Learning from Zen on how to innovate
by Kouji Miki
-Innovation is under your feet! -Learning from Zen on how to innovate “脚下照顧(Kyakka Shouko)”.
Proposal on the state of mind of the person in charge of innovation
In a mature market like Japan, large corporations that feel the limitations of their existing businesses are trying to create new value under the keyword “innovation.
Does it seem that various tools on how to innovate have been developed and published, but is it really possible to innovate just by using those tools?
In this article, I would like to share with you some of the ideas we have gained through our innovation courses for small and medium-sized companies called “zenschool”, not about tools but about the mindset of innovators.
Me-too innovation (seeking outside information for clues)
The product developer in charge of innovation searches for information on the world in search of product plans. Through the Internet, they gather information by referring to many web articles, and they also use social networking sites to research what products are currently popular in the market.
Then, the person in charge of the project will order and read many related books that may be helpful or go to exhibitions in the industry to gather information.
Let’s call this style of innovation “Me-too” innovation. As the word “Me-too” implies, it is a model of business innovation based on external information, referring to similar designs, similar functions, similar prices, and similar business models and combining them in a complex manner. This is a business innovation model.
It is a model of business innovation that refers to similar designs, similar functions, similar prices, and similar business models and combines them. As I mentioned in the section on the trap of logical thinking in innovation, if you develop a product based on information obtained from outside, it is easy to end up with a situation where the market is flooded with very similar products.
In today’s Internet age, as a result, the information available in the world is almost the same, and products and services that can be profitable for companies above a certain size will inevitably end up being similar.
In other words, the world will be flooded with products with almost the same concept, and as a result, we will enter a red ocean market.
This me-too innovation also overlaps with the context of “open innovation,” which is an attempt to create new value by proactively connecting with the outside world and collaborating with various companies and corporations.
Many large companies are now actively opening up their companies in the context of “open innovation,” but so much interaction with outsiders has led to the phenomenon of “By the way, what did I want to do? However, I think that if we have too much interaction with outsiders, there will be a lot of “what did I want to do?
Another point is that what is created through me-too innovation tends to be more easily evaluated internally and more easily promoted as a business.
True innovation (a model that looks to its own management resources and personal experience for clues)
On the other hand, the innovation model we are proposing is a True innovation model that uses only the information within the innovators themselves, rather than using external information.
Specifically, we ask the innovator, “What were you excited about during your summer vacation when you were 10 years old? Using a combination of mindfulness meditation and introspection meditation, the innovator is asked to work out what he was excited about during his summer vacation when he was 10 years old, and at the same time, use an exciting treasure hunting chart.
Since we use introspection meditation to extract very personal experiences, the information is completely original and unknown to anyone outside the company. By combining this original information with their own personal skills and management resources, they are able to innovate and create new businesses.
In this case, the fundamental feelings of personal excitement or personal complexes (such as the experience of a house fire or a serious illness when you were a child) can be a great source of energy in creating a new business.
As a result, business planning becomes a personal matter for the person in charge, and the person in charge of innovation never gives up in order to make the business work, no matter what the obstacles are.
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Innovation is at your feet! Recommendations for looking back under your feet.
In Zen, there is a saying, “脚下照顧” (Kyakka Shoko), which means that when you encounter a problem, the solution is always at your feet.
Many companies that are beginning to feel the limitations of their existing products and business models are using the word “innovation” as a cue to seek collaboration with the outside world.
This is the so-called “open innovation” trend. Companies and people who have a firm axis of “this is what I want to do” in their own company or in their own personal lives can actively connect with the outside world through an open innovation approach.
However, if you don’t have a solid core axis of “what you want to do” within yourself, and you use your company’s resources to seek solutions from outside and connect with outside companies, ventures, individuals, etc., you may be excited and thrilled to be exposed to new technologies and values at first, but in the end, you may think, “That was fun. But at the end of the day, the question is, “That was fun, but did you create any new business after all? ”.
In the end, I feel that no matter how many connections are made, no matter whether it is a company or an individual, if you do not have your own central axis, “This is what I want to do,” you will not be able to collaborate.
Look under your feet and see the value of your company.
We have been offering “zenschool” to managers and staff of small and large companies who are looking for new businesses. Such new business-minded people invariably begin to extend their antennas to the outside, looking for new things.
However, there are very few new business ideas to be found by going out there, and I have seen many cases where people create a business plan based on a business that some other company is already doing, only to have it fail halfway because the other company is already ahead of them and they do not have that much strength.
Therefore, rather than looking for new things to connect with the outside world, we should carefully separate our company and our own work that we have done so far. I think it is very important for open innovation to organize and redefine the value of the company and recognize the value of the company itself.
However, in the case of large companies, the work they have done and the fields they have been involved in are so diverse that even if they try to redefine their own value, it may become blurred.
In such cases, I think it is important to thoroughly narrow down the value of the company by purposely cutting off the value of the company in business fields other than the first in the industry.
Also, if the person in charge of the company can put the value of the company into his or her mind to the extent that they can talk about it in their dreams and then seek connections with outside parties, there is a possibility that they can connect with ventures and other industries that can provide new value to the company.
The difference between Me-too innovation and True innovation in terms of growth
Let’s consider the difference between me-too innovation, which is a method of procuring superior ideas and technologies from outside, and business growth based on technologies and values that the company or the individual already possesses.
In the case of me-too innovation, the company tries to innovate by imitating products and services that have already been created by other companies and combining them with its own management resources.
In this type of business innovation, since there is a lot of reference information on the “model” of the business that has already preceded it, the completion and quality of the product or service are relatively quick.
Because of this quick ramp-up, me-too innovation can be called rabbit innovation.
However, since the original company does not have a solid philosophy regarding the product, and the product or service is merely a “degraded copy” of an existing product or service, it is unlikely that the quality of the product will improve after launch or that the product or service itself will dynamically change to create more value than the original.
In addition, since there are already many me-too innovation businesses that are “degraded copies”, there is a high possibility that they will enter the red ocean and be eliminated from the market at an early stage.
The point at which the tortoise overtakes the hare in innovation is the “singularity.
In contrast, a product or service created from internal innovation has an initial concept of “？？？？ So, from a logical thinking approach, I don’t see how it can be a viable and sustainable business. In other words, it looks like a “not likely to be profitable” business.
Also, since it doesn’t seem like a profitable business at first, there won’t be many management resources available or people willing to support it. Therefore, it can be called a “turtle innovation” that continues to be developed steadily with few resources.
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For example, when Sony invented the Walkman, an ultra-lightweight music player that specialized in playback, a cassette recorder without a recording function was unheard of, and there was no lifestyle in which people could listen to it while walking around with stereo headphones.
Therefore, even if other electronics manufacturers had similar ideas, they probably would have given them up early on because they did not seem to be profitable from a logical thinking standpoint.
However, the developer who was passionate about this project overcame the opposition of those around him and continued to develop it slowly and steadily, like a turtle. At first, the idea was “？？？？”. The quality of the product and the added value it provides will gradually increase through continuous development.
And when the total amount of sustained development effort of the internal innovation (tortoise innovation) exceeds a certain level, the product quality will increase exponentially. Then, there comes the point where the value added by the products created by me too innovation (hare innovation) is also surpassed. I call this the “singularity” of innovation.
A business with internal innovation (tortoise innovation) that exceeds this “singularity” of innovation has the potential to overtake the quality and added value of products created by me-too innovation (hare innovation), create a new market, and dominate that market for a long time.
A case study of the difference between how Me-too innovation and True innovation grow
There was a case study that seems to have become prominent in the aircraft industry.
The difference between Me-too innovation and True innovation from the book “True Innovation”.
Characteristics of each kind of innovation
The innovations created by me-too innovation are often degraded copies of products and services that we have seen before because they are based on external information. They are not sustainable because they are caught in a market that is a red ocean with many competitors.
In addition, since the business appears to be profitable from a logical thinking point of view, there is little criticism from within the company. However, if there is criticism from within the company, the planner is often vulnerable at the end of the process because it is not an original innovation created by the planner himself.
On the other hand, in the case of internal innovation, which is born from the internal excitement and complexity of the planner, there is a high degree of uniqueness because it is born from completely original information that does not exist outside the planner. Therefore, there is no competition in the market itself, and it is often a blue ocean. And once it succeeds, there is a possibility that it will dominate the market for a long time, and sustainability is high.
In addition, since business innovations are “seemingly unprofitable,” they are often criticized from both inside and outside the company. However, since personal intentions are often at the core of the business, they are able to continue development like a shadow project, undaunted by some criticism, and are relatively resistant to criticism.
What I have described above is the knowledge we have gained over the past nine years through 47zenschools, which are innovation courses for small and medium-sized companies, but recently we have also had participants from the innovation departments of large companies, and we have seen the exact same phenomenon in both small and large companies, so I feel that the concept is highly universal.
If you are interested in learning more about what kind of innovation course zenschool is, please come to our consultation session.
Thank you very much for taking the time to read my blog. We would like to publish “True Innovation”, a book about Zen innovation theory written in Japanese, in English and other languages. If you are a publisher and would like to help us, please contact us.
BOOK “True Innovation”
