I think the most important thing to do is to recognize the fundamentally different circumstances of pursuing growth. Scott D. Anthony More Quotes by Scott D. Anthony More Quotes From Scott D. Anthony You still want to be thoughtful about what you do, no doubt, but you have to learn through trial-and-error experimentation as well. Scott D. Anthony thoughtful errors doubt When you are motivating people to do amazing things, you have to win over both their rational side and their emotive side. Scott D. Anthony winning sides people I've never seen impeccable logic be sufficient to win both the heart and the mind. Scott D. Anthony mind winning heart It's one of the underappreciated skills required by an innovator - they have to be able to convince lots of people to do things that might not be fully rational (invest in the company, join something that is likely to fail, try a product they've never seen before), and if you can't tell a good story it is just very hard to make that happen. Scott D. Anthony skills trying people Now, I worry a bit about the TEDification of the world where style trumps substance, so hopefully you have a good blend of both! Scott D. Anthony style substance worry You have to make the decision about whether you want to avoid or you want to overcome the resistance. Scott D. Anthony decision overcoming want Avoiding along some dimensions is easy. Create organization space and bring in some new talent so the innate cultural resistance is less material. Unfortunately, it's rarely that easy. Scott D. Anthony resistance space organization It would be fun too to put some of the great philosophers and political scientists of the past couple centuries into a time machine, have them look at the world today, and see what they think. Imagine Schumpeter, Malthus, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Marx, and more! That would be good fun. Scott D. Anthony couple fun past If you are a large company and you want to do something unique, you almost by definition have to tap onto the core business in some way. Otherwise you are going into a naked fight against startups, and that's just a tough place to be. Scott D. Anthony naked fighting unique Some people who were central to former success aren't the right people for your future success. Scott D. Anthony future-success your-future people What looks like resistance in many cases is rational responses to incentives and ingrained resource-allocation processes. Scott D. Anthony incentives resistance looks If you are trying to improve the performance of existing operations in known markets, it is an analytical problem where it's just a question of aligning your execution engine in the right way. If it is about creating something new and different, you can't derive the right answer analytically. Scott D. Anthony creating different trying Of course if you are launching a new business you can thinking about revenues, profits, and so on, but metrics such as customer satisfaction or employee retention might be meaningful if you are focusing more internally. Scott D. Anthony metrics meaningful thinking Of course, it is worth it to take the time to think carefully through your assumptions, and ensure you at least have hypotheses around how you will create value. But use the analysis as a way to focus attention on the most critical assumptions, rather than spend a ton of time massaging the numbers. Scott D. Anthony focus numbers thinking A spreadsheet for an innovative idea reports the mathematical relationship between made up numbers. You can't cash a spreadsheet. Scott D. Anthony cash numbers ideas One of the biggest mistakes large companies make is creating innovation teams that mirror all the functions of the core business. Those teams make no progress because they spent forever updating each other on what they are doing versus really crushing the most critical problems they need to address. Scott D. Anthony crush team mistake We fool ourselves into thinking that the spreadsheets that capture our financial projections are something different than what they are. Scott D. Anthony fool different thinking Good innovators are careful observers, network extensively, run experiments, ask lots of questions, and find ways to bring diverse ideas together. Overarching all of this is an intrinsic interest in working through puzzles. Scott D. Anthony together running ideas Why do people do crossword puzzles? There's no reward for completing one, but some people just like the challenge. Scott D. Anthony rewards challenges people Successful strategies adhere to a basic pattern. Scott D. Anthony strategy patterns successful
