I was recently reminded of this beautiful story. Change is hard… Staring at a blank canvas stirs up way too many mixed emotions…. And, at the end of the day, my energy flows to where my attention goes. With that, this story is a good reminder of what counts at every given moment.

An old Cherokee is telling his granddaughter about a fight that is going on inside himself. He said it is between two wolves. One is evil: anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is good: friendly, joyful, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, faith and deep vision. He adds, “This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other human as well.”

The granddaughter thought about it for a minute and asked her grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The elder Cherokee replied: “The one I feed.”

– Native American Story

Change is a journey. It is multi-dimensional. Following the uncertainty principle, it seeds its own story of successes and failures. Many have written on the topic of change and change management. Perhaps, Franklin Covey summarizes the best.

Knowledge is the theoretical paradigm, the what to do and why. Skill is the how to do. And desire is the motivation, the want to do. In order to make something a habit in our lives, we have to have all three.

– Stephen Covey; The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

At the end of the day, our energy flows to where our attention goes. If you are a manager tasked with improving teamwork between silos, ensuring the decision-making process incorporated all the right individuals from different groups maybe more important than the decision itself. If you are implementing new processes, providing training and tools are great, but not enough without the proper incentives to ensure people are utilizing it. 

Change Cycle

The change cycle starts with awareness. Whether you are using the ready-aim-fire or ready-fire-aim method, change is a process of trial & error coupled with reflection, which drives needed course corrections. Just like a treasure map, the change process guides its followers through a complex network of interactions, activities and deliverables. Given that, it is crucial to define and communicate your change process, whether the desired change is cultural, procedural, organizational or any other type. This not only provides a structured methodology to what may seem like a chaotic process, but it also builds-in accountability and engagement for all. (more…)

Note: This is a repost from my www.kitetail.com site. 

As many innovations and new product development (NPD) projects succeed, many more fails. In my research study “Innovation Management in Multi-Divisional Firms: Factors that Lead to Successful Development of New Products“, I look at why projects succeed or fail, and what can you do to improve their success rate.

Intro

A few years back, I conducted a research study on the topic of “Innovation Management in Multi-Divisional Firms: Factors that Lead to Successful Development of New Products” as part of my Management of Technology Masters degree. The unique part of the research, at least at the time, was to analyze the new product development success factors from the influence of newness: newness of the technology and/or newness of the market.

You can access the research and its findings here. However, a quick summary would be worthwhile to share. Please note that, the projects used for this research took place in a single firm, within the computer and peripherals industry.

Why new projects fail or succeed?

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