Fostering a Creative Culture in Your Agency
By: Pawan Divakarla
Innovation is arguably the corporate buzzword of the decade. Marketers have eroded its meaning through misuse and overuse; however, true innovation is no corporate cliché. It remains the driver of our marketplace and a key factor in the long-term success of businesses large and small. Spend time fostering a creative culture in your agency, and you’ll consistently wow customers by practicing what your competitors only preach.
Conceptually, innovation is simple: It’s a new idea that works. However, guiding a good idea from concept to reality is anything but. One reason it’s hard is that innovation can be counterintuitive. People often link progress with complexity, so when we hear a colleague pitch something simple, it’s hard to see it as a step forward.
This decade’s textbook innovator, Apple®, is a good example. In today’s consumer electronics arms race, more features and functionality typically mean more bells and whistles. Modern TV remote controls can have more than 50 buttons and switches, but Apple’s has seven. To the uninitiated it may look too simplistic, but Apple introduced “easy-to-use” to the category, and as Steve Jobs says every time he unveils his latest blockbuster gadget, “It just works.”
Real innovations are often simple, even when the technology behind them isn’t. Application programming interfaces are complex. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s idea for broadcasting short, real-time updates from anywhere is simple. Search engine page-ranking algorithms and query analytics are difficult to understand. Google search is intuitive to operate. Netflix® logistics and streaming technologies are complicated. Having access to your favorite movies and television shows instantly through your television, computer, gaming system and mobile device just makes sense.
At Progressive, we work hard to think up the next big idea, then we work harder to protect it as it takes its first steps. We launched a program that brings together Progressive employees from call center to corner office to creatively solve specific business challenges together. The program works because we guard good ideas in their early stages, strengthen them through collaboration, then hammer on them only once they’re ready for the biggest test of all—determining if they’ll work in the marketplace.
There’s an art to “yes” and “no” all truly innovative companies understand: You can’t say “no” too soon to good ideas, and you can’t say “yes” for too long when a good idea just won’t work.
Insurance is an industry primed for innovation, and the best ideas often come from the front lines. So how do carriers and agents work together to make insurance simpler for customers to buy and use? Here are a few tips that can help make your agency’s brainstorming sessions more successful, plus a few places to look for inspiration:
Get ideas out of your head: They take up space. Spread them to others in your agency or scribble them in a notebook, and you’ll make room in your head for more. Also, seek out ideas from others, especially from companies outside your industry.
Technology isn’t a requisite: Simple process changes can transform a business. Think critically about even the most basic procedures in your agency. Are there ways to streamline or improve the experience for customers and staff?
Simple is better: Google, of all companies, didn’t create a high-tech process for deploying its IT support staff. They put them in the hallways and lounge areas of the Googleplex. When a smartphone fizzles or a laptop crashes, employees step out of their offices and flag down help.
Innovation really does love constraint: Build boundaries into your brainstorms to make them more productive. Clearly define the challenge and the criteria for a successful solution, then set hard deadlines to work against.
Break it down: When pitching your idea to decision-makers, stick to the basics. If the subject is complex, think of how you’d explain it to a customer. Instead of summarizing the details of your idea, tell a story.
Pawan Divakarla is technology and innovation process manager at Progressive. He works with leaders and employees across the company to bring new ideas to market.
Conceptually, innovation is simple: It’s a new idea that works. However, guiding a good idea from concept to reality is anything but. One reason it’s hard is that innovation can be counterintuitive. People often link progress with complexity, so when we hear a colleague pitch something simple, it’s hard to see it as a step forward.
This decade’s textbook innovator, Apple®, is a good example. In today’s consumer electronics arms race, more features and functionality typically mean more bells and whistles. Modern TV remote controls can have more than 50 buttons and switches, but Apple’s has seven. To the uninitiated it may look too simplistic, but Apple introduced “easy-to-use” to the category, and as Steve Jobs says every time he unveils his latest blockbuster gadget, “It just works.”
Real innovations are often simple, even when the technology behind them isn’t. Application programming interfaces are complex. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s idea for broadcasting short, real-time updates from anywhere is simple. Search engine page-ranking algorithms and query analytics are difficult to understand. Google search is intuitive to operate. Netflix® logistics and streaming technologies are complicated. Having access to your favorite movies and television shows instantly through your television, computer, gaming system and mobile device just makes sense.
At Progressive, we work hard to think up the next big idea, then we work harder to protect it as it takes its first steps. We launched a program that brings together Progressive employees from call center to corner office to creatively solve specific business challenges together. The program works because we guard good ideas in their early stages, strengthen them through collaboration, then hammer on them only once they’re ready for the biggest test of all—determining if they’ll work in the marketplace.
There’s an art to “yes” and “no” all truly innovative companies understand: You can’t say “no” too soon to good ideas, and you can’t say “yes” for too long when a good idea just won’t work.
Insurance is an industry primed for innovation, and the best ideas often come from the front lines. So how do carriers and agents work together to make insurance simpler for customers to buy and use? Here are a few tips that can help make your agency’s brainstorming sessions more successful, plus a few places to look for inspiration:
Get ideas out of your head: They take up space. Spread them to others in your agency or scribble them in a notebook, and you’ll make room in your head for more. Also, seek out ideas from others, especially from companies outside your industry.
Technology isn’t a requisite: Simple process changes can transform a business. Think critically about even the most basic procedures in your agency. Are there ways to streamline or improve the experience for customers and staff?
Simple is better: Google, of all companies, didn’t create a high-tech process for deploying its IT support staff. They put them in the hallways and lounge areas of the Googleplex. When a smartphone fizzles or a laptop crashes, employees step out of their offices and flag down help.
Innovation really does love constraint: Build boundaries into your brainstorms to make them more productive. Clearly define the challenge and the criteria for a successful solution, then set hard deadlines to work against.
Break it down: When pitching your idea to decision-makers, stick to the basics. If the subject is complex, think of how you’d explain it to a customer. Instead of summarizing the details of your idea, tell a story.
Pawan Divakarla is technology and innovation process manager at Progressive. He works with leaders and employees across the company to bring new ideas to market.
This month’s issue
The June issue is out now!
