14 - MIKE DIXON - Braveheart – the importance of allowing ourselves to be truly innovative

Have you taken a risk today? Not a totally reckless one, but a calculated one where there is the real possibility of failure, but the belief that the reward for achieving will be so much greater? Why do I ask? Because, unless we are ‘bravehearted’ in the way we approach our work, there is a real danger we will never allow ourselves to be truly innovative in what we deliver, and as a consequence, perhaps never achieve that bit of magic that successful innovation can achieve.

I don’t think I am being too controversial in suggesting that the pharmaceutical sector could still benefit from more innovation. That’s not saying there are not pockets of innovation happening all the time, but there is always the scope for more across the spectrum of our activity. Often when we use the word innovation, people naturally jump to marketing campaigns, but there is greater scope for innovation across all our communications. How to better engage diverse audiences in trials, how we communicate and interact in a new hybrid world, and how we collect, analyse and present data are all examples where the outcome could benefit from great innovation.

There are many perceived barriers to innovation, but one of the most fundamental ones must surely be the fear of failure, with that fear often relating to the effect that it will have on your profile or that of your team. Not doing anything too adventurous is considered safer than doing something innovative and failing. The problem with that line of thinking is that it assumes failure is a negative outcome. If, however, we approach it from a different perspective and accept that periodic failure is an important component of achieving greater success, then the prospect becomes just an acceptable stepping stone, and something not to be feared, but embraced. Successful leaders and entrepreneurs certainly recognise that.

Take Elon Musk, for example, who has been quoted as saying that he’d rather have his employees be more fearful of not speaking up around him rather than worrying about looking foolish. And I think that same attitude is taken in his approach to the space race. Let’s face it, they have blown up quite a few rockets over the years, but as they have been quick to point out, they have learned so much every time. Would they have got so far so quickly if they took a more cautious approach?

If you’re not a Musk fan, but more of a Bezos person then his mindset is much the same: “I knew if I failed, I would not regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret was not trying.” And if those are types of people you can’t, or don’t, relate to, how about Nelson Mandela: “Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”

For these leaders and entrepreneurs, the approach only works as long as your backers have that same mindset and remain supportive. Now we may not all get to play with multimillion dollar rockets, but the principle is equally relevant to us. To feel confident in being able to be innovative we need to work in a culture where that innovation is encouraged, not just with lip service, but with a genuine culture of recognising and rewarding the innovative approach, whether successful or not, and with the belief that we can learn as much, or more, through failure. Of course, ‘failure’ is the extreme end of the scale as most things don’t fail, but rather don’t go as well as initially hoped. But the learnings are still there, and if we focus on those, rather than a blame culture, then we have the best opportunity to be successful next time.

In being innovative we still don’t have to be reckless. We don’t, as the adage goes, have to put all our eggs in one basket. For example, piloting is a perfect way to test innovative ideas, learning from the experience without committing everything. The increased use of digital in communications potentially helps make piloting easier and more cost-effective. We are able to divide audiences into different groups and target them in different ways, to learn how to deliver the best outcome. Rather than deciding upfront which communication to use based on our own limited insight, we can test them all and importantly the feedback comes directly from our target audience. Surely that is actually a less risky approach than deciding for ourselves which route to choose without the benefit of greater insight?

MIKE DIXON
BRAVEHEART – THE IMPORTANCE OF ALLOWING OURSELVES TO BE TRULY INNOVATIVE

The fear of failure

Try to learn

Ensuring an innovation culture

Piloting