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the insider's guide to innovation

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

An Innovation Lesson From 'Spinal Tap'

Scott D. Anthony

This Is Spinal TapThe brilliant mock documentary This Is Spinal Tap is filled with pitch-perfect one-liners. One of my favorites is the gem from the fake heavy metal band's lead singer and bassist, David St. Hubbins and Derek Smalls, who team up to deliver this wisdom: "It's such a fine line between stupid and...clever.”

It is. And for innovation-seeking companies, the fine line relates to “core competencies.”

Core competencies, or things your company does extremely well, are beautiful, wonderful things. Companies should find every way possible to use core competencies to disarm existing competitors, edge into adjacent markets, and create entirely new growth businesses.

But, core competencies can be core rigidities as well. A fixed view of core competencies can cause companies to pass on great growth opportunities, or completely miss emerging attackers. It is one of the key drivers of the innovator’s dilemma. ...

Read the rest at Scott's Harvard Management blog, Innovation Insights.


Posted by Scott D. Anthony in Core Competencies | Comments (2)

Discussion

From: Brendan Dunphy
Posted: Thursday, June 12th, 2008 - 3:17 am EDT

In a recent Business Week interview with serial innovator Jeff Bezos of Amazon, one telling observation tha supports your post among stood out:

Q: Every company claims to be customer-focused. Why do you think so few are able to pull it off?

A: Companies get skills-focused, instead of customer-needs focused. When think about extending their business into some new area, the first question is "why should we do that—we don't have any skills in that area." That approach puts a finite lifetime on a company, because the world changes, and what used to be cutting-edge skills have turned into something your customers may not need anymore. A much more stable strategy is to start with "what do my customers need?" Then do an inventory of the gaps in your skills. Kindle is a great example. If we set our strategy by what our skills happen to be rather than by what our customers need, we never would have done it. We had to go out and hire people who know how to build hardware devices and create a whole new competency for the company.

So What?

Understanding what skills and capabilities a company has is important but in a fast-paced industry their shelf-life is limited. If there is a constant need to innovate then by definition there is a constant need to build and acquire new skills, as Jeff acknowledges. I have rarely observed this alignment and integration in practice - have you?

http://brendandunphy.blogspot.com/


From: Brendan Dunphy
Posted: Thursday, June 12th, 2008 - 3:17 am EDT

In a recent Business Week interview with serial innovator Jeff Bezos of Amazon, one telling observation tha supports your post among stood out:

Q: Every company claims to be customer-focused. Why do you think so few are able to pull it off?

A: Companies get skills-focused, instead of customer-needs focused. When think about extending their business into some new area, the first question is "why should we do that—we don't have any skills in that area." That approach puts a finite lifetime on a company, because the world changes, and what used to be cutting-edge skills have turned into something your customers may not need anymore. A much more stable strategy is to start with "what do my customers need?" Then do an inventory of the gaps in your skills. Kindle is a great example. If we set our strategy by what our skills happen to be rather than by what our customers need, we never would have done it. We had to go out and hire people who know how to build hardware devices and create a whole new competency for the company.

So What?

Understanding what skills and capabilities a company has is important but in a fast-paced industry their shelf-life is limited. If there is a constant need to innovate then by definition there is a constant need to build and acquire new skills, as Jeff acknowledges. I have rarely observed this alignment and integration in practice - have you?

http://brendandunphy.blogspot.com/



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