POSSIBLE: A Guide for Innovation
by author William H. Barr
"Giant toolkit on everything innovation."
- Economist Henk-Jan van der Klis
See the reviews of Possible
THE INNOVATOR & Champions
By William H. Barr – copyright 2021
Champions are people who by themselves promote a new product, service, technology, or any new idea. CEO’s are champions of the corporate vision that is always evolving and always new. Don Frey was CEO of Bell & Howell from 1971 to 1988 and worked at Ford from 1951 to 1968. Frey tells in a 1991 Harvard Business Review article how he learned that innovations are “lost without champions.“
Frey relates how Lee Iacocca (later Chairman of Chrysler) was the champion of the extremely successful Ford Mustang during the early 1960’s. When the new Mustang came out the customers stormed Ford new car showrooms and there were over 400,000 Mustangs sold the first year (over one billion dollars in sales).
Even though the Mustang would become one of the most successful cars in history, Mr. Frey states that the Mustang would not have existed except that “Iacocca won the day because he doggedly championed the project.”
Once a champion has picked up an idea (a voluntary arrangement) it becomes “their baby” and they have psychological reasons to see the idea succeed. They have the psychological where withal to overcome barriers of every kind and to demonstrate the persistence that Thomas Edison talked about (Life magazine 1932) when he said “invention is one percent inspiration and ninety nine percent perspiration.”
Almost by force the champion makes the idea succeed.
The company should have a formal but unstructured policy regarding the use of champions. The champion will have the necessary psychological reserves to overcome barriers of every type.
Niccolo Machiavelli (1536 to 1603) wrote in his classic The Prince, “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, than to take a lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovation has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.”
Although most people believe that new ideas are rejected because of healthy skepticism, it is mostly for psychological reasons such as fear of a loss of power or prestige or the fear of other new circumstances created by the innovation that causes people to resist new ideas.
The key feature of the champion is the ability to cross boundaries within the corporate structure thus allowing them a wholistic sense of the idea as well as the persistence to see it to completion. The champion ultimately must obtain “buy in” for the idea and the collaboration of others, but if the idea is good, the champion is the mechanism that can see the idea through to success.
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