What I mean by Innovation and Product Coaching
As I watched the World Cup final yesterday morning, I kept wishing the cameras would stay focused on the coaches. Sure, I wanted to see the field. But the coaches are always fascinating to me.
In sports, the difference between coach and player is super clear— the coaches often have gray hair (and a bit of pudge if I’m honest— ok not Lionel Scaloni) and frankly sort of seem superfluous to those of us casual sports fans (curse at me here if you disagree), waving and gesturing to their teams from the sidelines. Like an orchestral conductor can seem superfluous to the job of getting the music played to a non-classical music fan.
The point is— the coach SHOULD be superflous during the game. Their job was largely done before the thing started. During the game (the part we see), it’s all about the team and the players. The outcome. Never the coach.
The coach has a different job.
Player’s job: play the best game you can in today’s World Cup final
Coach’s job: help the team play the best game they can in the World Cup final by helping them prepare
It’s the same way with innovation and product coaching.
Even the highest performing teams (especially the highest performing teams) need a coach. Just like football.
How innovation works (according to me).
Innovation is mostly about digging through the giant drawer in the sky labeled “Good Idea Parts” and finding a few that fit together in new ways to solve a real problem today. Innovation does not happen in a vacuum. It does not happen at any meaningful scale inside the brain of a solo, mad genius person. Innovation is always, always, always standing on the shoulders of prior thinkers, doers and innovators. Always.
Look at the history of any significant invention and you’ll find a trail of prior innovators who created technologies and techniques that enabled the Great Innovation—well before The Famous Person “invented” it.
What distinguishes The Famous Person is that they were lucky/observant enough to have seen a fresh way to use the idea parts. AND, they were hard working enough to invest the requisite blood, sweat, tears and sleepless nights iterating to create a commercially viable or statistically significant version that actually matters to the world. Then we rightly laud them for the idea.
But it was really an idea whose time had come.
So what is Innovation Coaching and Product Coaching?
In my career as innovation and product coach, I distinguish between “innovation coaching” and “product coaching” because not every company thinks of what they create as “products” (this is mostly for the technology and consumer goods folks).
But, rest assured, every one of us is building or creating products. (See my recent delve into this here.)
What is marvelously in common between all companies, all teams, all industries, all humans everywhere is that we are all trying to innovate. To find elegant solutions to real problems in a way that best provides value.
Innovation: Changing things for the better, such that the world is not the same on the other side.
When I work with a tech company, I usually call it product coaching (it’s just the lingo— product management is how things get built in tech).
When I work with non-tech companies, I usually call it innovation coaching and my focus is more holistic with the executive team, working on strategy and structure.
Both innovation and product coaching focuses on helping companies:
Get great at determining WHICH problems to solve (Where does your company provide value today? According to whom? What do you say no to? What do you say HECK YES to?)
Get great at determining HOW you BUILD to solve those heck-yes problems
Get great at determining HOW you STRUCTURE to best solve those heck-yes problems
Each company situation is different. Any engagement can be short or longer term, depending on need.
Best way to find out if I can help your organization is to reach out for a conversation. No obligation. Just getting to know each other to see if there might be a fit here. Let’s chat.
