QWERTY

In Jim Collins’ latest work, Great by Choice, he offers the following shift in innovation strategy: fire bullets first…then cannon balls. A warfare metaphor? Yes. But what does it mean?

Traditionally, military strategy has been to soften up an opponent’s defenses by lobbing in artillery first, before sending in men armed with weapons. Makes sense. Create a strategic advantage before committing lives. So how does this relate to innovation?

Successful organizations today are first and foremost inclined to throw most of its resources at new ideas that are most similar to its existing ways of operating, and then tweak the details after implementation has begun. Collins is saying, first use your guns to surgically aim and hit your innovation targets, then once you know you have found a worthy target that will actually help you break new ground and create new value….THEN you throw the bulk of your resources (the cannon balls) at it.

Consider the creation of the modern day keyboard. It was initially created in 1867 by Christopher Latham Sholes, a newspaper editor from Milwaukee. The problem he was trying to address in creating his personal type-setting machine or “type writer” was that once the typist started typing too fast, several keys would jam all at once together as they all tried to hit the surface of the paper at once. Why the QWERTY sequence? Sholes studied Amos Densmore’s letter-pair frequency research to determine what sequence of keys on the keyboard would most optimally prevent jamming.

By 1873 Sholes and Densmore successfully sold the manufacturing rights for their “Type-Writer” to the Remington company, who made several further adjustments to the keyboard sequence that created the QWERTY layout we know today. The layout gained popular acceptance with the success of the Remington No. 2 Type-Writer in 1878, which included both upper and lower case letters through the use of the shift key. THEN Remington began to throw its resources at marketing its product, and the rest (as they say) is history.

Innovation requires risk-taking. But that risk-taking should not be wide-open, throw-anything-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks haphazardness. Successful risk-taking is informed. Thoughtful. Fueled by questions that seek deeper probing and strategic planning. Lobbing “cannon balls” in the general direction of what we call “innovation” is not going to hit an effective target. Cannon balls are inaccurate and they cause a lot of residual damage in the process.

Why do we instinctively go for the heavy artillery first? It feels powerful. It looks impressive. It produces immediate results. The problem is, those results are typically not desirable. Going in first on reconnaissance and identifying the target that is most beneficial to you is more work and can often result in deciding not to pursue a target at all. But it’s a lot more responsible and effective way to learn about what is innovative and meaningful to you. In the short run there is no big hit, no big bang for your buck. But in the long run, your return on innovation, on creating new value in your work and in your life, is much greater.

So as you sit at your keyboard and look at the now familiar QWERTY layout, remind yourself every so often of Jim Collins’ truism: “fire bullets then cannon balls.” It is the key to success and happiness in this fast-paced, quickly-changing Information Age life.