Just Ignore the Trends—and Run to the Noise
From the Voices on Project Management Blog
by Cameron McGaughy,
Lynda Bourne, Kevin Korterud, Conrado Morlan, Peter Tarhanidis, Mario Trentim, Jen Skrabak, David Wakeman, Wanda Curlee, Christian Bisson, Ramiro Rodrigues, Soma Bhattacharya, Emily Luijbregts, Sree Rao, Yasmina Khelifi, Marat Oyvetsky, Lenka Pincot, Jorge Martin Valdes Garciatorres, cyndee miller
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Date
By Cyndee Miller
Real talk: I was deeply skeptical going into the closing session of congress starring so-called futurologist and trendspotter Magnus Lindkvist. I mean, come on, his bio heralds him as “the best import from Sweden since ABBA and meatballs.” That’s a pretty high bar for me—“Dancing Queen” is pretty perfect.
Yet, at some point—probably when he managed to link Swedish grindcore to talent management—he pulled me in.
This whole business of trendspotting is wildly treacherous, but Mr. Lindkvist has a healthy (and spectacularly humorous) perspective on it. The “darlings of last year” were artificial intelligence, machine learning and job-stealing robots, but turns out we’re really bad at predicting human behavior, he said.
Indeed, he actually advised the standing-room-only crowd to avoid trends: Look elsewhere. Read what other people are reading. Travel where other people don’t travel. Hire people that other companies aren’t hiring.
Don’t think for one second, however, this guy doesn’t follow what’s going on in business. Take that innovation thing. He said most company’s strategy relies on R&D … rip off and duplicate. And that leads to a lack of diversity—where everything new starts to look the same. Once the iPhone hit, for example, slowly but surely every telecom company starting morphing their product into some version of Apple’s.
Mr. Lindvist suggests seeking out a different kind of innovation—where something impossible becomes possible, where something magical becomes practical.
Uh, yeah, that doesn’t sound hard at all.
But in life, Mr. Lindvist contends, we can do one of two things: compete or create. “Competition is the theft of big ideas. Creation is a liberation movement.”
And creation is what actually shapes the future, although it might mean a little workout.
“I think the future is an activity,” he said. “It’s something we do, you and I. The future is always there—underneath dead ideas, underneath old ideas.”
Go ahead and experiment. “Human beings have one way of learning—trial and error.” And if your experiment fails, so what? “Failure is the sign of trying,” he said. Don’t shame failure, recycle it.
And, be patient, my friends. The best ideas are often rejected the first time. Get ready to be misunderstood for a long time.
Now the pessimist in me is cringing just a bit as I type this, but Mr. Lindkvist says optimism, as cheesy as it might seem, is the true secret sauce. “Companies and projects run on optimism, actively injected optimism,” he said. “That is the only important, vital ingredient. The only bad thing is doing the same thing all the time.”
All of this might be a bit much for some of the more risk-averse project and program managers out there. So I’ll leave you with the same parting words Mr. Lindkvist gave to the congress audience: Run toward the noise. Seek out the spaces, markets and technologies battling it out for dominance—and search for the new and the different and the better.
Now here’s my trendspotting tip: Break out your calendars and block out 7-9 May 2018 in next year’s EMEA congress in Berlin, Germany.
Ciao for now, baby—because this trendspotter sees a Gucci bag in her future.
Posted
by
cyndee miller
on: May 04, 2017 05:06 AM |
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Comments (12)
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Drew Craig
Sr. Agile & Product Coach| Vanguard
Philadelphia, Pa, United States
Yes, certainly there can be a tendency to innovate off the backs of others, or forge your own path, and truly innovate.
Great write-up. Makes me want to have an opportunity to listen to Mr. Lindkvist's session.
Thank you, Cyndee.
He sounds like a fun guy, great article. Thanks for sharing!
If, you are right, most people innovate alongside other innovations, so, it is making the best of an existing product, but not your own product
Not trying to innovate, just to ensure the profits, thats good strategy, but remember: if you hit first, you hit twice
Karthik T
Senior Engineering Manager| Nike
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Sachin Pereira
Oracle Solutions Architect Implementation Lead, Project Leader| HB Associates
Mangaluru, Karnataka, India
Pier Luigi Calabria
Project Manager| INFORM Institut für Operations Research und Management GmbH, Aachen, Germany
Aachen, Germany
Well, I think that the summary "compete or create" is actually the leit-motiv of this era. On the other hand, could we count how many companies died trying to "create"?
I mean, I feel "create" like going to the roulette table and put your wallet on the 24, high probability to fail, but if you get the number then you're rich.
"compete" is more red or black....
Thanks!!!
Thomas Kennedy
Project Engineer| BP
Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, United Kingdom
Very true around trial and error, how many of the products we use today are the same as the prototype that was created.
Vincent Guerard
Coach - Trainer - Speaker - Advisor| Freelance
Mont-Royal, Quebec, Canada
Trial and error are demonstration of experimenting, not standing still
Thanks
Mohamed Hassan
Project Management Consultant, Author and Speaker| LIFELONG
Kuwait, Kuwait
Stéphane Parent
Self Employed / Semi-retired| Leader Maker
Prince Edward Island, Canada
Thank you for sharing Magnus' message with us. We need to be reminded that we have to be different, unique and creative.
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