What is the Rule for Innovation?

That meeting was a direct recommendation of the CEO from National Carrier: Gather a small group of employees and prove the value of the advisory you provide!

“What I know is that my competitors are launching new products, better services, cheaper and faster and no one inside here can do something different from usual. I’m tired of doing events, process improvement workshops, hire new people and not becoming more competitive. This way, we will fail.”

Trying to argue with him about the unique characteristics of the company was a waste of time, because he kept saying all the companies had unique characteristics. It was not entirely wrong.

But the representative of that consultancy, Professor Hure, as he was called, accepted the challenge. He entered the Insights Centre of his consultancy firm, a specially prepared environment for new ideas, having a café with snacks available, an entire wall of glass allowing integration with a green area with a small lake, colors and inspiring pictures. Neither seemed an office.

They were there, three employees of his client, as well as an assistant for the group. Professor Hure had a curious sight: The employees were very different from each other, seemed distant, without conviviality, they did not chat, as would be usual. His assistant looked at him with a questioning face. They were well installed, everything had gone well so far, at least from the part of the consultancy.

The National Carrier needed to wrest from that group an innovative plan, which if approved, would have his company as a mediator and a funding for rapid deployment. However, it would need to convince the CEO that will have very good chances of success, completely different from anything that had been done and a significant return within a year. For a challenging task in that very competitive market, Professor Hure was expecting a larger group, and especially more cohesive.

He walked in, introduced himself and each one did the same.

Deodato was the man of the technology, he was carrying just his gadgets, dressed sparingly, and had a sober attitude.

Eugenia was a staff of the operational area, had a mood of those who suffered a lot of stress and there were a number of documents and folders before her. She spoke fast, very firmly and energetically.

Finally, Mark, who had passed by Marketing and an area of special projects. He was sitting in the glass-fronted counter to the garden, dressed in a khaki safari type clothes, spoke very slowly and remained smiling to talk about various subjects.

Professor Hure made all the introduction, aligned the problem, the group’s mission, and the day’s work method. Everyone listened and agreed. In the first stage of the discussion there was a kind of brainstorming, where more open ideas would be launched by all, to pass then to a sequential process with filters and improvements.

In the design phase, long conflicts have arisen and the different views emerged:

Mark: “Look, you with all these assumptions are just doing variations to what we already have. It has no real change, this will be a disaster.”

Eugenia: “But you only criticizes, what’s your contribution anyway?”

Mark: “You know what, maybe we need not do what we are doing. We had to stop transporting a lot.”

Deodato: “Got it! We can stop working and stay observing nature.”

Mark: “It was not funny, Mr. Geek.”

Deodato: “The rest of the world is using more technology in their operations; We’re too late, while we do not put our hand in the pocket and invest in equipment and software, will have no magic.”

Eugenia: “Invest in what? To do what? Where is the market you want to reach? Look, it’s all guessing here. You did not even bothered to see the work I did. It is something concrete we can start from there, has a beginning, middle, end, and a strategy.”

Mark: “More of the same.”

At that moment, the three began to talk at once and Professor Hure understood that he needed to intervene. He had a second or two to decide the best way to talk based on what he had heard.

Professor Hure: “How interesting is going on here (he began to develop the idea, started talking about the thought without, however, having finished to structure it).

We have three different views, three different methods, but the same problem.

Look, our conversation is not friendly, I agree, but we have a unique opportunity to mix up different views around a common goal. Do you think you are here by chance? Certainly not (Professor Hure sought to give a dramatic tone here). We can leave the animosity dominates, then will come to nothing and no one wins. True, nobody wins—including me, but you as well, because the boss expects a result here. I have a proposal.”

Professor Hure had achieved a truce and now the rest of the morning would set the tone for the whole day. Or the group would work around a goal, or the conflicts would prevail to undermine creativity, cooperation and attitude of each.

               

Professor Hure: “Let’s take five minutes JUST to HEAR what everyone has to say with a little more calm, more depth. Then we spent the late morning examining whether we can have synergy as a group. If you really do not have a result as a group, I’ll be the first to submit a change, where we will be facilitators to each of you for 3 different projects developed by each. But honestly, I prefer the first form, because I believe that is an unprecedented meeting. The wealth of your knowledge is among the differences…”

The group has agreed, and the first to speak about her project was Eugenia. She took this, referring to it as something already exercised. Her ideas were very referenced by facts and experiences. Eugenia was holding papers showing them to the group, even from afar, as a support for her speech. She sought to warn that improvements in processes would give excellence to the National Carrier, as intended to compete under better conditions.

Eugenia: “The carrier has a number of flaws in current processes. I have done some work that measures how much we would win, only with changes in supervision, at checkpoints, supply and distribution. With regard to partners, we manage them very badly. We have no quality score, only the opinion of a handful of people. We have no performance indices, losses, anything. We are delivering items as we did 10 years ago. Without much investment, our change would generate a much higher profitability and make us strong in the market.”

Eugenia follows with examples and improvements in processes, she really had a unique view of what was happening in National Carrier, knew the people, the distribution points, understood where the problems were.

Then came the turn of Deodato.

Deodato: “Several of our competitors and the more mature markets heavily use a technology apparatus. Fleet management, traffic management, intelligent load with Monitoring Systems and Digital Load identification, intelligent logistics. All this is already being used in feasible budgets. It means that all business processes gain visibility and control at central management points. Not only improving a process, optimizing a load, but seeing all the existing chain and having really new data on which modern management can act, operate, transform. Even for current processes, as Eugenia pointed out, the management and decisions can be much more complete, precise and rich.”

Everyone understood a little better how it worked that whole tooling systems, and how some new devices would function, since Internet of Things, through Cloud and Big Data. It was a new world for them, but very interesting. Mark got to the end. He realized that Eugenia and Deodato had consistency in what they said, but did not want to stay behind and spent the insights he had, around changes.

Mark: “See. I think it’s cool what you brought, and seriously, I want to have coffee some other day with you to better understand this world that you talk. But I mean something that no one spoke. Many things we do are bullshit. We do by just doing, avoiding to lose market share, but we have a bad profitability. This does not put us in an outstanding position, on the contrary, paralyzes us in markets where our competitors are standing out and we do not pay much attention. Today everyone seeks a profitability, markets that were not in focus. We cannot stay just chasing volume and price. See, we’re basically focused on road transport, as is common in our country. But if we make a multi-modal transport study, we can fit some non-existent business models that were feasible only because we insert the railways and the sea or rivers in the account. Eugenia talked about partners. Want to know? Some businesses should be just for them. We should maybe buy one of them and leave a line of business out of the carrier, or rather, only when there is good vertical gains, and carry loads of large customers with one or other company is what should be done by our group. At the same time, we have to think of international lines, our competitors are not only these, but that we are not seeing, making deliveries from overseas and coming here with marked cards with carriers. What prevents us to offer services to end customers outside our country, in e-Commerce sites directly? We can get there! And another thing, Our territory has unique characteristics, resources and transport networks. Let’s talk to suppliers and offer cool discounts or even better distribution plans so they resize their bonded warehouses, or even move their production to other points. They also pay for logistics and this affects the margin of them. We need analysts to this world that there are close to the customer, are unique to them and understand, and thus let us offer for free, a transformation plan. What we will win with transport in long-term contracts makes up for a lot. Look, what you spoke is interesting, serious, but they are for me only improvements are not true changes. It’s what I have to say for now.”

At this point everyone were more relaxed. Partly because they were heard, and partly because they understood a different world from theirs. There was a brief silence and everyone looked at Professor Hure… We will follow or not? Different worlds, how to put together initiatives? Professor Hure was inspired once again and sought interrelating what he had heard to a new proposal for the work of the group. He stated that the role of all had an importance (it really has) and at the same time finding a way to unite around the goal, and justify a group project, with results in the use of synergy.

Professor Hure: “Thank you all! We really listened, and even if we go apart, I’m already satisfied because somehow we helped to know each others ideas better. However, you know that I am not from the transport area, but saw interesting things here. First, that even if we have a different focus for the solution of the problems, we found interesting aspects about the way that others are doing. It’s like you believe your best way to solve a problem, but at the same time stay delighted with “another solution” given perhaps, another problem. But here I have another proposal. We may work with two business processes. An existing one and another, not born yet. In the first, perhaps chosen by Eugenia, we would do a bottom-up analysis, we would do an examination of the opportunities for improvement, adjustments, and after most striking changes, paradigm breaks, until eventually arrive in very creative changes that Mark suggested. In the second, Mark could recommend a completely different example, through the changes he suggested at a high level, and then Deodato and Eugenia would say what technologies and controls would be needed for this process to work. I think there’s a lot of work here, but to end up here with a high-level description of these processes and the changes it would bring would be interesting. What do you think?”

They all agreed and were able to smile — especially since the time when the Professor announced a lunch and then a nearby restaurant. Before leaving, the Professor wanted to add.

Professor Hure: “Interesting how innovations are born, have realized?”

Many come from groups like you, where differences are confronted. You can leave all the results there, including none, but sometimes everyone’s eyes sparkle and creativity, insights, innovation takes a form that can be used by individuals and generate prosperity, evolution.

“Who knows what will happen after lunch… I am enjoying, I loved it, let’s have lunch!”

                       

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