Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World's Most Successful Businesses

202 Pages·2013·0.97 MB·English

by  Gary Shapiro

NINJA INNOVATION
THE TEN KILLER STRATEGIES OF THE WORLD’S MOST
SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSES
GARY SHAPIRO
Dedication
To my sons: Steve, Doug, Mark, and Max. Each wonderful . . . each different. This book is for them
and their future children. Ninjas make things happen. And so will they!
Contents
Dedication
Preface

Introduction: The Way of the Ninja
Chapter One: Your Goal Is Victory
Chapter Two: Your Strike Force
Chapter Three: In War, Risk Is Unavoidable
Chapter Four: Prepare for Battle
Chapter Five: The Art of War
Chapter Six: The Ninja Code
Chapter Seven: Ninjas Break the Rules
Chapter Eight: Innovate or Die
Chapter Nine: An Army of Ninjas
Chapter Ten: The Shadow Warrior
Epilogue: The International CES Killer Strategy

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
About the Author
Also by Gary Shapiro
Copyright
About the Publisher
Preface
M
ANY YEARS AGO I achieved my black belt in tae kwon do. The
accomplishment marked the end of a journey that had pushed me to the limits of
my mental and physical abilities. The test for every belt on the ladder from
yellow to black was an intensely exhausting experience. Your forms had to be
perfect, your placements precise, and your discipline unwavering. And when you
were finally finished, battered but proud of victory, it started all over again.
There was always another kick to learn and another kata to master on the path to
a higher belt. The test for the black belt, however, which signifies the repudiation
of fear, far surpassed anything I could have imagined.
But my own test was nothing compared to the experience of watching my
seven-and eight-year-old sons vie for their black belts. With my stomach in
knots, I wanted to rush onto the mat and protect my boys during their sparring
matches. But my then-wife and I held steady, because we knew that they were
learning an important lesson: accomplishment requires sacrifice and risk.
While all of my family was fortunate enough to receive their black belts, I
knew we were in the minority in the class. Many students dropped out after
receiving a milestone belt. Others tested repeatedly for black belts but failed
over and over. For most, the katas and skills proved too difficult. Sometimes, the
board just won’t break.
Along the way, I entered a few tournaments, which were scarier and riskier
than I had imagined. Practice is one thing; doing it live is something else. But
those were the only times I displayed my tae kwon do skills in combat. I have
never had to use them in actual self-defense, nor have my sons—to my
knowledge at least. This might lead some to wonder: Why would you go through
all the personal anguish just for a few colored cotton belts? Good question.
Originally, I studied tae kwon do because I thought it would be a great
experience to go through with my sons and then-wife. But as we progressed
together, it hit me that this wasn’t just about them. I was becoming a more
focused, disciplined person. I am not by nature an idle guy, so I didn’t need tae
kwon do to rejuvenate my passion for work or family. What it did do was shape
the way I approached my job; it put everything into a framework that I have
since been able to rely on for decades.
If I had to define this framework, it would go something like this: to be
successful, one must set goals; to achieve these goals, one must form a strategy;
and to fully execute that strategy one must never let failures get in the way.
Indeed, one must use those failures to get better. I learned this simple formula
through my study of tae kwon do, and I’ve continually applied it to my career
long after hanging up my gi.
But there’s another element to this framework that defies a simple definition.
It is innovation. To be successful, one has to move beyond what has come
before. One must take the lessons learned through study, experience, and failure,
and apply them in ways that change the game, so to speak. You cannot be
successful in tae kwon do if all you do is repeat what you are taught. A beginner
white belt learns this early, when he or she must spar for the first time. Your
competition won’t play fair; it won’t do what you expect; and it will always,
always fight back. When you’re on the mat, you must assume your competition
knows what you know; that it too has a strategy for victory. The only way you
can defeat your opponent is if you do something he does not expect; you must
innovate or die.
This happens to also be the fundamental lesson I have learned from thirty
years working and leading the most dynamic industry on the planet: the
consumer electronics industry. You could measure our success through dollars
and cents—and indeed, these are impressive in their own right. But that’s not
how I measure our achievements. For me, as for all of our members, success is
defined by reaching a previously insurmountable height. What’s been
remarkable is that CE companies have done this again and again. The world that
we live in today is unrecognizable to that of just twenty years ago. From smart
phones and e-readers to HDTV and wireless broadband, from digital cameras
and MP3 players to tablet computers and motion-detection gaming—nothing is
ever static; no product is ever immune to competition; and we can never tell
where we’ll be in five years. The simple reason: innovation.
Which is not to discount other highly successful companies in other
industries, some of which I will discuss in the following pages. But my
experience has been with consumer electronics and I have been fortunate to
witness this industry develop into the colossus that it is today. And as I’ve
watched my industry rise, I’ve seen some of the best business models ever
devised. I’ve also witnessed a fair share of pretty bad ones. I’ve observed
companies shine as bright as a shooting star, only to flame out just as quickly.
I’ve seen other companies rise and fall and rise again, like the proverbial
phoenix. And then there are those companies whose only trajectory is ever
upward, whose employees and products are part of the American tale.
Not so long ago it struck me that these stories were worth telling. Particularly
during a time of economic uncertainty, where millions of Americans are out of
work and pessimistic about our future, I realized there was a need to remember
what made us into the greatest nation on earth. In 2011, I published The
Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream. In it, I laid out a
strategy for the country that would not only put innovation at the heart of U.S.
economic policy but also reinvigorate America’s great innovative spirit.
The Comeback outlines the fundamentals that can lead to economic success
on a national scale. In other words, at a very high, stratospheric level. What
about the individuals and enterprises on the ground whose collective actions
have built America and will fuel our national resurgence? Surely, I thought, there
are some lessons we can learn (or remember) from those who changed our lives
in both good economic times and bad. After all, I must have some notion,
considering that for thirty years I have worked in an industry whose successes
and failures are the stuff of legend.
It was in analyzing that question that this present book came to be. The
challenge was to find the common traits that connected these successes with one
another. A book that simply documents successful companies without asking
what made them so successful wasn’t particularly interesting to me. Then I
recalled my own framework for success and wondered if it would apply to the
stories I wanted to tell. I learned my framework through the study of tae kwon
do—which, stripped to its core, is the study of how to be a warrior. But not just
any warrior, rather a highly disciplined, strategic, and passionate warrior. In
other words, a ninja.
In the following pages, I hope to explain better what I mean by the term ninja
innovation. What do these ancient warriors of feudal Japan have to tell us about
success in business? What can we learn from them that might help rejuvenate
our passion for innovation? It is this connection—between the ancient ninja
warrior and today’s innovation warrior—that is the purpose of this book. It is the
story of the entrepreneur who toils away at an idea; it is the story of a CEO who
saves a company on the brink of collapse; it is the story of the enterprise that has
everything going for it, yet fails anyway; it is the story of a corporation that time
and again reinvents itself to stay dominant. What ties these tales together? What
defines them? What separates them? What can we learn from the successes as
well as the failures?
Ninja Innovation will provide the answers.
Introduction
The Way of the Ninja
Nothing Has to Happen
I
N JUNE 1967, the first trade show devoted to consumer electronics was held in
New York City. At the time, consumer electronics (CE) was an $8 billion
industry ($55 billion in today’s dollars) that centered on the TV and hi-fi
markets. But the industry was also experiencing something of a downturn, as
radio sales were declining sharply, and several of the industry’s major players
had made highly publicized layoffs.
It was in this uncertain environment—a growing but not yet secure CE
industry—that Jack Wayman, an Electronic Industries Association (EIA)
executive, determined that a specialized CE trade show was necessary. And so in
the early summer at the Americana and Hilton Hotels in midtown Manhattan,
fifteen thousand manufacturers, distributors, and retailers walked among a
hundred exhibits occupying a hundred thousand square feet and featuring more
than a thousand new products ranging from “$8 radios the size of a pack of
cigarettes to $15,000 room-length stereophonic units,” according to coverage of
the show in the New York Times.
On display were a wide variety of TVs, transistor and tabletop radios, record
players, and console furniture units that combined all these advanced audiovisual
(AV) components. The latest tech rages were stereo audiotape player/recorders
that used “cartridges” or “Playtape”—the then-new compact cassette format—
and a growing number of devices that relied on solid-state components,
including integrated circuitry rather than vacuum tubes. According to the Times,
there was “a television set, radio, or tape recorder to suit any taste or price.”
Fast-forward forty-five years. That specialized trade show for the CE industry
had grown into the International CES (Consumer Electronics Show), the largest
trade show in the Americas. Here’s a sample of one of dozens of stories the
Times filed from Las Vegas at the 2012 International CES: “There were a million
gorgeous new Android phones and Windows phones, many of them 4G
(meaning faster Internet in big cities),” one report read, with slight exaggeration.1
“Microsoft revealed that its popular Kinect, which plugs into an Xbox and lets
you play games just by moving your arms and legs in front of the TV, will now
be available for Windows computers.”
Android, Windows, Kinect, Xbox, 4G? To a time traveler from 1967 these
words would be meaningless. But we know immediately what they are: a cell
phone, a computer operating system, video game consoles, and the term for