Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes

In their new book, The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us, Chabris and Simons share a story where study participants were tasked with counting the number of times a basketball was passed during a one-minute film. Halfway through the film, someone in a gorilla suit walks through the picture while beating his chest and them leaves.

The amazing thing is that half of the participants were so focused on the task that afterward they had absolutely no recollection of seeing a gorilla. It’s what the authors call the illusion of attention and the illusion of memory-the fact that we put much more faith in our our powers of observation and recollection than is warranted.

While The Invisible Gorilla is not about new product development processes, there are some important lessons here for innovators. If you are interested in accelerating product development, you know it’s important to have people spend time interviewing customers. If you’ve ever participated in one of these interviews, you know there is lots of information that you have to pay attention to and later recall.

Of course, there’s what the customer actually says, but sometimes it’s just as important to pay attention to how they said it, or even the body language they exhibited while saying it. It requires impeccable listening skills and copious note taking.

The problem is that keeping everything from the interview straight means that you could easily miss the gorilla walking through the room – or more specifically clues that point to an opportunity to profitably serve a new unmet or un-articulated customer need. That’s why I coach new product development teams to divide and conquer by having three people participate in customer interviews or requirements definition sessions.

The first person leads the discussion and asks the questions. The second takes notes to aid recall afterward. The role of the third is to watch for the gorilla – to listen for clues that the other two might miss because of their task orientation on asking and note taking. They can then ask follow-up questions for clarification and to explore unexpected areas of opportunity.

The other important element in this process is the team debriefing that follows. Information accuracy has a half-life so you must record it while it’s still fresh. You may have notes in what was said, but recollections of emotions and body language fade fast.

Budget extra time between sessions and never wait until after you get back to the office to debrief. Plus, if you are conducting multiple interviews, always debrief before conducting the next interview. It’s critical to use what you’ve learned to improve successive sessions.

So what are the gorillas you’ve been missing in your customer interactions?
This article appears by permission of the author and was originally published on his Simplifying Innovation blog.

Mike Dalton is the author of Simplifying Innovation: Doubling speed to market and new product profits – with your existing resources

Mike Dalton is also the founder of Guided Innovation Group, whose simple mission is helping companies turn their new product innovation into bottom-line impact. His innovation improvement framework was sharpened over 24 years of product development, marketing and executive leadership at the multi-billion dollar SC Johnson family of companies.

Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes

Critical thinking skills can make or break your career. It is an essential skill for anyone performing analysis, rising managers and organization leaders.

Being quick to judgment or being judged quickly affects people’s lives and is not necessary seen as a sign of good leadership. The quality of the decision outweighs the speed of decision-making. One has to wonder if that is what happened to Shirley Sherrod and the Agriculture Department’s decision to ask for her resignation.

One of the first steps to being an effective thinker is to recognize if biases or emotions play apart in the person making a decision.

At every stage of the critical thinking process, the integrity of the person making the decision and what tools or methodologies being used will affect the outcome.

Take a moment to think about two situations where you have made decisions – one where it was a good decision and another where you wished you had done something differently.

Use these situations to analyze what where your critical thinking skill might have been faulty. When you become a critic of your thinking, you will become a better thinker.

Situation Assessment- How well do you perform a situational analysis?

• Have you defined the problem accurately or are you trying to solve the symptom?
• Are you raising additional questions to be answered or simply focusing on the problem?
• How many sources are you using to get information?
• Is your information checked for accuracy and completeness with independent sources?
• Are documents read carefully to ascertain intent?
• Have you uncovered what is not obvious?
• Do you gather all the relevant information and facts before rushing to judgment?

Problem Solving – Are you an exceptional problem solver?

• Do you have hard data?
• Are you relying on one problem solving methodology?
• Have you defined the criteria or standard to test your theories?
• Are you drawing upon personal experiences? Are those experiences broad and deep?
• Has there been time to reflect and find new insights?
• Is inductive or deductive logic and reasoning being used?
• Is the problem being solved in a vacuum?
• Do others opinions influence the outcome unduly?
• Have you interpreted the information correctly?
• Is my conclusion justifiable?
• Have you debated the problem with anyone?
• Are you testing a conclusion or drawing one?
• Are you using a quality process that improves the way you reason?

Analyzing, reasoning and communicating effectively will improve your decision.  Collaborating with others to think critically will enable you to tackle situations with confidence and fairness. Learn where you make missteps – it will help in making your next big decision.

Lynn Dessert owns Leadership Breakthrough, improving personal communication and influence one-step at a time. Post your thoughts or email me!

Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes

There are companies that are cash-rich and are stronger than ever – they are ready to grow. It makes you wonder why they are more competitively positioned and what they did differently from other companies who still languish in the economic woes.

In the last year, it was not unusual to hear companies talk about how they pulled back investing in their people, processes, products and systems. Some of that spending probably needed to be reassessed; however, making wholesale cuts will leave your organization ill-equipped to compete against the companies that continue to develop their key business drivers.

Whole Brain Model by Herrmann International

My hunch is that companies who will excel from the economic slump are approaching their challenges in a creative, yet pragmatic way.

They may or may not have used the HBDI (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument) to fine tune their methodology; however they probably used a whole brain approach – whether they knew it or not.

Let’s take a moment to walk around the HBDI model to see what you might have missed over the last few years.

The “A” quadrant represents logical, analytical and problem solving preferences. Often the health of the organization is represented with an eye on your financial strength. It makes good business sense to evaluate where our spending is being done and how to cut out the excess.

Conversely, challenge this group to discover upside or areas of opportunities which may be sources of generating cash or building intellectual capital.

The “B” quadrant is often referred to as the planner, organizer, implementer and problem solver. When things are out of control, these talents infuse discipline, process improvement and standardization methodologies to cut costs.

As you become leaner, it becomes easier to determine where your investments were worthwhile and where they were abused.

The “C” quadrant is about relationships – with your employees, customers, shareholders, suppliers and environment. Ignoring them will hurt you when the economy rebounds because they will have more choices where to put their money and trust.

The departure of key talent or a major customer can happen without notice and it may take years to recover from the loss.

The “D” quadrant is your future. Are you making decisions and investments that support the strategic plan? Do you understand your markets? Are you being a creative problem solver or are you stuck in the way it has always been done? Have you tapped into your employees for their ideas on how to solve the problem?

Let’s put this model into a situational perspective – here is a quick list of issues; one or more of them might be at the top of your list:

• Creating a sense of urgency
• Managing staff during stressful times
• Re-positioning your products or services to capture the upturn
• Building and leveraging internal and external relationships
• Selling in a constrained or down turn market
• Aligning actions to strategy
• Eliminating the blame game and taking accountability

A whole brain approach to problem solving lets everyone’s voice be heard. It might mean pulling your leadership team into a half day or full day retreat or session to wrestle with your top issue – which may be different from my short list.

Let’s have a quick huddle when you are ready to get ahead of the curve ball through a facilitated process or are looking for an expert on a special project.

Lynn Dessert owns Leadership Breakthrough, improving personal communication and influence one-step at a time. Post your thoughts or email me!

Reading time: 6 – 9 minutes

Last year, I attended a mind mapping seminar. If you do not know what a mind map is, go here for a quick summary or scroll down to the bottom of the post for a video.

Mind mapping is a powerful tool, which appeals to both right and left-brain thinkers. It is allows you to become more productive in your business and personal life.  Here is a short list of situations where you might use it:

• Creating content for presentations
• Problem solving
• Designing a website
• Developing a business plan
• Project planning
• Brainstorming
• Information management
• Prioritization
• Personal development
• Be more creative
• Organizing information
• Communicate effectively

There is an overwhelming number of products out there which do some form of mind mapping, diagramming or other visual thinking service. It was time to compile a list, partly because I would like to settle in with one of these tools; the other reason is I want to hear what you think about them before I make a decision.

• Buzan World- Mind map originator Tony Buzan’s website and product site iMindMap®
• NovaMind – check out some of the educational videos on what mind mapping is about and why you need it. Keep up to date on their blog here.
• Mindomo – internet and desktop applications with free basic starter and upgrade plans
• FreeMind – Free mind mapping software written in Java. Download available through this site.
• MindManager - A Mindjet product free trial or subscription is available. Applications for iPhone, remember to check out their template gallery.
• Mappio – A free website to share your mind map with others
• Comapping – Free to low subscription rates for online mind mapping software. Beta desktop version is available.
• Edraw Soft – Vector based mind mapping freeware
• Mapul – Free web-based online mind mapping tool
• MindApp 6 – Free download trial available or take advantage of their special price of $29 for a limited time.
• Mindmeister – Free to enterprise plans available for online mind mapping. Featured maps.
• Xmind – Free and pro versions are available. Check out the XMind blog here to get new ideas.
• SmartDraw – Automatically draws and formats your mind mapping diagram.
• bubbl.us - Get started immediately when you land on this page – it is free. The video at the bottom of the page features this application.
• Glinkr – Open source, free web based mind mapping software, supported in Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer.
• Mindview 3 – Professional mind mapping software with a free trial available
• Mind42 – Free web based application with the ability to collaborate.
• Visual Mind - Software based on the mind mapping technique.
• WiseMapping – Free software in beta version.
• Imagination Cubed – Free, free-form drawing program with limitations in creating mind mapping.
• Project Draw – Free drawing program with preformed basic shapes.
• Gliffy – Online diagram software that offers a free trial
• LooseStitch – Free or pay for pro. Create outlines and share documents.
• ThinkFold – Real time collaboration with work groups on projects, documents and presentations. Open source, free, beta version. Keep up to date on their blog here.
• Sproutliner – Free web based service to manage projects and ideas. Open source, beta version.
• Inspiration 9 – Visual mapping, outlining, writing and making presentations.

This is a quick video that shows how you can begin to mind map quickly.

Mind Mapping – Part One – Bubbl.us (a)

Now it is your turn. Which mind mapping products have you used? What do you like or dislike?

Lynn Dessert owns Leadership Breakthrough, improving personal communication and influence one-step at a time. Post your thoughts or email me!

Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes

I consider myself a pretty savvy networker. Yet, I admit that I don’t have all the answers! I continue to learn and learn and learn …

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that I overlooked an important vehicle for new business development. You might be able to utilize this tip for your job search or as a business development strategy. Or you may simply use this concept to help you in your every day work life!

It was right under my eyes, but I guess I was ‘too close to the forest to see the trees.’ (Is that a kind way of saying sleep deprived? Stupid? I digress. Let’s just move on.)

A colleague told me about a technique she uses for new business development. She signs up for many LinkedIn groups and gets a daily digest.

In each daily digest email, she links to the JOBS section and scans it for jobs/projects in her field. As a result, she has gotten a lot of new business from LinkedIn!

A light went off in my head as she told me that story. Wow, I could have had a V8! Actually, I could have been sharing this tidbit with my networking buddies for full time jobs or for components of portfolio careers.

A bigger “wow” is that I could have been using this myself to prospect for new projects for my instructional design side of my business. I can’t believe it was right there and I missed it!

Can this technique help you?

I’m simply asking you to keep your mind open to this as well as other new ideas and opportunities.

Think out of the box, and try to find a new option for yourself, whether it’s for your job search or for getting your job done more efficiently. Getting ‘stale’ can happen to the best of us, even when we least expect it!

Here are a couple excellent resources to get you started.

- Hannah Morgan’s Blog is FILLED with excellent ideas and resources. You could spend days or WEEKS here checking out the good stuff.

- Another blog that is chock-filled with good stuff: Lynn Dessert’s Blog, Elephants at Work, Managing Your Career and Boss,

- Lipsticking.com – Marketing to Women Online. Our own local Donna DeClemente is a guest blogger for this site.

- Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist Blog. She has been described as outrageous and practical. What do you think? Check it out.

- Guy Kawasaki’s Blog: How to Change the World – A Practical Guide for Impractical People learning, you may be surprised what you find out!

My closing tip for today: Always be open to new ideas.

What have you learned lately? How about sharing the wealth with us by COMMENTING on this topic!

Sue Schnorr is the President of Training Insights, Inc. and Associate with Contacts Count.

Reading time: 4 – 7 minutes

Innovate Like a Three Year Old – One Little Question that Can Increase the Number of New Product Opportunities You Uncover.

In a previous post, I wrote about some of the innovation lessons we learned while we were in kindergarten. That included focusing on one task at a time and eliminating multi-tasking by assigning each team member to only a limited number of projects. But there’s more childhood can teach us about innovation.

Who hasn’t watched a frustrated parent in the grocery store trying to explain why they can’t have something to their three year old. Every response is met with the question why? Of course, most three year olds can play this game all day so it usually ends up with Mom or Dad finally resorting to the ubiquitous “Because I said so.” While that one little question can bring a parent to their knees, it can also be just what you need to find new opportunities.

Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota developed the concept of five whys. In what eventually became part of Toyota’s Lean Production System, the question “Why?” is asked five times to highlight both the root cause of the problem and its solution.

The Wikipedia entry for the 5 Whys Concept gives the following example:

My car will not start. (the problem)
1. Why? – The battery is dead.
2. Why? – The alternator is not functioning.
3. Why? – The alternator belt has broken.
4. Why? – The alternator belt was well beyond its useful service life and has never been replaced.
5. Why? – I have not been maintaining my car according to the recommended service schedule.

The fifth why shows the root cause which is that the car was not maintained according to the schedule. The obvious solution is to maintain the car correctly. But as a company looking for new product opportunities what can you learn from this example?

You may learn that asking why five times is not enough. At Guided Innovation, our working definition for innovation is:

The organization-wide passion and process for finding and profitably serving unmet customer needs.

By stopping at the fifth why, we’ve left important information out of the picture. Information that might help to uncover the customers unmet needs.

Instead, following the lead of our indefatigable 3 year old, we ask,”Why didn’t you maintain the car according to the recommended service schedule?” The idea of a root cause is a relative term. Relative to the box we draw around the system. If we draw the box around the car, we have the root cause unearthed in question number 5. But by asking why again, we include the customer and their busy life within the system, and gain a wider perspective.

So here are three potential answers to why the customer may not have been doing scheduled maintenance:

1. Because I didn’t know it needed to be done. Or I forgot
2. Because I don’t want to spend the money on maintenance.
3. Because I don’t have the time.

Let’s take a look at each and some of the ways they could create a new basis for competition.

1. Because I didn’t know it needed to be done. Or I forgot. They say ignorance is no defense, but it’s often the case. Customers don’t have the time, or don’t want to be bothered with reading manuals or having to memorize maintenance schedules. And why should they, life is busy enough without having to become an auto mechanic.

From a new product perspective, this customer might benefit from something as simple as pre-programmed reminder that alerts them when the car is approaching each maintenance interval. That could go as far as what GM’s Onstar has done to take engine data and then email a monthly status summary (e.g. 15% of oil life remaining – time to schedule service).

2. Because I don’t want to spend the money on maintenance. Some customers are looking for predictability. They want to pay once and then not have to worry about it after that.

Several brands have found that there are customers who don’t want to pay for maintenance every time an oil change is required, but are willing to pay more for a car that comes with a warranty that includes scheduled maintenance. They prefer to pay one price either up front or in a monthly lease and never have to pay for service again throughout the warranty period.

3. Because I don’t have the time. Anything you can do to save customers time can be a new basis for competition. This is not a customer who would be attracted by a pre-paid maintenance program because they would never have the time to get the service done. Alternatively, this customer might be attracted to a car that offered 5 years or 100,000 miles of driving with no scheduled service required. Until that is technically feasible, they might be an ideal candidate for a system where a maintenance company dispatches service people to their home or office to perform routine maintenance at scheduled intervals. This could even be tied into the system above where Onstar data would assist in the scheduling.

Should you continue to ask why again and again? Clearly, you don’t want to take it to the point of fatigue. However, it makes sense to continue as long as you are unearthing answers that could lead you in the development of a better solution.

The More Impact Bottom Line
Asking why five times can help you get valuable information about the problems your customer is having. But continue past five whys and you can start to understand their unmet needs and begin to develop the potential solutions that you could provide.

Michael Dalton is the Managing Director and Principal Consultant with Guided Innovation Group.

Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes

Layoffs in your future? It might appear to be the quickest way to cut costs but Flavio Martins sees things differently.

Permanently cutting benefits and wages may not be the answer either.

It can often lead to major morale problems and spreads quickly through a company. Morale affects work product quality and customer relationships. It may tempt workers to lose company loyalty, leading to theft of property, resources and time. Finding a win-win situation in the face of layoffs or other dramatic cost reductions is challenging, yet viable.

It might just be time to get creative. Think about the following options in your company:

1. Temporarily reduce the work week by cutting hours. Ideally, moving to a four day work week lets employees pick up a part time job to augment their income.
2. Opt for a 40 hour – 4 day work week. Lots of upside and the additional savings in energy costs may help the bottom line.
3. Eliminate overtime. Cut out redundancy, reports and other time consuming activities.
4. Freeze recruitment activities. Learn to do without. Prioritize what is important in the department. Avoid overloading the remaining employees with non-essential activities.
5. Retrain employees for open positions. Invest in your workforce for long term flexibility. Recruiting departments can redirect their efforts internally.
6. Offer sabbaticals to employees at 1/3 their wage. Employees can use this time to complete higher education or gain new skills.
7. Employees may opt to take unpaid extended time off if they know their position is waiting for them. There are some consequences as Dr. John Sullivan explores in his post: Employee Furloughs Can Be a Bad Alternative to Layoffs.
8. Create a shared work program. Two employees can work part-time covering one full time position. Some states have programs to support a reduction in work hours as Bob Confer blogs: Save money and people with Shared Work. A great alternative for employees who struggle with the work/life balance.
9. Eliminate or reduce temporary workers or consultants. Evaluate and maintain the services that add long term value.
10. Offer voluntary layoffs or early retirements. Providing a cushion or bridging employees to their retirement age may make the difference.

The best message management can send to their employees is “we are equally invested in the solution”. For example, if the company decides to temporarily cut hours to a four day work week, management will “walk the talk” by taking the same action.

And if you are still in doubt of what to do: Ask your employees.

Lynn Dessert owns Leadership Breakthrough, improving personal communication and influence one step at a time. Post your thoughts or email me!

Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

Want to create a better environment for innovation: Get out of yours and into theirs

I had an interesting discussion recently with a company vice-president about the role of facilities design in innovation. He asked me what he could do in terms of layout and aesthetics to make the work environment more conducive to innovation. Anyone familiar with my Theory of Constraints (TOC) based approach to innovation improvement will know that my response was to ask him what constraint he thought was holding back his organization’s innovation throughput.

He pondered my question for a second or two and replied, “I guess I’d have to say that it’s finding more impactful new product ideas.”

That made my response simple. “Then if you want to create a better environment for innovation, get out of yours and into theirs.”

He stared at me with a puzzled look for a moment and then smiled. “So you’re saying that the internal stuff isn’t where I should focus.”

“Well, one of the most impactful things a manager can do is to keep their organization focused on high leverage activities. You have to decide where the focus needs to be for your organization. But I would have to wonder if internal facilities are really your biggest problem.”

Of course, it’s the era of design. So I don’t mean to completely dismiss the role that the physical environment and culture can play in fostering creativity. If you’re putting up a new building, it’s probably worth considering. Having worked both where R&D and marketing were located in separate buildings and where they were co-located, I can say that locating them together definitely helps people interact and problem solve more easily. Similarly, I’ve worked in some cutting-edge facilities from a design and aesthetic view. Who could argue against having views that inspire, lots of open spaces, and ample team meeting areas?

But for most companies, it’s really missing the point to make the R&D and office work environment the focus of your innovation improvement efforts. Instead, the important thing is to get people out of the office more often to visit customers and end users in their work environments. That’s where the actual problems exist and where the real inspiration for new products will come from!

The best new products solve customers’ problems by simplifying or eliminating costly, difficult, time consuming, or unpleasant tasks. These kinds of ideas aren’t likely to come to your people while they’re in the office. These problems live out in the market. An entire discipline of ethnographic research has grown out of watching users in action to identify these problem tasks. When researchers see these problems firsthand, they get additional insights into the problem that lead to a better solution.

The 3M Post-it is a great example of the how getting out of the office can help create great new product ideas. 3M Scientist, Art Fry, was a singer in his church choir and was frustrated when the little bits of paper he used to mark pages kept falling out of the hymnal. Unfortunately, he couldn’t use any of 3M’s tape products because that would have torn the pages. Fry invented Post-its when he recalled the poor adhesive one of his colleagues had accidentally cooked up and began using it to make his hymnal markers easily removable.

Customer focused innovation works best when researchers can get out and see the problems firsthand. When SC Johnson researchers observed consumers problems with cleaning the shower, they invented the Scrubbing Bubbles automated shower cleaner as a way to simplify the job. Push the button on your way out of the shower and it keeps the shower clean for you. Sometimes it takes development people with a strong understanding of the technology to see the customers’ problem and at the same time envision how they can solve it.

Many companies will struggle with this advice because they leave the customer interaction to sales and marketing. But limiting your R&D group to work on the ideas that others bring in is like asking them to work with part of their brain tied behind their back. Often, these companies come to me saying that they have plenty of ideas, but they just aren’t seeing the results they had hoped for out of new products. Well, it’s no wonder. Most sales and marketing people focus on selling what’s available today. Occasionally they look for opportunities to tweak or customize products. That can create new business but rarely results in high growth new products.

The More Impact Bottom Line:
Work environment can play a role in innovation and creativity. However, most companies would do better to focus externally on the customers work environment. That’s where the problems are. If you can connect your development with those problems, that’s also where you’ll see the most new product impact.

Copyright 2009. Guided Innovation Group LLC and Mike Dalton. All rights reserved.

Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes

Is the silver bullet the only answer your manager or organization wants to hear from you?

Is there wasted productivity and leadership misses along the way because of an overwhelming need to have a home run?

Is your management behind closed doors deciding how to cut costs and resources; yet their mantra is “we are going to beat our competition, not matter how long it takes!”

The organization may be close….just a few more milestones to hit. As we are pushing to find that perfect solution, our competition beats us to the punch.

Ouch. If only we had were satisfied with incremental change, instead of demanding step change improvement or in some cases the silver bullet.

Here are some key discussion points to consider if your organization is trying to work on a silver bullet answer:

• Is this the project of du’jour? Is there a commitment to riding out the project bumps and alternatively, shelving the next great idea until this one is done?

• Expect a higher level of involvement with human resources – as commitment and urgency increases, the number of people and talent for the project goes up exponentially. The scarcer the talent, the more you pay for it. The impact extends beyond the immediate team. The rest of the organization must make the project a top priority to expedite decisions; often at the expense of their own goals. To punish other parts of the organization for declining productivity may reinforce the wrong behaviors.

• Initial project cost estimates are rarely accurate; assume an overrun. Optimism rides high during the first half of the project, for good reason. No one wants to return to the money well too soon. Project suicide occurs if there is not enough traction with the company or management team before requesting more resources. If you don’t have the funds to throw at the project; don’t start it.

• Avoid falling into the trap of moving to action too soon; it may be the source of delays in the long run. Give the project the “think time” it needs with careful consideration for mapping out alternatives and reaching a solid conclusion. The main objective is not marking things off your to do list – that only gives a false sense of accomplishment. Getting to the finish line with the least amount of reworks is the answer.

• Redefining a project is common as teams gain new insights into the first few phases. It may be the customer applications or needs change, production or material requirements shift or the cost-benefit analysis bears different results. Being flexible to assess the goal and its path is essential to meeting the challenge at hand. If you are wedded to one idea and solution, chances are your blinders are on.

• Have a realistic project time line. Placing pressure on a team to find the finish line will stifle creativity. Alternatively, managing the prima donnas or individuals who get stuck in the product and design phase of inventing presents a different set of challenges. Defining the trade-off of speed to market with the silver bullet answer requires skill and little luck.

Issues to discuss? Stories to Share? Post your thoughts or email me.

Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes

Tightly held secrets can be deal killers, or provide opportunities to grow competitively. Pierre Héroux was running a large financial group in a fortune 1000 company. He left the company to start his own restaurant business in 2003, Simply Crêpes. As one might expect from the restaurant name, the crêpe is the primary focus of the menu and it is a secret formula and has been passed down from generations in his family.

As we talk, Pierre excitedly shares his plans to expand the business in the future, knowing that he has to adjust his expectations – what he physically should and could do. A central problem to solve: the coveted recipe. Up to this point, each morning he is the only one who knows how to prepare the batter. This decision is deliberate.

Six months later I find Pierre at a local festival; showcasing his delicious crêpes. He looks more rested and I inquire about the expansion plans. Well, it seems, he’s taken time off and has made some changes. The second location opened in March 2004, another location in the planning stages. But what about the recipe, I wonder. So I asked how he solved his problem.

Pierre and his wife decided to delegate the crêpe making to another trusted family member, his sister-in-law, who is also the Prep Kitchen manager. Investments in commercial mixers to expedite the batter making process became a priority. Protecting the secret recipe was still important; a method of mixing a prepared set of dry and liquid ingredients was developed. Initially, different vendors provide different parts of the recipe, now the responsibility resides with the Prep Kitchen manager. Presently, a generic recipe outlines how to mix the sets of dry and liquid ingredients, which is now in the hands of each location’s kitchen. The exact contents of the recipe remain a mystery. Today, Pierre and his team operate three eat-in locations, the most recent in Canandaigua, NY along with several seasonal locations.

It can be difficult to balance the black box or secret we have in our business and finding ways to grow it beyond our personal capacity. It may take hitting a wall as Pierre did with exhaustion or it might manifest itself in other ways. Placing faith and trust in employees will let the manager focus on pushing the dream forward. Continue to challenge the belief it has to be this way or I must protect this secret in its purest form – chances are there is a solution that allows both competitive advantage and growth to occur.

Pierre’s parting words of reflection: “During the first and second year, I had a very difficult time letting go of “important” details. Today, as I look back, a few were actually IMPORTANT, while others, well how can I say this…I probably made them too important in my mind, AND THEY REALLY WERE NOT!”

The challenge is to know which things are important while in the moment.

Issues to discuss? Stories to Share? Post your thoughts or email me!