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By Patrick Lefler
Peter Drucker once said, “Don’t confuse novelty with innovation.” And what he meant by that was that innovation is much more than just novelty—“strokes of genius,” as he liked to call it. He believed that innovation was based more on simplicity:
Innovation, to be effective, has to be simple and it has to be focused. It should do only one thing; otherwise it confuses. If it is not simple, it won’t work. Everything new runs into trouble; if complicated, it cannot be repaired or fixed. All effective innovations are breathtakingly simple. Indeed, the greatest praise an innovation can receive is for people to say, “This is obvious. Why didn’t I think of it?”
Even the innovation that creates new uses and new markets should be directed toward a specific, clear, designed application. It should be focused on a specific need that satisfies, on a specific end result that it produces.1
Every day, we see the simplicity of innovation around us. When Apple first introduced the iPod, the innovation wasn’t that it was the first portable digital music player; others were way ahead of Apple in that regard. The real innovation was that it allowed users to easily manage their selection of songs via iTunes. The introduction of simplicity was the real competitive genius, not the product itself. And from an economic standpoint, it certainly didn’t hurt that Apple took a cut of every song that was sold through iTunes!
What Drucker really rallied against was the perception that innovation had to be the result of brilliant ideas. He was more than happy to leave those to the true once-in-a-lifetime geniuses of the world, such as Leonardo de Vinci and a very select few. Drucker focused his time on the simple ideas that ended up moving markets—innovation that is based on the concept of smaller, simpler, or faster.
And in many cases, successful innovation is not based on a new product, but rather a new market for an existing product. In an essay titled “The New Venture,” Drucker recounts a wonderful story of just such an occurrence. It’s a story we’ve highlighted before, but it’s useful to cite again:
Shortly after World War II, a small Indian engineering firm bought the license to produce a European-designed bicycle with an auxiliary light engine. It looked like the ideal product for India, yet it never did well. The owner of this small firm noticed, however, that substantial orders came in for the engines alone. At first, he wanted to turn down these orders; what could anyone possibly do with such a small engine? It was curiosity alone that made him go to the actual areas that the orders came from. There he found farmers who were taking the engines off the bicycles and using them to power irrigation pumps that hitherto had been hand-operated. This manufacturer is now the world’s larger maker of small irrigation pumps, selling them by the millions. His pumps have revolutionized farming all over Southeast Asia.2
A simple product—in this case, a small gasoline-powered motor that had been in the market and available worldwide for years—was the catalyst for creating one of the largest companies in the world. It wasn’t the result of a novel invention or a brilliant stroke of genius; rather, it came from the simple idea of using bicycle motors to power irrigation pumps. Now that’s innovation!
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1 Peter F. Drucker, The Essential Drucker (New York, NY: Harper, 2001) p. 274.
2 Peter F. Drucker, The Essential Drucker, p. 147.
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Patrick Lefler is the founder of The Spruance Group; a management consulting firm that helps growing companies grow dramatically faster. He is a former Marine Corps officer and a graduate of both Annapolis and The Wharton School. The Spruance Group acts as a trusted partner by offering unbiased advice and providing unique solutions to help clients solve their most pressing strategy needs. For more information, visit www.spruancegroup.com or contact Patrick at: plefler@spruancegroup.com |