What does it truly mean to innovate? Sure, the concept of innovation, overused as it is, often elicits eye rolls rather than inspiration. Yet in order to foster positive change—both in the folding carton industry and the broader world—innovation is crucial.
PPC’s Design & Innovation Community recently hosted a webinar featuring Matt McLelland, VP of Sustainability and Innovation at Covenant Logistics, to dive into the topic of innovation. Matt works with senior leaders at his company and across various industries to help them think about their business from various perspectives. That way they don’t miss out on lucrative opportunities that can lead to change and growth.
Three Types of Innovation
Just like trying to describe a color to someone who only sees black and white, innovation can be tough to define. However, Matt implies that innovation is something you can recognize once you see it. So, what are the factors that signal innovation?
Matt explained that there are three types of innovation: core, adjacent, and transformational. Core innovation is fixing or altering an existing process. Matt stressed that even though innovation may look laborious, it does not have to be hard. Giving an example of core innovation, Matt discussed how a fast-food restaurant moved its soft drink station from behind the cashier counter to the opposite side of the establishment; this simple tweak in room layout made all the difference in terms of customer experience, functionality, ease, and speed of receiving food.
Adjacent innovation occurs when a company leverages its existing capacities to move into a new space. Matt referred to Delta Airlines as an example of adjacent innovation when they developed their own travel site, Delta Vacations, which helps people book curated vacation packages all over the world.
Finally, there’s transformational innovation that is not related to one’s existing business and is completely new. Matt referred to Apple’s launch of iTunes as transformational innovation: it wholly and forever changed the way we ingest music.
Two Catalysts of Innovation
Matt shared two important catalysts that can jumpstart innovation. First, companies should encourage innovative thinking from the bottom up, so all employees have a chance to be involved in the creative process. A perfect example of this method can be summarized in three glorious words: Flaming Hot Cheetos. Now the number one snack in the world, Flaming Hot Cheetos was born in a test kitchen by Richard Montañez, a janitor at Frito-Lay. His creation demonstrates the power of bottom-up innovation, and Montañez even became the first Latino frontline worker to be promoted to an executive at Frito-Lay. Good ideas are simply good ideas, no matter who or where they come from.
Crisis can also be a potent catalyst for positive change. During crisis, people must quickly band together to develop efficient solutions for the problems at hand. One of the redeeming aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic has been watching people innovate in overdrive, striving to help others in creative and productive ways. Some recent examples include distilleries creating hand-sanitizer in order to supplement the shortage at the onset of the pandemic, New Balance creating masks for frontline workers, and Dyson making ventilators to ensure every COVID patient had a fighting chance. Even the paperboard industry got involved by producing face shields to keep doctors and healthcare workers safe.
Taking the Chance
A major takeaway from Matt’s presentation is that innovation requires people to take calculated risks and chances. Matt poignantly said, “Being wrong might hurt you a bit, but being slow will kill you.” We must be willing to fail in order to push ourselves forward. This, along with taking different perspectives into account and looking for key catalysts all make for productive innovation.
So, the next time you pop open a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos, think about the innovation that took place to make that bag a reality, and smile knowing that you have the power within you to evoke positive (and delicious) change, too.
The Paperboard Packaging Council’s (PPC) Design & Innovation Community is a peer-to-peer network where designers at every stage of their career are encouraged to connect, learn, and explore the role of design and innovation in the paperboard packaging industry. Learn more about this specialized community of interest here: https://paperbox.org/about/communities-of-interest/design-innovation/