It turns out that a fast-hack into innovation and disruption to build TRUST, TRIBES and TRACTION in your organisation comes from treating your employees like customers.
How so ?
Naked Wines promises great wines at wholesale prices delivered to you overnight. Nothing special there. But they go ahead and provide a few twists on the theme. They are backing independent winemakers as opposed to the global dominators of the wine supply world. You order online – again not new – but they do that by describing you as an Angel Investor. You are backing the battlers against the behemoths. They deduct $40/month from your debit/credit card and when you have enough for a case you can go ahead and order to get “that warm fuzzy feeling”, as they describe it, of helping Mason and Maryanne live their lifelong dream of running a winery and making the wine they were born to make. Lucky for us , because we were born to drink it!
What has Naked Wines done here?
- They are moving beyond just cash to contribution
- They are moving from benefits to beliefs
- From payoffs to purpose
When companies disrupt their industries, there are always extras for the customer – save time, save money or increase enjoyment. But sometimes, in addition to these extras, a company offers you something more. Something a little more meaningful that taps into your energy to change.
This all works because you are appealing to emotional triggers, not just the rational drivers. Hearts and minds.
Specifically, Naked Wines taps into
- Aussies love backing the underdog
- It’s cool to be cool and who isn’t more cool than an Angel Investor (beats being called a consumer)
- We read the winemakers’ stories, can message them and get to know them if that’s what you want. Most won’t, but just knowing it’s there feels
Yes we apparently get great wines at great prices delivered FAST to our homes, save time and money (HEAD) but we also get that warm and fuzzy feeling of helping out the independents against big business (HEART) – works for me.
Now back to how this helps innovation and disruption to build TRUST, TRIBES and TRACTION
Just as Naked wines appeals to their customer base, your organisation’s change agendas must have both rational and emotional elements for your team. The rational, reason based element that helps people understand how the application of their scarce time, attention and involvement may generate benefits, but also must also help people access the energy they need to overcome the status quo inertia of your own organisation. You know how strong this can be. Its why HBR and McKinsey have quoted change and transformation success in the 30-40% range.
You can provide direction, a process to follow, provide some time for activities like innovation days, hackathons and sprints, but unless you offer people a reason to care, the ownership to connect strongly enough to their activity and the feedback about what will and won’t be resourced you can’t get traction.
Here are the four P’s you need for innovation and disruption
Organisation provides
- PATH – these are the rational aspects of disruption and innovation like a process, time allocation, management support, expert trainers and decentralised decision making
- PURPOSE – this is the context that you are all operating in. Naked Wines wanted to help the independent winemakers against global wine giants and combat the duopoly owned distribution channels that needed volume capabilities beyond an independent winemakers means. Your purpose helps your tribe buy into why innovation and disruption matters and sparks the energy needed for change.
Individuals and Teams garner
3. PAYOFFS – these are the rational things that appeal to a tribe innovator like autonomy, reward and incentives, ownership and decision making and the ability to see and feel making change happen,
4. PASSION – this grows from all the above to fit with their motivators, their desire to belong to a movement, their connection to your Purpose, to achieve things beyond money and profit. What lights them up so they can light the fuse on your innovation rocket?
If you have each of the four P’s in place, you can innovate your business model and disrupt your market. This builds the starkly elusive TRUST, TRIBES and TRACTION that some business leaders are looking for in all the wrong places.
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