Journey to a Coaching Insight

Innovation was a term which had aroused my curiosity, and also bothered me  for a long time. The word was commonly understood as standing for something new or something novel - an understanding that did not satisfy my curiosity and therefore added to my bother.. For instance, I have always believed that my approach to any work I do, whether it is fixing things around the house, creating  new marketing strategies in my corporate career, or the tools and methods I use in my coaching have been uh, creative. I dreaded to use the word 'innovative' as a description of my methods, even to myself! This was because, in my mind the word stood for something radically different, and at the same time it also meant something incremental, creative or better. As you can see, the two were poles apart and just not reconcilable! Peter Drucker's definition of innovation as "Change that creates a new dimension of performance" was no help either.

Enlightenment Happens

Then, I happened to read an interesting article by Brianna Sylver in Businessweek, What does "Innovation" really mean. And enlightenment dawned! I understood just WHY the word innovation had bugged me so much. The word, Sylvers pointed out, had been used to describe everything from the Apple iPhone a new template in Microsoft word (or our very own jugaad)! How could one term be used to describe such vastly different things? The problem, Sylvers explained, lay in the lack of qualifiers. The term was used to mean 'ground-breaking  or world shattering' (iPhone) as well as a situation where the object of change became 'better than what it was before' (MS Word). Ah, so there it was, the cause of my discomfort and lingering dissatisfaction was  all because of the lack of qualifiers! This was Step1 in my journey of understanding of innovation. 

At about the same time, I came upon two definitions of innovation that helped me take a few more steps forward in my understanding.

The first was its description by Dr R.A. Mashelkar, Chairman  of the Innovations Foundation of India as "moving from best practices to next practices." The other was it's description as a "solution designed to address a particular pain point." by Navi Adjou of the University of Cambridge. While Adjou described 'pain points'  as the improvements made in technology, poor skills or processes, I was not quite sure what Next practices meant. On doing some research, I found Best practices were those that only allow you to do what you are currently doing a little better. On the other hand, Next Practices called for imagining what the future would look like; identify the big opportunities; and build capabilities to capitalize on them. In other words, Next practices were about creating your own future rather than relying on the innovation of others.

After churning this understanding of innovation in my mind's blender, I came with the following two definitions (in my coaching context):
Best Practices: Means solutions to the client's pain points uncovered through discussions with clients or assessments. These practices for improving skills and processess may (but not necessarily) be picked up from what competitors or industry leaders have employed successfully. 


Next practices: Means looking beyond typical sorces of information like successful past strategies or even strategies that industry leaders are currently using. It means looking at future challenges and developing a strategy with new solutions and services. Requires coach in helping client imagine the future and look at ways to capitalize on the opportunities. Next practices are innovations meant to address such opportunities that create new dimensions of performance.


To Journey's End
But my understanding was not yet complete. I still had to figure out how exactly all this played out in my coaching practice, which the image below did. 


My coaching practice, I noted,  was directed at 3 levels

1. Individual (Owner/Business head), 
2. Work group (Key Decision-makers and/or executives)
3. Business (Working at both the above levels to impact whole business)

The process innovations co-created by the coach and the client and/or his team were across a continuum from Best practices to Next practices. We traveled the continuum in three ways:  

                             Best Practices....................Next Practices

                                       

1. Streamlining: Understand client's pain points. Look at, and adapt best practices of competition to address the pain points. 
2. Surfacing: Tap into client's vision for his business, or if one does not exist, help to develop one. Visualize opportunities in the context of the vision and co-create ways of capitalizing on them. Give concrete shape to the aspired future through an Action or Project plan..
3. Inventing: Help 'invent' the future. Co-create the next practices to ensure successful outcomes. 

The net result of coaching efforts directed at meeting current needs and/or aspired future are felt at 3 levels of the client's business:  

1. Structure and/or Culture: A Structures and/or Culture in sync with the desired goals.
2. Roles: Better understanding of  Leadership  and Employee roles  in sync with desired goals.
3. Procedures: Tools and techniques for Strategy development, Customer relationship management,  Communication, Collaboration and other critical areas of business success.

End of Journey. Beginning of Another

This leg of my journey - figuring out the what and how of innovation in my coaching practice, was now complete. I had started out by trying to address the discomfort I had felt with the use of the word innovation, and ended up, not only a wonderful understanding of it, but much more! I now had, not only a proper definition of innovation in my mind, but had understood the difference between Best practices and Next practices. Most important of all, I had understood exactly how all this played out in my coaching practice! 

Further Reading: Seeking Out “Next Practices,” the Next Generation of Best Practices