How “Micro-Innovations” Can Drive Breakaway Results

The concept of innovation can be completely overwhelming.  Images of Edison inventing the light bulb or Henry Ford revolutionizing manufacturing push the idea of innovation outside the reach of us mere mortals.  If we define innovation as a gigantic, change-the-world, cure-cancer type breakthrough, the concept is relegated to a select few: billionaires, mad scientist inventors, CEO’s, and super-geniuses.

Yet the vast majority of human progress is crafted differently.  In fact, it’s the little creative shifts – what I refer to as micro-innovations – that most often carry the day.  These mini innovations can be subtle, but add up to significant results en masse.   A fresh way of conducting your weekly sales meeting.  Reimagining the physical layout of your shop floor.  A modern twist to the format you use to conduct job interviews. A novel way to manage a customer complaint.  A new item on the menu.

The folks at Proctor & Gamble were fighting hard to gain share of the $7 billion detergent marketing.  Instead of inventing some revolutionary magic serum, they used a small packaging change to win big.  Tide Pods were launched to allow customers to drop a small pod in the wash rather than pour from a messy bottle.  This micro-innovation led to stunning success, over $500 million of revenue in the product’s first year.

While game-changing breakthroughs are glamorous, small acts of ‘everyday innovation’ are the stuff of greatness.  Too often, we put the weight of the world on our shoulders and believe we only have two choices – a) world-shifting innovation, or b) do nothing.  With that kind of pressure, it’s no wonder that most of us restrict our creative output.  On the other hand, micro-innovations are accessible to us all.   Each of us – regardless of role, tenure, age, or title – has the ability to develop creative solutions that lead to real progress.  In this sense, innovation becomes a daily habit rather than a big, scary, overwhelming phenomenon. We all can be innovators, not just those in lab coats or with fancy degrees.

Take a look at your daily work, whatever it may be.  While totally disrupting your entire industry may be daunting, ask yourself what little creative twists could make a small difference.  Apply creative wonder to your product or service, production, culture, sales and marketing, recruiting, customer experience, and internal processes.  While micro-innovations may not land you on the cover of a magazine, they can absolutely fuel your performance.  Not to mention, they’re tremendously fun.

View your work through the lens of an artist, looking to add just a little splash of creativity to even the most mundane tasks. Remove the burden to develop gigantic a-ha moments of brilliance, and focus on a high output of micro-innovations.  Each change or twist may be small, but your results over time will be anything but puny.

Read More

New Thinking for the New Era of Business

Albert Einstein famously noted, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that we used when we created them.” In our post-COVID world of ...

When an Astronaut Needs a Pen

Ever get stuck on a problem, only to realize you're solving for the wrong thing? That's exactly what happened when the rocket scientists at NASA ...

How Shake Shack Drives Innovation

Do you prefer the crispy mozzarella, tempura watercress, and black garlic mayonnaise cheeseburger or the pumpkin mustard, bacon, cranberries, and sage hot dog? For something ...

Lady Gaga’s Secret to Creativity

Just before she won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, I watched Lady Gaga dazzle the live audience with a pitch perfect performance of ...

Creativity: Does Size Matter?

For some reason, we’ve been taught that for creativity and innovation to count they need to have a magnitude the size of the 1989 San ...

The Lexicon of Creativity

There’s more confusion around the meaning of the word innovation than the chaos at the airline ticket counter after a cancelled flight. Is there a difference between ...

The Brain Science of Becoming More Creative

When we hear stories about iconic leaders like Salesforce.com’s founder Marc Benioff, or widely celebrated virtuosos like Lin-Manuel Miranda for that matter, we immediately think ...

Correct the Overcorrect

When the misguided leaders at Enron, Tyco and Worldcom committed fraud and marred their shareholders with huge losses, the Securities and Exchange Commission rightfully swooped ...

Learning to Color

Fact: Creativity has become the most needed skill in business. It’s gone from a nice-to-have to becoming mission-critical. Fact: Creativity is a learnable skill. All humans have ...