Are You Loved Or Just Less Annoying? Be Both And Work On The Latter!

One of the primary goals in every business should be to create products and services, a brand, a company that people love. If people love it/you, they'll forgive a lot. They'll talk about you to their friends and even people they don’t really know. They'll promote you and recommend you. They'll come back for more of your specific brand of drugs and aphrodisiacs. Price will affect their decisions less and even not at all. They'll bring their friends to you and they'll work with and for you on their own time to help you make your product or service better.

Can't do that I hear you say!? OK. How about making your service or product less annoying. 

Now being loved and being less annoying are probably not two concepts you’d put together every day, but in this case they work.

Being loved or being less annoying, both strategies can deliver immense value and work commercially.

For example ...

Apple and Google started out being products that people really loved. They still are to a large degree and as long as new life is blown into both companies they will keep receiving hugs, kisses flowers on Mother’s Day from the faithful. (Side note: if you reject the concept of a Mother you are on the wrong side of history).

Airlines on the other hand are rarely businesses people talk about loving. Sure passengers and frequent fliers, they have their preferences about whom they fly with but there is rarely much love. Just expectations that are either met or not and let’s be honest most airlines don’t meet the average passenger’s expectations. So as an airline, whilst striving for the love, hugs and kisses of their passengers they could simply improve in areas that most annoy travellers of all classes, especially frequent fliers.

Industries that need a lot of work

Let’s look at possibly some of the most annoying industries on the planet. These include utility companies, ISP’s, telephone companies, banks, insurance companies, public transport … I’m sure you can list a whole lot more and the things that annoy you most about each … and a lot of it will be common across all of them.

These guys are generally in the dog house and so failing some inspired leadership landing upon them that rapidly turns a company around to suddenly receiving Godiva chocolates, Gaultier lingerie and Les Grand Extrait perfume, the best they can do to make their competition irrelevant is to be less annoying. Sir Richard Branson has built an empire on this principle, although as Sir Richard puts it he looks for industries that are performing poorly (read disappointing and annoying customers and not meeting their expectations) and he [Sir Richard and his team] does it better… or at least they give it a damn good shot.

Potential Pitfall at the Tipping Point as You Swell ‘n’ Spread

Many businesses start out with a small niche of loyal customers who just love what they do.  The law of diffusion of innovation is a good model for understanding how this works. 

So what happens when you reach that tipping point and the early and late majority kick in. Now you have mass appeal and the majority of people buying your products or services are not going to be as understanding. Do you continue to address the niche or do you change course and aim for ‘less annoying’ so that the masses stay, and hopefully you can also keep (at least some of) the innovators and early adopters, the mavens who helped you achieve your position today?

A better question in my book is how do you do both? How do you continue to keep the people who love you engaged, and keep the people who just want what it is you do better than the others? A percentage of these will even come to love you too

When you swell ‘n’ spread to the point where your “want what it is you do better than the others” customers out number your love affairs 10 to 1, the bread and butter will come from being less annoying, so keep this front of mind throughout the entire company. Make it something your people think about in their areas and empower them to both come up with and activate ways to create improvement. Ask “what annoys customers about our industry?” then figure out the craziest, non-annoying way to remedy that within your business.

Do this and simultaneously ask “why do our most loyal customers love us, and how can we best honour the love and respect they show us?”. Then nurture the love relationships you are having. 

When you do both and deliver the outcomes of both across all customer genres you’ll transition a good number of “want what it is you do better than the others” customers to new love affairs.

The Interconnection of Optimisation and Innovation in Business

Understanding how optimisation and innovation work together in business is crucial. They are not isolated concepts but intertwined processes, each contributing to the other's success. Optimisation can lead to innovation and vice versa.

I’ve been around business optimisation for over 30 years and in almost every role optimisation has been the requirement created by previous innovation or has led opportunities to innovate. When you take a step back it’s easy to see how each process feeds into the other.

To add a twist to this, I’ve also found that optimisation benefits from innovative thinking lest it becomes solely a clinical exercise in efficiency generation, and optimisation at its best is everything but clinical and much more than simply creating efficiencies. I’ll leave that for another time though.

Optimisation's Role in Leading to Innovation

Optimisation involves making existing processes, products, or services better. It's a stepping stone to innovation in several ways:

However, optimisation has its limitations. It can sometimes lead to a narrow focus, where companies become too comfortable with minor improvements and miss out on big, innovative leaps. This is where the need to pivot towards innovation becomes clear.

Innovation's Role in Encouraging Optimisation

Innovation, the introduction of something new or significantly improved, can seem like a giant leap compared to optimisation. Here's how innovation encourages further optimisation:

  1. New Challenges: Innovative products or processes often come with unforeseen challenges, requiring further optimisation to refine and improve.
  2. Shifting Markets: As innovation leads to changes in market demands, there's a continuous need to optimise these new solutions to stay competitive.
  3. Feedback Loop: Innovation brings new customer feedback, which is essential for subsequent optimisation cycles.

Yet, innovation is alsonot without its pitfalls. It can be risky and potentially resource-intensive, and not all innovative ideas are successful. Sometimes, an innovation might be ahead of its time or not meet market needs, necessitating a return to the optimisation stage to realign with customer demands.

The Reciprocal Cycle

The relationship between optimisation and innovation is not linear but cyclical, and as I indicated above they are sometimes intertwined. Each process feeds into and enhances the other:

From Optimisation to Innovation: As businesses optimise, they accumulate resources, knowledge, and insights, which can spark innovative ideas. However, there comes a point where further optimisation has diminishing returns, signalling the need for a fresh, innovative approach.
From Innovation to Optimisation: Once an innovative idea is implemented, it's rarely perfect. The subsequent need for refinement and improvement leads back to optimisation.

This cycle ensures that businesses do not stagnate. Traditional optimisation keeps operations lean and effective, while innovation pushes boundaries and opens new opportunities. The best kind of optimisation is that which utilises innovative thinking and that requires an innovative mindset, something that not all leaders have and many who do have, do not dare to exercise.

Balancing the Two

Even without having an innovative mindset and exercising it, a business that consciously embraces the cyclical nature of traditional optimisation and innovation will find themselves ahead of others in their industry. In this context,. the key for businesses is to balance optimisation and innovation. Relying too heavily on optimisation can lead to a lack of creativity and an inability to adapt to changing markets. Conversely, constant innovation without sufficient optimisation can lead to chaos and inefficiency.

Businesses should aim for a culture that values both processes. Encourage teams to optimise existing workflows and products, but also allocate resources and time for exploring new ideas. It's about finding the right moment to pivot from one to the other: optimise until it's clear that incremental improvements are no longer sufficient, then take the leap into innovation. After implementing innovative ideas, focus again on optimisation to refine and improve.

Final Thoughts

Optimisation and innovation are not standalone processes but deeply interconnected. Each serves as a catalyst for the other, creating a dynamic cycle of continuous improvement and breakthrough. For businesses to thrive, understanding this relationship and mastering the art of pivoting between optimisation and innovation is crucial. This cycle ensures that businesses remain efficient and effective while also being adaptable and forward-thinking, ready to meet the challenges of an ever-evolving market landscape.