Risk, Innovation and… Esquire?
by Miki SaxonAn “expert blogger” at Fast Company wrote a post about what large companies can learn from startups (next month she’s writing the flip side, i.e., what startups can learn from large companies.)
Here is her advice in a nutshell,
- Startups are flatter; if you can’t flatten, delegate and empower.
- Startups have tighter timelines; a mandatory deadline is a pretty good way to shut up any last-minute hesitations.
- Startups value disruption; when a company is setting out to define their corporate culture “risk” should make an appearance right between “honesty” and “respect.”
All well and good, but not exactly new information.
At Davos, John Kao, who advises corporations and governments on innovation, said that training and discipline and improvised creativity are the yin and the yang of innovation and used Google and Apple as examples of the two approaches.
Useful information and stuff you can put to work in your organization, but not particularly electrifying.
One problem is that so much of the talk about innovation cites either startups or technology companies as examples of risk and creativity.
A more interesting example is the turnaround that’s happening at Barnes & Noble, although it’s still a work in progress.
But if you want an electrifying example of risk, creativity, innovation and success consider Esquire.
Yes, Esquire; a print magazine in an industry that most experts have written off as dead.
In 2011, a year when the magazine industry was flat to down a bit, Esquire was up 13.5 percent in ad pages from the previous year.
To put that in perspective, consider that in 2009 it lost 24.3% advertising pages as compared with 2008 and the brand was predicted to disappear in 2010.
What happened?
Esquire’s editor in chief, David Granger did lay off 20% of his staff and substantially reduce editorial pages, but what he did not do was fire the big name talent in favor of younger, i.e., cheaper, staffers.
He did not, as they say, throw the baby out with the bathwater.
And the staff responded with an outpouring of creativity.
For its 75th anniversary issue in 2008, right about the time magazines were heading off a cliff, he and his designers put together an “E-Ink” cover that flashed, right there on the newsstand. (See video below.)
On almost any given day there are dozens of articles on how to juice innovation and creativity, but I think the Esquire article stands out.
Not because it gives you a list of what is wrong or spells out what to do, but because it proves that just because the “experts” say that not just you, but also your industry, are dead doesn’t mean they are.
What truly innovative companies have in common is a culture that embraces a willingness to live or die by risking failure.
YouTube image credit: shusummit
