Words to Avoid and Replace

Innovation and Adding Value

I sense an inverse correlation between:

• Saying “innovation/innovate” and actually contributing to discoveries and solutions.

• Saying “value add/adding value” and actually making unique contributions that are useful to others.

Fortunately, this can be rectified by kindly asking people to be concrete with what they are saying.

When there is the urge to “innovate” or “add value”, here are some suggestions for saying something concrete instead of vacuous.

Innovation / Innovate

Current: “We need more innovation”

Improvement: “We need to get more people in this room who have a different opinion on this question.”

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Current: “We need to hire people that are innovative”

Improvement: “Maybe we should hire some younger employees who would add their generation’s perspective – particularly since that is our target market?”

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Current: “As a country, we need to prioritise innovation.”

Improvement: “As a country, we need to a) talk to 5 business owners and ask them if it is a lot of hassle to i) incorporate their company, ii) hire and fire employees, iii) fill out tax and investment paperwork – and then make changes to address challenges that are there.”

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Current: “I work with entrepreneurs and executives on innovation.”

Improvement: “I work with project leaders and encourage them to think about discovery in terms of the number of bets and size of bets they are making. I encourage them to make more small bets and fewer big bets. The big bets should be reserved for doubling down on what is already working. (More here on the importance of convexity in discovery).”

Value Add / Adding Value

Current: “I just want to add value.”

Improvement: “If I want to put in extra time or effort, what specifically would be useful for me to focus on that others don’t have the time or skills for right now?”

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Current: “What is the value-add of that supplier?”

Improvement: “What is our benchmark for comparing that supplier’s performance? What is better and what is worse? What are the short term and what are the long term factors to consider?”

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Current: “Are they really adding value?”

Improvement: “What specifically are they able to contribute that others cannot? What is that worth in terms of time, money and relationships? What are the costs and opportunities involved in going with them versus others?”