The Big Bang, Day One, Radiation and how it is all linked to Innovation.
Remember this? Static on an old-school tube television. It looked like two colossal ant armies going to war, right?
1 % of what we saw on that screen was cosmic background radiation. A faint signal from the earliest time of the universe, shortly after The Big Bang.
Companies have their Big Bangs too. They start with an idea and, typically, a garage. Here, the founders set out on their mission to make a dent in the Universe and to change the world.
If things go well, the world agrees with that mission. Orders will stream in. Customers will rave about the product. Investors will throw money at the founders. The company grows.
As the company grows, new departments, roles and responsibilities arise. Things become more complex. Management, process and a focus on efficiency take a front seat. Otherwise, everything goes haywire.
Sometimes, the company begins replacing some of the ideas from the initial core mission with processes, management and efficiency. This is known as mission creep. Mission creep can keep good companies from becoming epic companies.
Deviating from the core mission can lead companies to miss the big picture, and to forget about innovation.
It is what separates Blockbuster from Netflix, Nokia from Apple and MySpace from Facebook.
When you walk into the new HQ of the company, you might notice relics from the Big Bang and the Mission that was set out in the garage. Artefacts. Slogans. Mostly stuff hanging on the wall.
Just as we can see cosmic radiation on our TVs, the background radiation from our company’s Big Bang is right there. On the walls.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has a term for this. When the remnants of the Big Bang is hanging on the walls, and not in the heads of people, it is Day 2.
Bezos uses the concept of Day 1 and Day 2 to describe what happens when The Mission takes the backseat to a strict adherence to process and management. For Bezos, it is absolutely critical to keep Amazon on Day 1. Otherwise, they would only be selling books today.
Fun fact: Amazon’s 37-floor tower in Seattle is called “Day 1”.
Let us admit it. It is already Day 2 in a lot of places. We need help. The Godfather of Business Thinking, Peter F. Drucker, can help.
While management and efficiency are both positive and necessary for a company to function, we should never make them our core mission. Re-releasing the energy of The Big Bang and getting back to Day 1 is about being effective, not efficient. It is about doing the right things, not doing things right.
Let us see Drucker’s words in action. Take a look at Netflix. From its founding days in 1997 to 2007, Netflix would send customers movies and TV-shows by means of DVD in the mail.
On this background, Netflix was efficient when it found a new, lighter, cheaper way to send DVD’s in the mail. Its mission, to bring great entertainment to as many people as possible, had just become a little faster and little cheaper. Efficient.
Fast forward to 2007. Netflix introduces streaming. This made the company a lot more effective in carrying out its mission.
Netflix rode the next wave of a technology to let them bring entertainment to even more people. Today, the company is an absolute giant of streaming. As of February 2018, it has 118 million subscribers, and they account for nearly a third of all internet traffic. Effective.
Skip further forward to 2013. “House of Cards” marks a new path to being effective in delivering great entertainment to people. Netflix begins to produce the entertainment themselves.
Since then, Netflix has received 432 nominations and 72 awards, including Oscars, Emmys, BAFTAs and Golden Globes. Meanwhile, the new content also generates increased demand for the streaming service. From 1997 to 2012, the company had got to 32 million subscribers. From 2013 to 2018, the subscriber base has grown 118 million. Big Bang Effective.
Unicorns like Amazon and Netflix are, of course, very rare. But that does not mean that our company can not learn from them. At Nosco, we believe that being effective is tied to a clear mission that resonates with people. We also believe that remaining on Day 1 is about culture.
For us, it is not enough to talk about the mission. You have to get everyone to act on it. That is why we help companies envision, design and run large-scale Innovation Challenges.
When we design Innovation Challenges, we do everything incorporate the story from the Big Bang and the garage. Because that is the story that can get everyone back to the core mission, back to Day One, and back to being effective.
An Innovation Challenge that really hits the spot, is one that encapsulates the corporate DNA, one causes an explosion. A new Big Bang of new ideas within a company, and one that changes hearts and minds.
It is only the first step on an important journey. But it can be one giant leap for the company, for the bottom line and for the employees who are on a mission with you.
Thanks,
Thank you, dear reader, for making it all the way through this.
Thank you so much, René Prinz, for the wonderful illustrations. René is Head of Customer Succes and does some innovation consulting here at Nosco, but I suspect he is secretly an artist.
Thank you, Amanda Pettersson, for ideating, waiting and editing. Amanda is our Marketing Associate here at Nosco. She keeps our marketing in Day 1.
Thank you, Amazon and Netflix for being such inspirations for the rest of us.
Nosco is an innovation consultancy. Based in Copenhagen, Denmark, we work with some of the most forward-thinking companies in the world. We implement platforms, processes and philosophies that can bring about a culture and structure of creation, innovation and better work.
I hope you found this post useful. Please know, you are more than welcome to get in touch on kristoffer@nos.co.
