Few companies organize to walk multiple paths to re-invent themselves.
Note : if you have a strange feeling of "Deja Vu", or "Synchronicity" it is absolutely normal, and you are fine. Innovation is partly in this rapid "chronotyping" in circle and loops, and entanglement experience between different stories and dimensions. It is innovating on innovation circularity. Few companies set up the environment for individuals to do the same.
I interviewed a guy who experienced 18 laps race event into the innovation pool into the same company. Some kind of initiatic workout for innovation talent development.
This story is 100% facts based.It describes more in details one specific lap. This is Lap 10.
Innovative companies need to take the pulse in existing developments and proposals, where it presupposes they are easily accessible and consultable. Keeping the balance on the score cards.
This story unveils the details about the tenth out of 18 laps described into the "18 Holes or 18 Laps....." story and attempts to remind the importance of diving captors and indicators.
We are talking a 20 years period. Laps are not chronologic. Lap 10 has already rocked around the clock for a while.
The company where the "pool" hosted this weird swimming workout has grown from 5 to 50 thousands employees in the time. Regional to global status. Although this organization is considered innovative, no official program has been set up for such long distance and multi experience dive.
The flash interview has been inspired by the Mix Challenge.
Real field experience is analyzed as a stand-alone testimony among a chain of 18 stories. However, smart readers will also find out a series of related hacks.
Abundant food for thoughts.
A recurrent quote is that the core trade basics require "5 years to learn how to float".
With few written materials in a time preceeding ISO certification programs, coulpled with a fast expanding company and individuals scopes, the guy interviewed rapidly understood that problems will come up quickly without any troubleshooting guide.
This was not about firefighting. Young recruits were feeling like scouting on a "Terra Incognita". Draft maps provided not representing the territory.
Many would prefer "18 holes" for a title and the story could lead through a nice golf course. Especially our Mix Guru.
Appealing outdoor demanding exercise.Concentration and precision skills development drive. Diversity in the landscape. Time for mind simulation and computation.
Sorry, the journey sounds quite more repetitive, breath-taking but for no gorgeous scenery. Against the clock.And bouncing back on a wall.
Our recruit is describing his professional experience as a swimming workout.
Here is the tenth out of 18 Questions & Answers giving details of the experience :
10. Do your coach(es) develop clear definitions and metrics for innovation?
Freestyle John Linchpin: Well, it’s about the swimmers and learning how to read in and out the chrono’s, strokes and advanced so called "square factor "(some smart coaches in Europe, US and Japan discovered and use the correlation between time x frequency of stroke), or typical heartbeat pulse acceleration and limits controls ("Zones 1 to X", famous within long distance freaks communities).
"Swimming Square" Eric Legrand 2001
Captors and sensors are key words I adopted thanks to my experience path about swimming innovation waters.
Both are to be understood beyond the traditional "Key Performances Indicators". Let’s say "Distance" and "Time" being the 2 KPIs. It is the final measurement of progress and success or failure. Like Money and Ethics in business (way too easy to reach the first without the second as a constraint...).
Collective Intelligence, too. Coaches are both guiding through the laps and challenging us with stretch goals, as we saw in Lap 1. But on every moment, and about micro-details during the training as opposed to the one big goal of the one big event. You can grow muscles and go faster, but it grows your drag and slow you down, and prevent you to scale up on events distances. So it is a multi-criteria strategy.
Innovation, Innovation, Innovation.The top coach would say Innovation belongs to the core of our organization - it’s a shared value - shared with and by all of us in and around the pool, basically it’s at the heart of the athlete’s performance.
It’s as simple as A,B(S)C. Coaches are sensitive to swimming better and faster. The beauty of the movement that the customer will look at - first.
So, A, to be sure that in your team (s) will emerge successful swimmers, you might first want to make sure that all are familiar or at least learned about the basics - our innovation steps. That’s one of the metrics that the coaches will look at in the first place, when we say its about A,BsC. It’s also a good way to find out if more basic training workouts are needed as essential support to innovation understanding... before getting into leading edge thinking.
That’s why, for B(s), it’s a comprehensive set of references to the chrono. The coaches - and all engineers by the way - have access to the chronos-list. On a 5-year reference period, one can know the records for each swimmer marking a performance verified and validated by the coach - the innovation card. So, at the end of the year, we can review the metrics for overall contributions. Sensors also detect beyond the records, the ratio of every new element (stroke technique detail, speed management, underwater analysis etc...) And their impact. It unveils and answers the "Why new stuffs or approaches are delivering results ?"
The Innovation In-Square Circle Chrono: 3/5 In2 score - Credits Ac Depeige
Of course, some of our swimmers have several records on hand and some swim in duo and even in teams, too. Sensor also detects beyond the records, the ratio of performances that are sustained and implemented in day to day, should it be in one or another swimming place.
And you can, C, at the end consider the ratios of swimmers that effectively participated and distinguished to the races vs. your pool of swimmers. A holistic capture of innovation chronos that will help us more emphasize on how to encourage others to join and surf the wave!
BSC also stands for Balance ScoreCard as we are switching criteria and need the global balanced and holisitc view.
For my own experience I can remember of a set of 200 captors and sensors within a worldwide comprehensive Supply Chain "Sales and Operations Process" set up from 2004 to 2006 that I know are still in place. And currently within a "Training and Co-operative Intelligence" context, I listed 160, out of which 50 are rotating elements in test that eventually disappear promptly and are to be replaced with other proposals. Turnover is high not so much because of the relevance of a captor but the cost of its maintenance.
And many coaches and teammates do not feel so comfortable being scrutinized form above and underwater all day long. We likely need to find a way to give them a level of control on the monitoring switches.
Teams’ steering wheel for proof-checking switches - Credits Ac Depeige
Global visibility at a world-dive level is the first benefit. Even not all the ideas are pushed forward until implementation, and it might very well happen some will end being closed without much going- ons, there is a well-suited individual follow-up and support for authors.
Second raw benefit is systematic monitoring of patent opportunities. Chronos are a rich and fertile ground for breakthrough innovations. New ideas likely adopted by sponsors and marketing as it was recently the case remain available and timely traced for further reference. Cross-fertilization ensured.
Dare to propose and think counter-intuitive.
Be courageous to overcome the “not invented” here syndrome and to seek inspirations into the proposal’s pool. Collective entanglement and mutual enrichment is key for giving birth to groundbreaking innovations.
Time is an important component in the workout series: ideation time, maturation time, back to ideation, advanced maturation, launching time. The sequence might not be linear neither one-plunge jump. Difficult to break the record if you are jumping in too early .... or too late.
You need to register in order to submit a comment.