1, 2, 3, and 15
- When long term planning means looking three months ahead.
- Huh?
- When everyone fears failure.
- You get flashy new labels and a new commercial for the same 20 year old product.
- When everyone will attack and ridicule the newness of an idea.
- Yeah, let’s bust out laughing and mock all of the guys that brought us interesting new taste experiences.
- When important stakeholders will block it at any time.
- So many craft brewers would still be waiting for a call back from the first bank they approached for a loan.
- When your latest innovations are so successful and still need further exploitation.
- See # 13
I could offer one reason to temper (as opposed to generally avoid) innovation. I believe a somewhat misguided perception of what constitutes innovation has been a thorn in the side of the US craft beer industry. A lot of efforts that some take as innovation simply come down to “dialing up” the established. A lot of uber-hopped beers were quite the rage a few years ago, invention needs to be more than tossing in an extra bail or two of hops. I question if some brewers looking to push the envelope really have their basics down. I think if you are a Tomme Author, Vinnie Cilurzo or the like and have achieved a true mastery of your craft then innovation is inevitable next step. But if you’re just an OK brewer – and I think there are plenty such brewers out there – and you feel pressured to do something “out there” because that’s what your competition is doing then you are likely to produce a never before seen abomination of brewing; completely unbalanced, overly assertive with no redeeming quality aside from never previously having been done. If innovation is not built on a foundation of solid expertise it’s most likely to produce a mess. Solid realism must always precede abstraction. So, I offer a reason to hold off on innovation that is not meant tongue-in-cheek. Avoid innovation if you have in an inadequate foundation on which said innovation can be built. Embracing innovation before you are in a position to get your head around it will probably do more harm than good.
There’s a restaurant in Brugge the wife and I have a hit a few times, love the place – and not because of never before thought of menu selections. The first time we were there Anne noted the only sound you could hear when the waiter opened the door to the kitchen was a whisk. They were awesome cause they had true mastery of the basics. Pressure to innovate too often encourages glossing over the basics. When that happens innovation interferes with excellence.
Thanks Steve for the comment.
You bring up a good point about not doing it properly. It’s not innovative when you do something just to hop on a bandwagon or to make a change just for change’s sake. I was in the military and every time we got a new commander, he would change which uniform we were allowed to wear on what days. Or when a new CEO comes aboard and proposes a new, fancy named initiative that amounts to laying people off.
But then again, I would advocate people constantly trying new challenges in lieu of staying stagnant. Ultimately the sense to innovate should originate from an intrinsic place, not from a desire to compete with what others are doing.
Mostly, I feel efforts to innovate are largely avoided. We are creatures of habit…well, most of us. Most people like consistency and comfort in the day to day. This causes people to become complacent. Complacency can cause you to miss opportunities for personal growth because you have a laser focus on just doing what’s in the moment. Many fear change and thus the practice is to deny it, even when the situation screams for change. This could be why so many are struggling now to reinvent themselves since their comfort zone has been taken away from them.
I advocate a trial and error approach because the most learning comes from failure. I recently saw a quote along the lines of “To be more successful, you have to fail more often.” That rings very true to me. The systems we go through teach us to conform, not to adapt your personal needs around a constantly changing world.
To me, it’s not whether or not your innovation fails or succeeds but more about being introspective and adaptable to the failure.
Ah yes – a distinction does need to be made. Let me also reinforce – one of the rules of dealing with people I always try to factor in is that people derive comfort from familiarity. I do agree, fear of change is common.
And I also agree that stagnation is a bad thing, because nothing stands still. I moves ahead or falls behind, standing still counts as the latter if those around you are progressing. But if a brewer lacks real baseline expertise then making that strong foundation is not really standing still. It’s not really innovative either to hone basic skills, but it will enable true innovation down the road.
So, what ideas in craft beer do you consider truly “innovative?” Is there an innovation you would like to see happen in the beer industry?