July 2013

Sports – Interview with Dominic Irvine about LEJoG on a tandem and the London-Edinburgh-London audax

At the time of writing, Dom Irvine is somewhere in the North of England, having last been spotted heading South from Barnard Castle in County Durham. Dom is currently on the return leg of the epic London-Edinburgh-London audax which is very much underway still.

It’s the endurance cyclist specialist’s first audax, but certainly not his first ‘challenging’ bike ride. We caught up with him just prior to departure last week to see what drives him to take on these slightly bonkers endurance rides.

OT. What first drove you towards these types of endurance cycling challenges?
DI: I spend my life helping other people succeed – it’s immensely rewarding and fulfilling, but I needed to find some challenges that would allow me to experience and practice what I was asking others to do.  Endurance challenges test your discipline to train, your mental reserves, your ability to develop coping strategies, and of course provide an intense exhilaration when you succeed.  It’s been a journey that has been incredibly self revelatory and reinforced my belief that ordinary people like me can do these sorts of extraordinary events – it’s simply a question of deciding you want to and putting in enough hours to make it possible. The biggest hurdle of all is simply making the decision that shifts your thinking from ‘I couldn’t do that’ to “I might be able to do that’ which eventually becomes ‘I can do that’.

Q. Your day job is in the world of motivational speaker and business, and you are perhaps most well known in that field for the concept of ‘maverick thinking’. Can you explain a bit about that and whether the concept has an influence on your attitude to these physical challenges?
DI: Maverick Thinking is simply about finding and challenging the assumptions we have about what can be done or the way it has to be done. More often than not it’s not coming up with new ideas which is challenging, but as Maynard Keynes said, “it’s all about escaping the old ideas.” This profoundly influenced our thinking as a tandem team when we tried to break the record. During every aspect of our ride we asked the question ’why?’  We’d research what evidence there was behind commonly held beliefs and discovered time and time again that there was either no evidence or very little evidence. We decided we had to do this because every record attempt thus far had failed following the perceived wisdom. Ours failed too but we got a lot closer than all recent attempts which given neither of us had a heritage of being an Olympic gold medallist or semi professional cyclist was very rewarding.  For example a commonly held view is the stoker (the person at the back of a tandem) can do no wrong – this is so untrue. They can destroy the racing line by incorrect positioning and they can actively assist super fast cornering through careful distribution of their weight.

OT: What sort of experience of long distance cycling experience did you have before taking on your first challenge?
DI: I came to endurance cycling through racing Ironman distance triathlons. I was a rubbish swimmer, loved running but my knees didn’t which left me cycling. I loved the bike leg, 180km of delightful scenery and countryside before the pain of the marathon. When my knees said ‘enough’ it was an easy choice to drift into endurance cycling. I loved the ‘all day’ nature of Ironman races and wanted to find events that lasted at least as long as Ironman’s were taking me (a shade over 11 hours).  My first cycle race was the Race Across the Alps, a non-stop 525km over 13,500m of climbing in the Alps. A very long day out!

OT: Everything seems to be building towards another attempt on the tandem LEJOG record.  Why the tandem?
DI: I was introduced to tandem riding by John and Ruth Hargreaves at JDTandems. They were so full of enthusiasm – and rightly so. The tandem is a wonderful team activity, two of you learning how to work together to optimise performance.  When one rider is having a bad section the other one can carry them through and vice versa. It is harder to ride endurance distances on a tandem because of the need for two of you to maintain balanced and focused when you are tired, but that’s all part of the challenge.  On the other hand, a tandem hammering down the road at full tilt really flies. The long wheel base and the combined weight of two riders means descents are exhilarating. We regularly go 50mph plus going down hills – it’s a big adrenalin rush.

OT: Can you talk a little bit about how the last attempt went?
DI: It was an amazing mix of euphoria, adrenalin, deep disappointment, fatigue, excitement and camaraderie. We were hampered by a bout of illness during the ride and the wind turning against us during the latter stages. Whilst we haven’t broken the record… yet, we believe we can. We were the first team as far as we can tell that made it all the way to the end since the record was set. We learnt lots of valuable lessons from this attempt that will help us up our game next time.
OT: I understand that you’ve only recently found a new tandem partner to take on the record with you.  How do you go about finding a new partner?  Does it take a special sort of convincing to find someone?
DI: Finding a new tandem partner was very hard. Lots of people were enthusiastic initially, but after having explained what’s involved they decided it wasn’t for them. In the end we conducted a media campaign to find someone – which thankfully worked.  I never wanted to lie or deceive someone about what’s involved in riding a bike non-stop for 50 hours, and as the stoker (the person at the back) during the whole of this time you have no control over the speed, gears, route, decision at road junctions, braking etc.  So whilst the positives are fantastic (team work, exhilarating speed, the chance to break a record, sociable riding etc) it does have some down sides.  Better they understand at the get-go than decide they don’t like it after 6 months of hard training.

OT: Are you preparing differently this time for the LEJOG?
DI: Yes, harder, longer, faster, more disciplined and one or two other things I can’t share.  Unlike Lance Armstrong – definitely no drugs beyond caffeine.

OT: It seems a little like you have selected some big key challenges to motivate you on the path to the LEJOG. How did you pick them?
DI: Simple – how would they contribute to maintain specific endurance fitness?  Secondly, do they take in some beautiful scenery?  Thirdly – do they offer a unique challenge in their own right?  If these conditions can be satisfied it’s a no brainer.

OT: Why the London-Edinburgh-London Audax specifically?
DI: It matches the distance from Lands End to John O’Groats (and even takes in some of the same route). Secondly, because it’s an audax the pressure to have to race is off, I can concentrate on practicing keeping going for two to three days with just a few short breaks (about 2 hours max). Finally there is lots of support in the form of controls with food and drink and a well prepared route – so all I have to do is ride my bike.

OT: Have you ever taken on an audax before?  Did the image of steel frames and beards make you think twice?
DI: This will be my first audax and yes, I was put off by the image of bearded cloth capped riders lecturing me on how to ride. Steel bikes are great – I have a couple and love them. But the more I learned about Audax riders through the forums the more respect I have come to have for them.  Like all forms of cycling it has its own unique sub culture parts of which don’t appeal much.  But these guys ride huge distances and have some excellent insights into how to survive these long rides and the kit that works. So my view has changed – I’m really looking forward to riding with them and listening to their stories and experiences learning what I can as we cruise along.

There’s a new cycle clothing company in Yorkshire called ‘Fat lad at the back’ and I have some of their clothing to test – I think the tongue in cheek name of the brand will fit right in with this Audax ride.

OT: Why on a single speed? Was it just to make things more difficult?
DI: Undoubtedly, single speed is more difficult – and has lots of training benefits.  But that’s not the point.  On a geared bike you ride the bike, using gears to maintain a constant effort up-hill, down-dale.  On a single speed you ride the terrain. When the hills come, you feel the mountain through the bike, you work harder.  Going down the hills, your speed is dictated by gravity, so sit back, relax and enjoy the view.  It’s dare I say it, almost a zen like way of riding a bike – very simple, pure and connected. Geared bikes are great – there is a reason why gears were invented, but I love the simplicity of single speed.

OT: How have you prepared for the audax?
DI: Over the winter sessions on the turbo, weights, core body work.  During the spring I introduced longer and longer riders culminating in back to back 350km rides and overnight rides.  For example, I rode from London–Paris–London in one hit via Dieppe. On another occasion I rode overnight from my home near Winchester to my parents house in North Yorkshire. During all these rides I was working out the kit that would work best for the ride.

OT: How do you fit in training around your busy schedule?
DI: When I’m at home I get up at 4:45am to train before work. On the road I do what I can. For example I was in Vietnam so hired a bike and headed out towards the Mekong Delta on a mountain bike – an experience! When I was in Russia I did some running and weights which whilst not directly related to seated riding helps with out of the saddle climbing up hills. In Sweden someone lent me a bike for some delightful long rides around Skane. Basically if you need to train and you want to you will find a way. There is always something you can do.

OT: Has anyone given you any tips?
DI: Yes, the riders on facebook and in the forums have been brilliant offering expert advice. Sometimes over what seems like simple things like choice of bag to carry kit. Like all such sources of information some of the suggestions need to be treated with a pinch of salt!

OT: Are you tempted to try out any other endurance challenges? Does the thought of something like an ultra marathon appeal at all?
DI: If I could still run I would love to do ultra marathons. The Davos marathon being a race that really appeals. However there are lots of cycling endurance challenges to nail. My wife has banned me from RAAM……thus far.

OT: When can we expect to hear about your LEJOG attempt?
DI: Very soon! Once I’m back from London Edinburgh London it’s back to it. We have a brand new model of Orbit Tandem to test. It arrives in the UK in September so we will be road testing it and riding it into the ground – as much as we can. I’m really excited about it – it’s aluminium, light as a feather and super stiff – it should fly.

OT. Good luck with the audax in the meantime.
DI: Thanks.

If you are interested in reading more about Dom’s experience of riding tandem see his article “Out of Control – Lessons from the back”, and read about his record breaking ride here.

Innovation – Innovate your way to success (part 2)

This first appeared in The Huffington Post​, 18th July 2013.

 

After reading part 1 of this blog you will understand that I am an advocate of innovation being a habit in your business. You’ll also know I’m into failing – lots.  Being innovative means coming up with ideas that, in the first instance, will fail.  From these failures I will learn lessons and through a process of trial and error over time I will develop new and innovative solutions.

In part 2 of this blog my main focus looks at how to be creative and how to ensure your business becomes more innovative.  I share insights on how to engage people with your new ideas. As a reminder, innovation is creativity with a job to do. If we can’t get people in the business buying into our ideas and ultimately implementing them, then the hard work of coming up with ideas is little more than creative vanity.

Generating ideas

I hate brainstorming sessions. The trouble with ‘brainstorming’ is that all the assumptions that you may make, without even realising, constrain your thinking.  All your ‘brainstormed’ solutions are therefore also constrained by these assumptions. As a result, many of the ideas from brainstorming sessions seem to go nowhere – the wanted breakthrough idea never happens.

The way we generate ideas, or ‘ideation’ as it is sometimes known, must be free from the restrictive assumptions we already have in place. These assumptions might be about the flavours, package type, time of consumption or channels to market – in short about almost any aspect of what we do in business. When running proper ideation sessions we often use a range of exercises.  On the face of it these exercises can sometimes feel a little strange, but with practice they become easier and more productive.

Examples of the exercises include:

Build a connection

Take a random object and work out its features and its benefits. Thinking about the target of your innovation, work out what the equivalent of each of these features and benefits would be for you.  For example, if the random object is a pen, one of its benefits is the fact that it is portable. If you were thinking about a new product you might consider how you could make it more portable. The more features and benefits you find of your random object the more ideas you will generate.

Break it down

Often, we try to innovate a whole product or service which can be very difficult.  Instead, choose a tiny element of the product or service and work out how you could innovate just that one aspect. If thinking about a product, you might focus on the innovation in the printing on the package. For example, if you could only change the printing what would you do? This might lead you into thinking about ‘scratch and sniff’ or ‘flavoured’ printing. If you were thinking about a service, you may decide just to focus on a single dimension such as ‘home delivery’ and you may choose to break that down into the customer notification of a delivery. This may lead you to innovate the way you communicate with the customer using social media. These are just simple examples to illustrate what is meant.

Triz

One of the best methods of creating innovation is the Russian method of TRIZ.  Developed by Soviet inventor and science fiction writer Genrich Altshuller, one of the underlying principles of TRIZ is that the vast majority of problems requiring innovative solutions need to overcome a trade-off between two contradictory elements. For example, a mass-produced customisable product: It’s possible to mass-produce something that’s the same, and it’s possible to hand craft bespoke unique items, but mass-producing bespoke unique items is a contradictory requirement. If you are interested in the tools used to solve contradictions such as this then read Semyon Savransky’s book “Engineering of creativity: Introduction to TRIZ Methodology of Inventive Problem Solving”.

There are a great many creative exercises you can use and a great many sites listing them. Put ‘innovation exercises’ into Google to find lots more.

*Top tip
Top athletes practice the skills they need until they become world class, with this in mind learn some idea creation tasks and practice doing them with your team.  Remember, innovation needs a focus, so choose a topic before you try the exercises out.  The first few times you try a new exercise it probably won’t work very well.  Practice, practice, practice and soon you find yourself regarded as one of the best sources of new ideas in your business.

How to overcome organisational resistance

This touches on a very broad area encompassing change management. There are two or three elements that really seem to make a difference.

Selling ideas in

There are five simple principles to follow when attempting to get other people to buy into an idea for a new product or service:

1) A great product / service
It must be a good idea that fits with the business strategy and makes sense in the market place or for the business. This is first and foremost.

2) Effective position
A problem solved is a product sold. What is the problem the product or service solves? Why is this such a good solution to that problem?

3) Powerful presentation
Create a sense of how things could look with this product or service in place. Paint the picture of the future. The image you create will help inspire and excite people.

4) Compelling testimonials
Where is the evidence to show why this is a good idea?  Maybe your idea has worked in other similar markets, perhaps you have great research predicting the likelihood of success, or maybe there is academic evidence to support your approach.  Fundamentally you need to demonstrate that this is more than just a whim.

5) Irresistible offer
Everybody loves a bargain!  What other things could be achieved by bringing this product or service to market? If you can find multiple benefits for the proposition it becomes far more compelling.

These five points might look remarkably simple – that’s because they are.  These points address key elements that you ought to be able to show about any new idea, product or service to add gravitas.

*Top tip
Overcoming organisational resistance is about helping others feel in control of what you are doing. Build strong relationships and take the time to understand other people’s perspectives and concerns. The best ideas will help them succeed as well as you.

How to build an innovation organisation

John Lord, in the book “Developing new food products for a changing market place” summed it up best:
• Firms that don’t encourage entrepreneurial behavior will not observe any
• Firms that discourage or penalize taking risks will find that no one in the firm is willing to take risks
• Firms that don’t provide adequate investment capital can never achieve big winners
• Firms that don’t put the best people in effective cross-functional teams, on new products, will succeed only rarely
• Firms that demand immediate returns will have only limited successes with line extensions but no innovation
• Projects which lack the individual—the new product champion—willing to see the project through, and willing to fight the battles to obtain necessary resources, will wither for lack of support
• Organizations lacking clear goals and direction for new product efforts will find a real difficulty in achieving a coherent and coordinated effort which is both effective and efficient
• The bottom line is that firms that do not invest in innovation won’t experience any innovation

*Top tip
Think about the behaviours you would like to see in your organisation and work out how you would measure them. Include these measures in your performance management system. People do what is in their best interest, so make innovation in their best interest and count how innovative they are.

Conclusion

Innovation is a skill. Like any skill it requires practice. The more you practice and the more you learn about the different skills involved in friction free innovation then the more success you will have. Innovation is for everyone, at every level in the business, and every part of business can be innovated.

If I had one piece of advice it would be to take on the challenge of escaping your existing thinking. So many good ideas die because of the limitations of the way we think.  An idea is like a flame, when it’s small like a lit match it can be blown out. As it takes hold, that same breath of air will increase the flames. Dismissing an idea immediately is like blowing the match out. Give the idea time to get hold and you never know where it could lead.

Dominic Irvine © July 2013 All rights asserted

Read more about our innovative thinking applied to L&D programmes here.

Innovation – Innovate your way to success (part 1)

This was first published in The Huffington Post, 5th July 2013.

 

Have no doubt – innovation is the key to future success.

There is no escaping the need to innovate, changes in technology, consumer trends and what the competition is doing, mean you cannot afford to stand still. You need to be innovative in all aspects of your business, from how you recruit new talent to the products you develop, or even the way in which you manage maintenance.

Innovation is creativity with a job to do. Coming up with new ideas is creativity, converting them into real tangible activity is innovation. As a result of organisational resistance, many great ideas never make it through the business. We need to avoid such organisational friction. What we need is a process that transforms ideas into commercial value as quickly and easily as possible.

The beauty of innovation is that all the ideas we need are out there. Skill is needed to combine different combinations of ideas, products or processes together to create something new. Think of it like music, most music is made up of the same notes, just rearranged in different sequences and played using different instruments but the result is everything from classical music to rock music. In the same way, the ingredients we use in many recipes are the same but the way we put them together results in many different types of dishes.

In this blog I’m focussing on the nature of innovation and the things that stop us from being more innovative. In part two I look at how to be more creative both from a team and an organisational perspective.

What’s your problem?

Innovation needs a problem to solve. The need to develop a means of mass communication within villages in Africa where there was limited electricity supply led Trevor Bayliss to develop the ‘wind-up’ radio. As a result, the government could communicate with millions of Africans about the threat from AIDS. Innovation without a problem is going nowhere. Defining the problem clearly and precisely provides a focus for your efforts.

*Top tip
Start by working out what problem you wish to solve. The clearer you can be and the more precise, the easier it is to innovate. For example, you could focus on kids, aged 7-9 years old, on-the-go consumption, and specifically how to get them consuming more in schools.

Types of innovation

Radical

When most people think of innovation, they assume it’s about coming up with a radical new idea which no-one has thought of before. Examples of such innovations include using electricity to light houses, the first aeroplane, or the microwave oven. Such ideas have a massive impact on the world. They are also rare. Radical innovations are rare, expensive to develop, often result in failure and take a very long time to develop. A career spent working on radical innovations may mean you spend your whole life failing to come up with the big idea (but probably laying the foundations for others to build upon). Taking 30 years to develop something radical is not an option for most of us.

Incremental

On the other hand, incremental innovation is taking an existing product and through exploiting technology or re-thinking a process, finding new opportunities for efficiency or effectiveness. For example, the cap on a drinks carton is a simple example of incremental innovation. Whilst seemingly inconsequential, it has a significant impact on the consumer’s ease of using the product and the longevity of the product.

The use of social media has resulted in a great many incremental innovations where the purchase and consumption of the product is not the end but the beginning of the interaction with the consumer. Incremental innovation is about making a change but the outcome doesn’t destroy and industry or market but grows it. Incremental innovation enables you to experience lots of small successes through the changes – but it’s very unlikely to result in ‘the big idea’ that will destroy industries and build new markets. It’s also infinitely ‘do-able’ by everyone in the business.

*Top tip
Don’t worry about having to find the next big idea. It’s a worthwhile activity, but if your personal performance is measured in what you do over the next 6 – 12 months, and there is an expectation that will deliver results in the short to medium term, you’ll struggle to succeed by focussing on radical innovation. Instead, learn how to be very effective in being incrementally innovative.

Innovation – it’s more than just the product

Invariably the focus on innovation is on the product. That’s understandable – it’s what most people focus on, however it’s such a small part of the overall process. The opportunities to innovate are many and diverse. Heineken innovated the way they recruited interns in order to more effectively select the type of people they wanted in the business. This innovation has been used very effectively to build their brand profile with target consumers. You can see what they did here:

The point to note is this has nothing to do with beer. It’s all about recruiting the right people and developing the brand image. Other areas that can be innovated are operational factors such as the way maintenance is undertaken and managed.

Nestle innovated in the way they took their Nespresso product to market. Instead of selling through shops, they sold direct to the consumer. This cut out the retailer and protected margins; given that selling coffee in capsules delivers a margin five times great than selling regular roasted coffee, this was a great move. Since they launched the capsule system in 2000, they have sold 20 billion capsules. According to Euromonitor, coffee capsules now account for 20% – 40% of the $17bn European coffee market.

We can also use innovation in ‘soft’ aspects of business such as the relationship with suppliers and customers. Typically these have been ‘arms-length’ relationships. However, changes in technology have enabled people to work much more closely together and more and more companies are beginning to work together in a more integrated way. Known as co-value creation it enables all involved to access a much broader set of capabilities and skills. Nike co-created value with customers having them help design new shoes.

In short, all aspects of your business can be innovated.

*Top tip
Map out all the aspects related to the creation, production, sale and consumption of your product. Consider all aspects when deciding what to innovate. The solution may be to focus on your product, but it may just as easily be the ‘channel to market’ or in the communications you use. Be both open minded and broad minded.

The problem is the way you think!

The British economist John Maynard Keynes once said “the real difficulty…lies not in developing new ideas, but in escaping the old ones.” This is so true. The biggest challenge we have when working with companies is challenging the assumptions people have about the way things must be. Typical responses include “In our market people would never buy that” or “It will never work here” or worse “We’ve tried that before”. To paraphrase Henry Ford: ‘If you think you can do something or you think you can’t, you’re right’. As long as you believe something can’t or won’t work in your market you exclude the possibility of discussing how it might be able to work.

There are two challenges: the first is overcoming the way people think, and the second is helping people to be creative. In both cases the good news is innovation is a skill, and like any other skill with enough practice you get good at it. Ask yourself this question: ‘How many hours have you spent practicing innovation?’ If like many people the answer is a few hours or possibly not all then don’t be surprised you are not that good yet. It takes practice to become a great innovator – the good news is that’s all it takes – which means we can all do it. By practicing using idea generation exercises you will become better and better and generating new ideas. By spending more time learning more about your consumers you will become more and more expert at consumer behaviour. By doing both you will become great at developing new ideas for your target consumers.

*Top tip
When faced with a new idea that you think won’t work. Instead of dismissing it, ask yourself the question: “what would we need to do to make this idea work?” This can often create some really interesting ideas. When faced with someone dismissing your idea ask them for the evidence in support of the point of view. More often than not there most people rejecting an idea base their rejection on nothing more than an opinion disguised as a fact and they have no evidence to say it won’t work. Instead of saying ‘No’ ask ‘why?’

You’ve failed

‘What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?’ This is a great question to think about. What it shows is that the reason we don’t do many of the things we would like to do if we could is our fear of failure. Almost all education systems teach us we have to get it right. Life teaches us it’s much more about trial and error. The Psychiatrist Alfred Alder likened it to learning to swim. When you learnt to swim you made mistakes. You made mistakes many times over without drowning and the outcome was you learned to swim. So it is in life, mistakes are the best way to learn.   Tim Harford has written an excellent book called ‘The Power of Failure’ that demonstrates how much of the progress we have achieved is as a result of trial and error, much more than it is through planned success. The skill is in making sure you learn and adapt from these ‘failures’. Innovating involves failing – and learning from failure.

*Top tip
Think carefully about how you respond to failure. If you treat failure as a problem, and something to be avoided at all costs, or even punished for, then you will never develop innovations. Failure is one of the greatest assets you have – it provides a fantastic source of rich data but only if people are encouraged to be open and honest and share what happened.

What’s next?

This brings us on how to be creative both at a team level and as an organisation. In part 2, I’ll be exploring some of those issues.

Dominic Irvine © Epiphanies LLP 2013  All rights asserted

Read about some of our work on innovation with one of our clients here, and after that you may be interested in Uncovering Hidden Talents in your team.