In-Teams.com

THE LONELIEST NUMBER

It's nearly impossible to change anything inside a huge organization. That's because huge organizations operate at the committee level. And while it's true that battleships have loads of firepower, you'll also find they have a lousy turning radius.

So, isn't it interesting that while most breakthroughs are seemingly curated by a single person, that one of the worst ways to innovate is ALONE?

If "one" won't quite cut it and if "all" is too big, what's the right-size solution to innovating, then? The answer, of course, is small teams.

Orville had Wilbur AND Charlie Taylor, Harley had Davidson AND Edward Hildebrand. Hewlett had Packard AND Yokogawa, Paul had John, the two Georges, and Ringo.

Small teams have worked miracles and that's what breaking through is all about, isn't it? Creating a "reality-based" miracle that somehow overcomes the bounds of gravity? It's just that no one creates a miracle in solitude.

THE OPPOSITE OF INFINITY
The trouble with accepting a leadership role during the infancy of any new era is very similar to what it was like to be an early adopter of the automobile: Very few of the roads are paved and the ones that do exist aren't well mapped.

All the uncertainty has given rise to organizations not fully trusting their people, and instead, opting to carefully monitor customer feedback. While it seems to make sense, if you do take that off-ramp you're going encounter two potholes: The first affects innovation and what Steve Jobs realized a decade before anyone else did - that people can't ask for something they can't imagine existing. The other problem can be blamed on a combo of uberchoice and the amplification of the single voice:

Ever since the menu expanded to 20 pages, certain customers have felt the need to explore your edges. They're looking for something that elicits a reaction from you, for a point of failure, for proof there are boundaries. Don't be fooled. Regardless that a couple of them asked for it, your customers do NOT actually require another button. What they need is your acknowledgement that they requested something extra, and in return, got a sense of your security from getting a sense you have limitations.

So there's good news. You are in a terrific position to offer these folks a free extra feature they will truly appreciate. It's called "Finity." Finity is the opposite of infinity and it works like this:

"Sorry, but we can't do that."