Editor’s note: Len Ferman is a senior consultant at research firm MaritzCX. This is an edited version of a post that originally appeared under the title, “One giant leap is necessary to improve your CX.”
In an earlier post on how to leverage the innovation process to improve the customer experience, I laid out my four simplified steps to innovation:
- Explore – understand customer needs, pain points and challenges at each step in the journey.
- Ideate – generate ideas to solve for those needs and pain points.
- Evaluate – identify the optimal ideas to invest in.
- Design – create and test prototypes of the new experience until it is ready for deployment.
However, there is one additional element required to make the process work at its best.
That key ingredient is what I call a “culture of innovation,” or in other words, an organizational culture that allows and embraces change.
Unfortunately, it seems to be human nature to fear change.
Sometimes resisting change is a good thing. Tinkering with the tried and true methods of the past can lead to uncertain outcomes. And when everything is going smoothly, and the environment is stable, then a case can be made that it’s best to keep the status quo. This is how things generally were long ago.
Today, in 21st century business, change is taking place at a dizzying pace. And if tracking surveys or other research reveals that customers have challenges, then change must take place; otherwise, those customer relationships will soon be in jeopardy.
Therefore, we must strive to create a culture of innovation within our organizations.
This means fostering an environment in which:
- Change is embraced rather than feared.
- Alternative solutions are encouraged rather than dismissed.
- Employees feel they can openly share ideas rather than feel the need to restrain their creative thinking.
Example of a culture innovation
My favorite example of a culture of innovation is drawn from Apollo 11.
It is fitting to recall the lessons learned from that seminal event in our history, as this week is the 50th anniversary of mankind’s first steps on the moon.
America faced a terrific CX challenge in 1957 when the Soviet Union stunned the world with the launch of Sputnik. Blasting a satellite into orbit meant that a nuclear bomb could be delivered by the Soviets to any location on Earth.
American citizens were suddenly vulnerable.
Game-changing strategy
For several years America tried to play catch up in the new space race, but the Soviets accomplished a string of impressive feats including sending the first man to orbit Earth.
America viewed winning the space race as critical not only to safeguarding its citizens, but also to proving to the world the superiority of an open society and the capitalist system.
America needed a new strategy. On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy delivered when he said these words before Congress:
“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
Clear and focused objectives
I am a believer that all great innovation begins with a clear and focused objective statement. Kennedy’s straight forward proclamation is the finest example I have ever come across.
- Simple: Everyone could understand the mission.
- Inspirational: It reframed the space race around the moon and sparked the nation’s imagination.
- Challenging, but achievable: America did not yet have the capability to conquer the goal, and neither did the Soviets. Yet America was on the cusp of being able to develop the technology that could achieve it, and Kennedy had given the country a clear deadline – until the end of the decade – to do it.
Articulation of a vision
Kennedy did not just stop with his initial objective statement. Sixteen months later in a celebrated speech at Rice University’s football stadium he articulated the vision of what was to come:
“We shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour.”
By providing America with an articulation of what was expected, Kennedy made it crystal clear for the hundreds of thousands of scientists, engineers, mathematicians and
astronauts, what they had to work toward achieving. By providing a clear vision, everyone could be on the same page.
“Wild” ideas
At this point NASA had its orders for what it needed to do, but exactly how they would do it required gathering and vetting ideas.
Wernher von Braun was the director of the Marshall Space Flight Center, which was responsible for building the rockets to go to the moon. [Editor’s note: Learn more about von Braun’s complicated history.]
von Braun initially favored what was called the direct ascent method or the Earth orbit rendezvous method (EOR) for sending a spaceship to the moon. It was assumed that a big rocket would land on and take off from the moon in these scenarios. von Braun and his team were masters of constructing large rockets, and perhaps they were fixated on this type of solution.
But aeronautical engineer John Houbolt, who was not even working at the Marshall Space Flight Center, developed a key insight.
Houbolt realized that it was not economical or safe to land a large rocket on the moon and take back off to Earth.
As a result, Houbolt championed a radically different approach called lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR). In this outside-the-box idea, Houbolt conceived that a specialized lunar module, which separated from the Apollo command module while in lunar orbit, would only require a minimum amount of fuel to land on and take off from the moon.
The lunar module did not need to be a giant rocket loaded with all the fuel to get back to Earth. Large amounts of extra fuel would have made landing and taking off from the moon much more difficult and dangerous.
The lunar module simply had to get off the moon and dock again with the command module, which was orbiting the moon. The command module would then fire its larger rockets to return to Earth.
At first, the Marshall Space Flight Center leadership made the classic organizational mistake of not only dismissing the LOR idea, but actually ridiculing it. But after reviewing further information provided by Houbolt, von Braun, in a surprising decision, announced that LOR would be the method used for the mission.
This was a critical decision. Once made, it set in motion all the years of efforts focused on designing and developing the rockets, procedures and training around the LOR method for landing men on the moon and returning them safely to Earth.
It is a great credit to von Braun and the NASA leadership team that they considered and evaluated a viewpoint that was contrary to their expectations for a solution.
This was a classic demonstration of open innovation and accepting ideas from outside the leadership team and even outside the organization that is a hallmark of a great culture of innovation.
Years later, Houbolt was invited to be inside the mission control room when Apollo 11 touched down on the moon on July 20, 1969.
Immediately after the landing, von Braun reportedly turned to Houbolt and thanked him. It was a grand gesture. von Braun recognized that, while his celebrated team had built the massive Saturn V rocket that launched Apollo 11 from Earth, without the idea of Houbolt’s LOR method America almost certainly would not have achieved the goal of landing a man on the moon.
Enabling end users to have a role in design
Once the concept for how to get to the moon was developed, the spaceships had to be designed.
Organizations that exhibit a culture of innovation spend a lot of time empathizing with their customers and seeking their feedback, which is particularly important in the design phase.
Customers need to have an opportunity to test early prototypes so that changes can be made to improve the ultimate customer experience.
NASA allowed the spaceship users themselves to be involved in the design phase. In his great book about the Apollo 11 mission, “Carrying the Fire,” Michael Collins, the command module pilot, noted that astronauts participated directly and frequently in the design of the Apollo spacecraft.
Collins called this, “…one of the wisest decisions NASA made,” because it ensured that the astronauts’ perspectives were taken into consideration.
As an example, Neil Armstrong reportedly laughed when shown two stools in the cockpit of the lunar module, saying, “When am I going to have time to sit down?” The stools were taken out, which helped save weight, as reducing every ounce was vital for blasting off from the moon.
Again, NASA demonstrated that the organization had adopted a culture of innovation.
Creating a culture of innovation
If you are intent on improving your customers’ experience, it is best if you first focus on creating a culture of innovation in your organization. By looking back 50 years to the great achievement of Apollo 11, you can glean some powerful lessons:
- Establish clear and focused objectives.
- Create a vision of the intended customer experience toward which everyone can gravitate.
- Allow anyone in the organization to provide ideas for how to achieve the vision.
- Enable user feedback in the design of the solution.