INSPIRE Speaker Shows Our Channel Needs More Creativity
By Jim Roddy, VP of Marketing, RSPA
I will have deathbed regrets. There are a few things I wish I never said, several missed opportunities I wish I’d taken advantage of, and many, many shots I missed back in my basketball playing days.
I just added one more regret to my list today: that I didn’t have Georgetown School of Business professor Dr. Robert Bies, the keynote speaker at the INSPIRE 2016 conference, as one of my college instructors. Not only is he high energy and full of practical business and leadership advice, but he likes showing movie clips to his students to emphasize lessons. I always felt I needed more Indiana Jones clips and fewer lectures at school.
Bies (pronounced “beez”) led off the first day of education at INSPIRE talking on the theme of “Unpacking the ‘Magic’ of Creativity.” I won’t capture every detail of Dr. Bies’ talk for a couple reasons. First, he’s not quite this guy from the classic FedEx commercials but he is a mile-a-minute-talker. Second, today’s session was mostly workshop format and I’m not a talented enough writer to convert all the learnings from that educational format into prose.
But the photo accompanying this article captures the essence of what happened this morning at INSPIRE. In the workshop that opened the session, teams were selected at random to collaborate to build a contraption out of masking tape and drinking straws that would catch a raw egg without it breaking.
In that photo you see executives from two payment companies – Henry Helgeson of Cayan (left) along with Matt Downs (center) and Walker Thompson of Vantiv/Mercury building their egg-saving device. Sixteen teams with varying backgrounds created their own gadget, and the result was 16 different designs. All the devices worked which proved Bies’ main point: “Freedom is the driver of innovation and creativity.”
Bies explained that he provided an outcome, loose guidelines, let the groups run free, and they each achieved the outcome. Too many companies, including several in our channel, tend to fall into group think and micromanagement in an attempt to achieve an outcome.
Bies implored the over 100 executives in attendance to embrace “parallel processing.” The concept is that two different groups working on the same problem develop more – and better – ideas than one giant group being steered. So next time you’re attacking an issue, instead of gathering everyone around the table and sharing your plan, divide into two groups, let each team create ideas, and then compare notes at the end of the exercise. You’re almost guaranteed to discover ideas you wouldn’t have uncovered operating otherwise.
Here are some other tremendous quotes and concepts from Dr. Bies:
- “I’m a big proponent of ‘creative swiping,’” he said. “Look around and see what others in your industry are doing, and when you see a good idea, steal it, modify it, and implement it. Obsess about best practices and what other people are doing.”
- Bies also introduced the group to the three steps of “inverted thinking.” First, write down all your assumptions about your problem, your customers or your market. Next, “break” each assumption – assume the opposite is true. Finally, with the broken assumptions as the new assumptions, develop new strategies or solutions.
- Bies shared the Jack Welch quote, “When the rate of external change exceeds the rate of internal change, the end of your business is in sight.” Bies added to that by saying, “I can sum that up in one word: Kodak. If you’re not moving ahead, your falling behind. That’s a reason for urgency.”
- “VARs need to become better at anticipation, adaptation, creativity, and innovation.”
- “If you’re going to make mistakes, make sure you make excellent mistakes – ones that advance your thinking. And fall forward.”
- “To me, these are the three most important leadership skills: listen, pay attention, and be open-minded.”
- “Leaders must educate, not dictate. People are more prepared to respond the more information they receive.”
- “Stand up but never stand alone. Think about partnerships all the time and who could be your potential partners.”
INSPIRE 2016, the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA) conference for thought leaders in retail technology, is being held January 31 to February 3, 2016, at the Park Hyatt Aviara Resort in San Diego, CA. For more information, go to www.BSMinfo.com/go/InsideRSPA.
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