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Trust: The Unsaid Factor for Greenlighting Projects

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In the past two weeks, I had contrasting experiences with grocery shopping. A fruit vendor handpicked top quality fruits for me, which turned out to be substandard. Contrast this with another vendor who convinced me to buy the lower-priced of two variants of raisins, which have turned out to be awesome. It’s clear who will get my repeat business, but the more interesting aspect is what they really ended up losing. My complete trust.

I may still shop with them – everyone deserves second and third chances – but will be much more diligent. In there is a lesson for getting the green light for any project you’re pitching.

As our careers progress, we will find ourselves facing complex situations.

We may not know everything we’d like to. In hairy situations where run-time decisions need to be made, the best leader is one who holds the trust. The team believes in this person. As does the management.

Wait – is skill or talent undervalued compared to trust?

Yes, to an extent. There will always be a skill gap. However, a gap in how decisions are made is not acceptable. Think of how many times a sporting event has been won by an inferior team compared to the most talented one. Dig deep and you will find that the team that made better decisions won in the end.

Where does trust come in the picture?

The team executed on the decisions. When people are not convinced, it shows in their body language and ultimately their performance. When the process is not sound, getting the output is a coin toss.

If your leadership trusts you, getting extra budget is a possibility. Making a case for a change of plans gets you an audience that is willing to listen with an open mind. That is a huge factor. For innovation and strategy projects, that is the main factor. This is also one reason why some entrepreneurs keep getting funded – one strong reason is their investors believe in THE person.

How does one cultivate trust?

This is a test of character, which is proven when things get tough. Own up to blind spots, issues you should have caught earlier, or made a mess. People can sense intent miles away. However, this is a subjective factor. You will rarely be able to pinpoint a situation where the Trustometer swung the right way.

If I had to suggest one approach to practice, here’s what it would be:

  1. A systems mindset helps. Take decisions that help everyone around you. See how your decision can affect all around you whether it’s customers, vendors, or the business.
  2. Communicate how you are arriving at those decisions. A clear communicator finds it easier to get buy-in.
  3. When things are not going to plan, refer to point 1 above 🙂

That’s it for today.

Happy Ideating!
Hemang.

WHAT are you really building?

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Today we dive into addressing a massive blind spot that affects innovation charters.

An innovation exercise is a journey that has you playing with important questions that start with Why, What, How, Who, When, Where, and so on.

The most important of these is Why

Why is the customer behaving in a weird manner, Why is it a pain point for them, or Why is a problem limited to a specific demographic. This customer discovery process uncovers that golden problem worth solving. It is my favorite phase of innovation programs because of the learning involved.

At this stage, it is tempting to dive straight into How you will solve it.

This is a fun stage involving brainstorming, whiteboarding, and other ideation sessions. People run inspired. You feel like just getting the resources – time, money, tools – and cannot wait to deliver. However, you are carrying a big blind spot that has derailed many wonderful programs.

You must have a super clear vision of what your solution will look like.

What is it going to take to make it work for your entire customer base? What is the plan to make it ready for scale? What is the cost you are going to undertake to deliver?What are you going to exactly deliver?

Teams that have not addressed these questions spend cycles on building something that doesn’t make it to the market.

Here is Robyn Bolton, Founder and CEO of MileZero, who shares an example from one of her clients.

That line of questioning from Robyn was a great pause in the innovation program. Putting it in a term like “You will need to build TWO Facebooks” showed the enormity of the challenge.

As an innovation leader, you have to play the tough role of guiding the team through the phases. Getting ideas is, arguably, the easier part of the equation. Making them work at scale is where the magic happens.

Successful innovation programs combine ideation with execution.

Give your execution plans as much thought as ideation. That is where the strategy comes to life.

That’s it for today.

Happy Ideating….and Executing! 🙂

Hemang.

What happened to your final year project?

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A few days ago, I posed a simple question to a room full of professionals. "How many of you worked on a final year project?" Nearly every hand was up. My follow-up question was at the start of this post. Nearly everyone had a small laugh on their faces; all confirmed my experience that most college projects end up in reports that a handful of people read. A tiny, tiny, percentage of those do end up getting implemented in the real world or influencing a new path in academia.

This has to change! We need a higher conversion of projects to peer-reviewed journal publications or converting those projects into products. That's how valuable IP is generated. That's how we transform to a knowledge economy.

If you are mentoring students, formally or as a friend, help their projects achieve a better outcome.