Wealth creation secret: Idea, Iteration, Improvement
While reading the book Innovation, by Curtis Carlson, a question popped in my head: why are most employees poor?
Even if you make a good salary and it increases steadily over the years, you might actually lose because your time is becoming more valuable (for example, you might get married, have kids, establish a family, etc.). So although the work is more or less the same as you progress in your career, once you have a family and children to take care of, the opportunity cost becomes much greater.
Not surprisingly, many people decline a promotion to higher management, since it involves more time AWAY from the family.
Yet, employees are incapable of quitting the corporate "rat race."
Carlson's book gave me a clue as to why employees are not getting richer. That is, they are not able to create enough customer value or wealth to be able to become independent from corporate employers.
For some reason, the minute an employee quits a job (or is fired), he/she becomes worthless. I don't mean worthless as a human being -- because every person has infinite worth -- but worthless in the sense of "not being able to independently create value."
Before I go further, let me mention that the sequence "idea, iteration, improvement" is a powerful innovation technique that has made many business people exceedingly rich.
Carlson talks about that sequence in more detail, but what it means is that first, you've got to have an idea of a product or service.
Next, you have to iterate, that is, create a physical manifestation of that idea. That manifestation should then be placed IN THE HANDS of a customer.
Finally, by observing how the customer reacts to that prototype product or service, you can engage in a process of continuous improvement.
Now back to the predicament of employees, who are unable to independently create value.
Why can't they create more value and wealth, in order to break free from the corporate employment system?
The reason is that they are not taught the innovation process I just described above (idea, iteration, improvement).
Most people cannot define innovation, and even among people who have an idea of what innovation is, they don't have a system for consistently producing new product or service ideas.
Note: Google has such a system. They encourage employees to spend 20% of their time working on personal projects they enjoy and find interesting. Wow, what an innovative culture!
Innovation (that is, generating ideas, formulating and creating physical iterations, and continuously/systematically improving the new products or services) is the KEY to getting richer.
Innovation is the key to prosperity whether you are an employee, a free agent or an entrepreneur.
However, each phase (idea, iteration, improvement) requires a lot of knowledge and the mastery of the relevant techniques or work methods.
Even if you make a good salary and it increases steadily over the years, you might actually lose because your time is becoming more valuable (for example, you might get married, have kids, establish a family, etc.). So although the work is more or less the same as you progress in your career, once you have a family and children to take care of, the opportunity cost becomes much greater.
Not surprisingly, many people decline a promotion to higher management, since it involves more time AWAY from the family.
Yet, employees are incapable of quitting the corporate "rat race."
Carlson's book gave me a clue as to why employees are not getting richer. That is, they are not able to create enough customer value or wealth to be able to become independent from corporate employers.
For some reason, the minute an employee quits a job (or is fired), he/she becomes worthless. I don't mean worthless as a human being -- because every person has infinite worth -- but worthless in the sense of "not being able to independently create value."
Before I go further, let me mention that the sequence "idea, iteration, improvement" is a powerful innovation technique that has made many business people exceedingly rich.
Carlson talks about that sequence in more detail, but what it means is that first, you've got to have an idea of a product or service.
Next, you have to iterate, that is, create a physical manifestation of that idea. That manifestation should then be placed IN THE HANDS of a customer.
Finally, by observing how the customer reacts to that prototype product or service, you can engage in a process of continuous improvement.
Now back to the predicament of employees, who are unable to independently create value.
Why can't they create more value and wealth, in order to break free from the corporate employment system?
The reason is that they are not taught the innovation process I just described above (idea, iteration, improvement).
Most people cannot define innovation, and even among people who have an idea of what innovation is, they don't have a system for consistently producing new product or service ideas.
Note: Google has such a system. They encourage employees to spend 20% of their time working on personal projects they enjoy and find interesting. Wow, what an innovative culture!
Innovation (that is, generating ideas, formulating and creating physical iterations, and continuously/systematically improving the new products or services) is the KEY to getting richer.
Innovation is the key to prosperity whether you are an employee, a free agent or an entrepreneur.
However, each phase (idea, iteration, improvement) requires a lot of knowledge and the mastery of the relevant techniques or work methods.
posted by Super Peter at 12:52 AM
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