Surprises - a Good Thing in HR. #HCIevent

Soren Kaplan, (@SorenKaplan) the author of Leapfrogging: Harness the Power of Surprise for Business Breakthroughs was one of the speakers at the HCI Workforce Planning conference and talked about how looking for surprises is truly the engine for innovation.

He used a great magic video to show how focusing on what we want to see will drive us.  I don't want to spoil the ending - so watch the video!

Soren further explained that innovation can be focused, not by researching customers, but by focusing on internal development. He talked about Kimberly Clarke and their R&D System of using Mom-prenuers. What is very cool is that they providing the mom's funding and the only "catch" is that Kimberly Clark gets first right of refusal to buy the business if the the Mom wants to sell it. Here is teh link to check it out! Pretty wild.

Soren then talked about the ability to adapt to the Surprises is key. Great story on how Four Seasons used to be a business traveller chain and that is who they catered too. They started getting lots of visits to their sites which had lots of photos.. Out of the blue they got rated as a great vacation web site. So the company changed their website and brand name to focus on Resorts. They are now one of the most amazing Hotel Resort chains in the world.

You will Fail!

It is important to understand that as part of innovation -  you will fail, and in fact you will learn amazing things as part of the process. Many of the innovators often view their life as a journey, and it is not focusing on one hit successes.

Being successful at innovation is fundamentally about Humility. It is this ability that will allow innovators to learn about their surroundings, the events happening to them and learning from others.

Soren then opened it up for questions.

Jaye Tanner asked a great question on how small start ups can maintain their innovation as they grow and scale up. Soren responded by explaining it is very, very difficult - but the companies that do it well - have made it a focus. An example is Intuit - which as part of it's corporate values - loves Surprises.

Great Question about whether Innovation is part of the performance management system. Soren said he hasn't seen it very often as part of the formal performance management process and/or competency.

Interesting Factoid - Wikipedia got 24 entries for their first two years..