Kevin Holland’s post outlining new rules for growth got me thinking. We marketers are so often tasked with growing membership, increasing market share, getting the word out. But ultimately, marketing success is driven by the quality and value of the product and services. If the product fails to interest the market, no amount of shouting from the rooftops will work.
Then I read Tony Rossell’s response. Tony suggests associations “would be better off if they made fewer billion-dollar bets and a whole lot more $10,000 or $20,000 bets – some of which will, in time, justify more substantial commitments.”
I think it’s the allusion to betting that struck me. Associations tend to be risk averse. Betting is risky, so we go for safe bets. But these days, we often perceive the safest bet to be some new iteration of the status quo. Isn’t innovation a safer bet? With smaller bets, you can afford to incubate great ideas in your organization and just see where they lead.
When Google went public back in 2004, the company issued an open letter from the founders. The section on Risk vs Reward is worth revisiting…
RISK VS REWARD IN THE LONG RUNOur business environment changes rapidly and needs long term investment. We will not hesitate to place major bets on promising new opportunities.
We will not shy away from high-risk, high-reward projects because of short term earnings pressure. Some of our past bets have gone extraordinarily well, and others have not. Because we recognize the pursuit of such projects as the key to our long term success, we will continue to seek them out. For example, we would fund projects that have a 10% chance of earning a billion dollars over the long term. Do not be surprised if we place smaller bets in areas that seem very speculative or even strange. As the ratio of reward to risk increases, we will accept projects further outside our normal areas, especially when the initial investment is small.
We encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google. This empowers them to be more creative and innovative. Many of our significant advances have happened in this manner. For example, AdSense for content and Google News were both prototyped in “20% time.” Most risky projects fizzle, often teaching us something. Others succeed and become attractive businesses.
Here’s what one Google employee shares about his 20% Time project. What if you implemented 20% Time across your organization and doled out seed money to promising projects? If growth really is your goal, fresh ideas are the key. Why not place your bets on yourself, your staff and your members.
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Lindy, I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s a safer bet to try something new (as long as you are starting out small) than it is to roll-out “major initiatives” that amount to little more than a reaffirmation of the status quo. Personally, I have long been fascinated by Google’s 20% Time and have struggled with coming up with a way to do something similar in a small-staff, busy association environment. Ultimately I feel that the associations who take the time to incubate ideas (even “strange” ones as the Google text says) are the ones who are more likely to grow.
Lindy, I’ve been studying Google for years and the short answer to your question is, sadly, no. At least not by itself.
You see, 20% time is not unique. It is patterned after 3M’s 15% rule, which emerged because a CEO was willing to respect the organizational culture rather than enforce discipline against an employee who didn’t honor his commands. BTW, the employee thanked the CEO for not firing him by inventing masking tape!
In each case (3M and Google), the broader commitment to innovation makes the 15% rule and 20% time culturally consistent. For most associations, it would be nothing more than a one-off gimmick that could not be sustainable over time. In fact, I could envision how a similar approach used in an association w/o a deeper commitment to innovation could actually backfire and damage innovation prospects.
I’ve visited Google and I know from my conversations with Googlers how important 20% time has been to the organization’s innovation efforts, But it is not 20% time alone, and it is not a stand-alone experiment I can recommend for associations.