As leaders or managers, we often hope to reach our desired metrics. But forcing those metrics can actually lead to failed innovations and delayed progress. In this series, Ron Price examines the 12 enemies of successful innovation. Enemy #5 is forcing metrics.
Episode Transcript:
Enemy number five of successful innovation is forcing metrics. One of the biggest challenges in the current development of strategy is the idea that revenue trumps everything when, in reality, revenue is the consequence or the result of creating value. In reality, new markets and the impact of products or services are not as easy to measure. And leaders should not think only of revenue, but they should think upstream of the things that need to be done well in order to result in revenue. Now, management might make assumptions about revenue. For instance, they might say, “We want twenty percent growth for the year.” But your team is going to be thinking about how we get there. And they’re going to be asking where they can develop new revenue streams. And, oftentimes, those revenue streams are not guaranteed. They take experimentation, they take trying and it doesn’t work and you try again and you fail often. And oftentimes this is when we fall back on products and services thinking, well, we’re going to squeeze them for all they’re worth because we know what they are. And yet this too is a mistake. Instead of looking for guarantees, we should allow for flexibility in new growth, flexibility in thinking, in learning, in culture, in new client acquisitions. And really work to truly grow a sustainable business by not succumbing to enemy number five which is forcing metrics.
Discover the other enemies of innovation in this 90 Seconds of Innovation series here or by subscribing on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts so you don’t miss an episode. Tweet your innovation questions to @ebaiya. | Header Photo by Yan Krukov via Pexels.
