WILLOW Magazine, Issue 3, 2007 Riding Kawasaki Silicon Valley’s Wonderboy discusses innovation, competition, and why the church must innovate … or die As of this writing, Apple, Inc. stock is trading at more than $100 per share. Fueled by the ubiquitous iPod and surging sales of the workhorse Macintosh, the company’s renaissance is surprising many these days. But not everyone. Guy Kawasaki knew more than 25 years ago that Apple was onto something. The youngster became a Macintosh “evangelist” and spread word of the company’s innovations far and wide. Today, Kawasaki is the managing director of a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley and a highly sought-after speaker. His blog is a highly-read manifesto on innovation, management, and all things cool. He attends a church in the Silicon Valley area and WILLOW had the opportunity to catch up with him recently to discuss innovations and the Church. WILLOW: What is an innovator? Innovators jump curves and don’t duke it out on the same curve. They see the world as half full with plenty of upside to make it better. They strive to make things 10 times better, not 10 percent better. WILLOW: On the flip side, who is not an innovator? People who try to maintain the status quo because of fear, greed, or complacency. Most people are naturally inclined to innovate. When they don’t, it’s because they’ve been suppressed by other people, by outside forces, or by a lack of awareness of the power of their own ability. WILLOW: Obviously, any person or entity can say they’re innovative, but what makes a culture truly innovative? Making a cultural change is a humongous challenge. It’s akin to boiling the ocean. In the for-profit sector, many governments have tried to legislate innovation with tax breaks, incubators, and venture capital funds. You can’t control and engineer the process. In any organization, for-profit or not-for-profit, you can’t innovate by mandate. Innovation has to come from a kind of desire-to-change-the-world spirit that just wants to burst out of your heart. The real question is what do you do with this kind of spirit: stifle it, sterilize it, or let it flourish? Obviously, I advocate flourish. My observation is that the richest vein for this kind of spirit is young people. It’s because they don’t know what they don’t know yet; they’re trying to change the world not preserve a comfortable status quo; and they are less encumbered by mortgages, putting kids through school, etc. So to foster innovation, you need to empower — or at least listen to — young people. In church terms, I would advocate more “youngers” and less “elders” — heretical as this may seem. WILLOW: “Innovation” is a hot buzzword right now. Type it into Amazon.com’s search engine and you’ll get more than 187,000 books with that word in their title. Companies and churches are injecting it into their materials. What is it about innovation that makes everyone want to jump onto the bandwagon? For the authors, it’s royalties. I don’t know if “everyone” wants to jump on the bandwagon. Many people say they want innovation but are threatened by it. If you really think about it, the riskiest path is to not innovate and to not take risks. But this is, at the very least, counter-intuitive. Many people want to jump on the innovation bandwagon because it’s in our DNA to want to make things better. WILLOW: Hundreds of years ago, the most innovative art, thinking, and action came from the Church. Today, many would argue that the Church has lost its innovative edge. Why do you think that is? Partly, it’s because the past often looks better than the present and the near future. Every generation says, “We were never like that when we were young.” Yeah, right. Like back in the 50s, no one drank, smoked, or swore! Frankly, it’s a waste of time to cogitate on if/why the Church has lost its innovative edge. Why waste brain cells on this? What matters is moving forward because historians are seldom innovative. That being said, rather than try to make “churches” more innovative — that is, the entire body of churches — people should focus on the church they attend. Even better would be focusing on their particular group within their particular church; for example, social justice, singles, kids, young adults, divorce recovery, whatever. If one part of a church innovates, the other parts will too. This is because of the competitiveness of the human spirit and because a spark of innovation will give hope to the hopeful — thereby encouraging more innovation. Then if one church innovates, other churches in the area will innovate too — or die. WILLOW: Someone once said “Las Vegas has nothing to say but a million ways to say it. The church has everything to say, but fails to say it.” In the technological age we live in — with so many competing messages — what does the church need to do to rise above the “noise?” I would say that many churches think they have everything to say and they say it in a million ways. This is a marketing challenge. In three or four words, what does it mean to believe in God? To be a Christian? Volvo equals safety. Porsche equals engineering. Toyota equals quality. What does God equal? If you ask 10 Christians this question, you’ll get 12 answers. There’s no way that all churches will get together and decide on one message. However, getting back to the single church level, what does your church stand for? Pick one thing and stick with it. That would be a good start. The market for churches, just like cars, isn’t unified. Otherwise, we could have just one church and just one model of car. We need hundreds of flowers blossoming — that is, many different kinds of churches serving people in different ways. Sacrilegious as this may sound, they may have to compete for “market share” because at the end of the day, you either go to one church or another. Hopefully, this isn’t in a cut throat way because, after all, churches have a higher calling than Apple, Microsoft, and Google. But a particular church has to stand for something. Also, beside competing for the same pie, the real upside is to create a bigger pie. That is, to serve the unchurched. Christianity has about a 30 percent “market share,” right? Churches shouldn’t just duke it out for the 30 percent, but go after the other 70 percent! WILLOW: You worked at Apple back in the days when Apple’s epitaph was being written daily. Today, Apple is known as one of the most innovative companies in the world. How does an organization — or a church for that matter — continue to innovate and endure when the cards might be stacked against it? First, you have to believe that innovation is necessary. Second, you have to believe that innovation is possible. Third, you have to have a leader who has the vision, passion, and courage to innovate. Finally, you need a cadre of people who are willing to work very hard. WILLOW: What are some cautions you might have for churches that want to be more innovative? Everyone knows the dangers of innovation — indeed these dangers are used to perpetuate the status quo. The most common dangers are failure and upsetting the elders. However, if you don’t fail and if you don’t upset the elders, you’re not taking enough chances. Not innovating is more dangerous than innovating. The opposite of innovation is not death; it’s mediocrity. In fact, death — or a near-death experience — might be a better outcome than mediocrity because people are forced to rebuild or move on. By contrast, people can cling to mediocrity indefinitely. The Art of Innovation What does it take to turn ideas into action? How do you create an organization that’s going to change the world? Guy Kawasaki’s “The Art of the Start” offers, in part, these tips. 1. Make meaning. Determine exactly how you are going to make the world a better place. There are only three ways to do this: create good things, end bad things, or perpetuate existing good things. 2. Make mantra. Don’t write a50-word mission statement — no one in your organization can remember it; select three or four words that clearly tell what you do. 3. Jump to the next curve. Don’t be content by doing things 10 percent better; do them 10 times better by jumping to the next curve. 4. Roll the DICEE. Great innovation, in products, services, or churches, is Deep, Intelligent, Complete, Elegant, and Emotive. 5. Don’t worry, be snappy. You can’t wait for the perfect day to launch the perfect program; as soon as you’ve jumped the curve, “ship it” to your members. 6. Don’t be afraid of polarizing people. Great innovations polarize people; some will love it, some will hate it. That’s OK. If you try to make everyone happy, you’ll end up with mediocrity. 7. Let a hundred flowers blossom. You may think you know exactly who will use your innovation and what they’ll do with it. But you really don’t, so sow fields, not window boxes. 8. Churn, baby, churn. Once you’ve “shipped” your innovation, it’s time to evolve it by fixing “bugs” and tweaking it. 9. Niche thyself. The goal is to provide a unique innovation that’s of great value to some of your members. If you try to reach everyone, you’ll reach no one. 10. Don’t let the naysayers grind you down. The naysayers, if there are any, are going to tell you it can’t be done, shouldn’t be done, and isn’t necessary. Ignore these people and do it anyway. Further Reading The Art of the Start Cuts through the theoretical and theories and gets down to the real-world tactics of pitching, positioning, branding, recruiting, bootstrapping, and rainmaking. Rules for Revolutionaries Intended for anyone who wants to catalyze innovation and change, focusing on how to create products and services and introduce them to the marketplace. Selling the Dream How to evangelize a product, service, or organization. The Macintosh Way Gives the idealist in everyone a chance to break the chains of mediocrity. Top