What the Sports Icon Dick Fosbury Can Teach Us about Innovation
In today's hypercompetitive world, organizations are always looking to add something unique to their business arsenal—be it products or people. In such scenarios, innovation is often considered one of the most sought-after competencies. While some employees are natural innovators, others need to be motivated to help reach their innovation potential. Though there are different resources available when seeking motivation, examples from sports often appear relevant.
A recent Harvard Business Review article describes the intriguing rise of former Olympic gold medalist high jumper Dick Fosbury. For the most part of his early career, Fosbury was an average high jumper. But he was courageous to question the prevalent technique—called the straddle technique—in which the high-jumper would run straight and clear the bar facedown.
He practiced and mastered the reversal of this technique by running at the bar diagonally and clearing the bar with his face up. This technique came to be known as the Fosbury Flop and became a sort of standard technique after he became successful. This example provides some key lessons for innovators:
- Never mistake set conventions as a rule.
- Know the assumptions, and challenge them.
- Challenge yourself to outthink rather than outwork the competition.
- Once in a while, reward employees who bend the rules in favor of impactful innovation, as long as they are ethical and respectful.
If there is one mobile phone company that has caught the attention of the tech world recently, it has to be the Chinese company Xiaomi. In just four years, it has risen to third place in the global smartphone market. Xiaomi seems to have learned a lesson from Fosbury's Flop when chartering its path to success.
Xiaomi has not invested in selling its devices via retail stores and only relies on selling via online channels. This is quite different from Apple and Samsung's models that rely heavily on retail stores. This not only helped Xiaomi cut costs of owning retail stores but also helps them better connect with its young customer base by selling online. Xiaomi avoided the trap of following the conventions set by established players.
An important aspect of Xiaomi's rise as a smartphone maker is that it keeps its models up for sale far longer than Apple does. While Apple charges far higher margins during the early days of a phone launch, Xiaomi gets more profit towards the end of a phone lifecycle when the margins become automatically higher from reduced component prices. Xiaomi is again challenging the set assumptions in the smartphone industry and is literally outthinking the competition.
Whether intentional or not, Xiaomi's approach to creating a niche for itself in a market where some of the giants are struggling seems inspired from the way Fosbury changed the rules of performing a long jump. Perhaps more organizations can seek inspiration from challenging the norms.
