Is your company’s future frozen?

Guy Kawasaki has a question

The Ice Man Cometh… and Stayeth

In the 1880’s a new industry evolved: ice. Folks had these fancy new contraptions dubbed “ice boxes” to prevent their perishable food from spoiling. Milk, eggs, meat – all the foods that contributed to better health needed special preservation. The answer came in the form of the icebox. Its only drawback was the ongoing need for ice blocks.

That gave rise to ice harvesters who spent the winters cutting ice from frozen lakes and storing it for later delivery. No matter where you lived, you could get ice delivered. And no need to struggle with ice preservation. The iceman took care of that.

Ice harvesters continued doing what they always had – cutting, storing and delivering ice. They embraced what they knew. Their only improvements came in the form of sharper saws and better ice delivery methods.

Enterprising ice sellers realized that the advent of commercial refrigeration provided an opportunity for ice manufacturing, allowing them to sell ice year round. With their noses to the proverbial grindstone (or ice block), they continued to provide customers with what they thought customers wanted: ice. But the ice manufacturers failed to realize what customers really wanted – an easy, reliable way to preserve food! The home refrigerator was the real answer.

Five Paths to “Upportunity” in Tough Times

In his best-selling Reality Check, Guy Kawasaki finds “upportunities” even in the economic turmoil of 2009. He identifies five “upportunistic” principles to “challenge the known and embrace the unknown”. The ice harvesters of the 1880’s failed to do this. But we don’t have to…

Jump curves. Depicted visually, change can be viewed as a series of S-curves, and the shortest distance between two points is always a straight line. Ice harvesters failed to look ahead to the next curve – ice automation. Ice factories failed to see the curve ahead of them – home refrigeration. Curves are occurring faster every day due to global hyper-linking. Smart businesses are looking ahead finding new ways to connect with their clients. They’re looking to the next curve: “True innovation occurs when companies jump to the next curve – or better still, invent the next curve.”

Make meaning. Focus on making meaning rather than making money. Products should enable people to do things better, do what they always wanted or do things they didn’t know they wanted to. The ubiquitous iPod is the perfect example of the latter. Listening to music has been around forever. Sony’s Walkman enabled listening on the go, but cumbersomely.

The iPod not only broke that barrier, but also launched another innovation: the podcast. Kawasaki writes, “Entrepreneurs who make meaning and change the world also make money. Nothing is more seductive to a venture capitalist than a company that may have a big impact on the world.” Make meaning and the money follows. The refrigeration inventors made meaning. Their predecessors made… well, ice.

Define purpose. Forego the typical jargon-filled, happy-talk “mission statement”. It sounds good, but it’s pretty useless. Develop a ‘mantra’ instead: three or four words that clearly define your distinctive purpose in the world. For example, eBay brings “online commerce for everyone”. Nike stands for “authentic athletic performance”. Target lets people get “cool stuff cheap.” Replace useless flowery mission statements with a purpose phrase that’s real.

Hire passion. Loving what you do far surpasses all the education and experience in the universe. The real power of purpose is the passion behind it. Motivation and attitude trump skill and knowledge every time. Passionate people serve customers as opposed to being customer service agents. Although semantically similar, the concepts are light years apart.

Create buzz. Innovative products that result from the above sell themselves. No marketing required. It’s exactly what causes some things to go viral. Kawasaki refers to this as using digital means to an analog end. The purpose of innovation is not to create cool products; it’s to make people happy. Although literally “cool,” the end result of the refrigeration innovation was families enjoying safe, fresh, refrigerated food.

What’s Next? Look ahead to your next curve. Find your purpose and define your existence. Challenge your known and embrace the unknown. Hire the people with the passion to make it happen. Are you ready to think outside the icebox?