…today’s secret…The innovation-decision-process

Anything new to you is an innovation.

Deciding if an innovation is good for you and/or your organization is not an instantaneous act, it’s a process…matter of fact…

…it’s a five-step process. Here are the five steps:

1) Knowledge, when you are exposed to the innovation’s existence and gain an understanding of how it functions.

2) Persuasion, when you form a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward the innovation.

3) Decision, when you engage in activities that lead to a choice to adopt or reject the innovation.

4) Implementation, when you put an innovation into use.

5) Confirmation, when you decide to keep or scrap the innovation.

This five-step-decision-process is the same for all organizations. The only variable is the speed by which the five steps are processed through.

The time from steps one thru five is called the innovation-decision-period.

Smart innovators understand this innovation-decision period and look for ways to accelerate the five steps.

Innovators seek out early knowers, early adopters, influencers, and change agents to help trigger a tipping point where the innovation begins acquiring critical mass in the marketplace.

However, the speed appears to come down to each organization’s decision process. How do they view uncertainty? How entrepreneurial are they? How many layers of decision making are there? How wedded are they to their current processes?

“Is this the right move?” asks the last adopting organization who would still be using a rotary phone if available.

But, that’s OK. They eventually ‘get it.’

Innovators just must be patient.

“There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things…”

Machiavelli wrote that in 1513.

How does your organization treat innovations?