Harry Warner was not ignorant when he offered that advice, he was an expert in his industry, but he failed to recognise that he needed to “jump to the next curve”, (a phrase coined by Guy Kawasaki from Apple). He was so entrenched with his current product set and so concerned with being on a level playing field with his competitors, he operated in a constant state of improving, which was not bad thing if what you needed to do was to make better silent movies. What Sam Warner intuitively understood was that it was not about looking at improvements, but rather about taking a step back and looking at what they were not seeing (or hearing). That is what got him ahead of the competition.
Moving into the 21st century, according to a 2015 article in Strategy + Business, one thousand publicly held companies spent $680 billion on research and development alone. Yet, staggeringly only 6% of executives were satisfied with the outcome.
The good news is that innovation can be cultivated and entrepreneurship can be taught. While a university degree won’t turn you into an entrepreneur it does teach some fundamental skills necessary to run a business. The practise of Scrum’s empirical inspect and adapt process control, with a specific focus on innovation, is an excellent way to develop an innovative mindset. The embodiment of agile values should foster a culture where failure is part of learning and viewed as progress, not as mistakes or an opportunity to portion blame.
There is no magic formula to ensure innovation, but leaders can – and should – go a long way to create a culture where at least, it is possible.
