How to Turn Unexpected Successes into Innovative Opportunities

IBM became a giant in the computer industry, and it owes much of its prestige to two events.

First of all, the 1930’s was a time when it almost went out of business. It had spent the money that it had on designing the first electro-mechanical bookkeeping machine, which was meant to be used by banks. But unfortunately, American banks didn’t purchase the equipment in the days of the Depression.

However, in those days, libraries did have a fair amount of government money. And at the moment when IBM was at one of its lowest points, Thomas Watson, Sr., the founder of IBM, met with the director of the New York Public Library. Then, not too long after the director asked Watson for a demonstration of his machine, Watson received enough of an order to cover his payroll for the next month.

Several years later, IBM had one of the early computers, which was originally designed for scientific purposes only. But then businesses began to buy these scientific computers, and they did so for purposes such as handling accounting and payroll tasks. However, Univac, which had one of the most advanced computers, and one that was more suitable for business use, didn’t want to supply its scientific computers to businesses.

So, IBM responded immediately by sacrificing its own computer design and using what Univac had developed. And as a result, just a few years later, IBM gained leadership in the computer market.

On another note, for over a hundred years, DuPont’s focus was on making ammunition and explosives. But then, in the 1920’s, it began to organize research in other areas. And one of them was in the field of polymer chemistry, which the Germans had begun in the 1910’s.

Then, one day, a chemist at DuPont discovered that they had produced polymerized fibers by accident. Now, the same accident actually happened in the German chemical companies much earlier, and they were, of course, looking for a polymerized fiber as well. But since they had not planned the experiment, they dismissed the results and poured out the accidentally produced fibers.

Then, several years after DuPont accidentally produced their polymerized fibers, they found out how to make Nylon intentionally. And DuPont would go on to become one of the largest chemical companies in the world.

And as for one more note, Panasonic was a small, undistinguished electronics company in the early 1950’s that was outranked by other giants such as Toshiba and Hitachi. Yet all of these Japanese manufacturers assumed that television would not grow fast in Japan, because they believed that the people were too poor to afford them.

However, the Japanese farmers apparently didn’t know that they were too poor for television. Instead, what they saw was that television offered them, for the very first time, access to a bigger world. So, even if they may not have been able to afford television sets, they were prepared to buy them somehow and pay for them.

Now, Panasonic was intelligent enough to accept this fact, and although Toshiba and Hitachi had made better television sets at the time, they made it clear that farmers were not welcome as their customers. So, Panasonic did something that no one else in Japan had ever done before. They went door-to-door to the farmers and sold its television sets to them. And as a result, they rose to become one of the foremost electronics companies in Japan.

So, what do all of these stories have in common? And what can we learn from them?

Well, the key takeaway is that in each of these different examples, the company recognized that a change had taken place which led to an unexpected success. Then, they made most of the unexpected success by creating a new resource that was more productive than what had already existed.

So, if you want to be able to achieve similar results, here’s a list of questions to ask to see if you’re prepared to turn an unexpected success into an opportunity to create something new that provides more value to the people that you serve.

1. Have you totally neglected, or even worse yet, actively rejected an unexpected success, simply because it’s not a “normal” occurrence in your organization?
2. Or, do you actually look at reality, so that you’re able to realize when something unexpected is happening, analyze it, and take advantage of the opportunity that it offers to create something which provides more value and satisfaction?
3. Are you quick to assume that just because something has lasted for a long time, it must therefore be “normal” and go on “forever”?
4. If something were to contradict what you’ve come to consider a “law of nature,” do you then automatically reject it as unhealthy and abnormal?
5. Have you spent your entire life working to perfect a certain process, function, or area, so that you believe it’s the only right way to do things?
6. Do you believe that anything but your traditional process for doing things is cheating, so that you feel threatened when you see an unexpected success overtake it?
7. Or, are you able to make the effort to perceive in the “enemy” your own best opportunity to create a successful innovation?
8. Do you rashly believe that if an unexpected success were truly an opportunity, you surely would’ve seen it for yourself? And since you didn’t recognize it, do you therefore reject it?
9. Or, do you have the humility to realize that part of your responsibility is to make certain judgments, as opposed to simply being infallible all the time?
10. Do you understand that part of your responsibility is to realize when you’ve been wrong and admit it, especially when your admission opens up an opportunity for you to create a successful innovation?
11. Is it possible that, by pure accident, you’ve developed a product or service with more and better customers that are outside of the market for which you originally developed the product or service?
12. Does your existing reporting system only list problems, shortfalls, and areas in which performance is below your expectations?
13. Or, do you also have a list of areas where you’ve done better than expected, which you can then analyze?
14. If an unexpected success is not quantitative, but rather qualitative, as in the opening up of a new market outside of the traditional one that you serve, will your reporting figures capture it?
15. If an unexpected success is a symptom, and if analysis is required to take advantage of the innovative opportunity that it offers, then could your unexpected success mean that there’s a limitation on your vision, or a gap in your knowledge or understanding?
16. If the unexpected success demands innovation, then what changes are now appropriate in the way you define your organization’s mission, technology, or markets?
17. What would it mean to you if you exploited this unexpected success? Where could it lead to?
18. What would you need to do in order to turn this unexpected success into an opportunity? How do you go about it?
19. Do you set aside a specific time on a regular basis to discuss unexpected successes?
20. Is there someone in your organization who is assigned to analyze the unexpected success and think about how to exploit it?
21. What is the unexpected success demanding of you? Are you willing to support that demand in order to turn it into an opportunity?
22. Do you understand that the the unexpected success demands to be staffed with the most capable people available, rather than whoever you can spare?
23. Do you understand that the unexpected success demands a level of management support that’s equal to the size of the opportunity?