Hannes Erler walks us through what innovation and transformation truly entail. Innovation is “more of the things that are new to the world and to the company, but must not have a bigger dimension on change.” An example of innovation would be smartphones; “it changes how fast we can communicate” . It coincides with how smartphones work and “, especially the young people, they have a completely different way of how they want to see the world.”
Now, ask yourself; what is innovation without transformation? Transformation “are the real game-changing things that fundamentally change not only technology as well as behavioral and societal things.” How do you go about making something that will not only change in form, but also is globally attainable? How does it work and can it work? It’s two sides of the same coin like Erler says there is the explorative side where you are allowed trial and error, and then there’s the exploitation side where failure isn’t what you want on the menu.
A good plan of action to possess when implementing a new system or new idea is that it “must safeguard the sales of tomorrow morning.” Meaning you should always account for if things don’t yield how you’d want them to, but “on the other hand, this innovation strategy has to build a very good guardrail for the bigger things of tomorrow.” There are two sides to every coin and to every outcome.
That leaves us to decide how and when to “pivot” your new startup. There are three pieces of advice Mr. Erler gives us. One being you have to start from within to “be very honest with yourself.”; yes the idea is neat, but ask yourself “where are the problems, or what do we have to solve”? The second key here is intuition, like when something just doesn’t quite feel right; you’d abandon it and if something feels right, then you’d jump on it. That intuition you have can either make you decide whether to continue on with your strategy, completely abandon your idea, or merely tweak what you already have to gauge how it’ll affect the world. The third key point is courage; courage to walk your own path, courage to pitch your idea, and the “courage to go for the unconventional yet obvious miles.” All of these elements serve as the blueprints you will have to ensure something grand and useful for everyone.
