Paul Brown's "Off the Shelf" column in this Sunday's New York Times, The Season of the Sage - New York Times, comments on three new business books: John Naisbitt's MindSet!, Stephen Covey's The Speed of Trust, and my Outside Innovation. Of the three, Paul likes Covey's best. Mine least.
"The good news is that she offers intriguing insights through her new book, Outside Innovation, Innovation occurs, she says, 'when customers lead the design of your business processes, products, services and business models.'
For example, she argues 'you no longer win by having the smartest engineers and scientists; you win by having the smartest customers.' "
Later, after saying that:
"readers...won't find much new ground broken here if they are hoping to learn how to become even more customer-centric."
Of course, he neglects to mention the over 20 case studies in the book!
He closes by saying:
"While Ms. Seybold is fine at providing a broad framework--identify and study your smartest customers, for example, and provide them with tools so they can use your products and services the way they want--specific "how to's" are hard to come by, or are confusing. Consider:
'For each group of customers you choose to serve, there will be several scenarios that are critical (read valuable) to them at any given point in time. A good rule of thumb is to focus on one to three customer-critical scenarios for each target audience. Then move on to the next scenario for that audience (since you've made it easy for them to accomplish their outcomes, they're ready for the next transformational experience).'
Sometimes what is clear to a guru isn't clear to the rest of us. Unfortunately that is as predictable as fall foliage tours this time of year."
Ouch! Of course, I appreciate the ink. And even more so, I appreciate the fact that Paul actually TRIED to understand one of the core prescriptions of the book--focus on your lead customers, work with them to figure out what outcomes they're trying to achieve and either provide them the tools to "do it themselves" -- thereby sharing their innovations with you, and/or work with them to co-design how they'd ideally like to achieve their outcomes--thus unleashing lots of innovative new ideas you'd never come up with on your own.
A simple idea: Customers' Outcomes Drive Innovation
It really boils down to this: Find your most insightful and passionate customers, find out what outcomes they're trying to accomplish and help them do so.
By focusing on customers' outcomes--what they'd ideally like to accomplish--and helping them achieve those outcomes in the easiest, most enjoyable way, your firm becomes an engine of innovation: customer innovation.
Kare,
Thanks for your support. Nice to have a testimonial.
I know that Outside Innovation provides tips folks can use because most of my clients (who have been reading and commenting on my draft chapters for the past year) have already implemented many of the patterns and techniques highlighted in the book.
For some folks, these approaches to engaging customers may seem "obvious" but I think that's because I pulled most of the patterns together into a coherent framework. That's what authors do!
The BIG idea.. is simple: engage with lead customers AND focus on customers' ideal outcomes. The former is not hard. The latter is amazingly difficult for most organizations to actually do!
Patty
Posted by: Patty Seybold | October 12, 2006 at 07:15 AM
... and you've probably read Publishers Weekly's less-than-glowing review of Mindset
http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Set-Reset-Thinking-Future/dp/0061136883/sr=1-2/qid=1160310106/ref=pd_bbs_2/002-1562277-7072049?ie=UTF8&s=books
Posted by: Kare Anderson | October 09, 2006 at 05:24 PM
Ironically it was your point in your book to "focus on your lead customers" that I advocated to my audience of people in different parts of the construction industry - and recommended YOUR book because it was the most specific and research-based - and this groups expects "practical" and "prove it to me" ideas.
Kudos to you on your thoughtful response to the review. Reinforces your themes in the book in so doing.
- Kare www.sayitbetter.com
Posted by: Kare Anderson | October 09, 2006 at 05:21 PM