Catching the Innovation Wave

What the risk-taking, big-wave-surfing community has to teach executives about finding new ideas and riding the curl of growth

by John Hagel and John Seely Brown

• View Slide Show

On Jan. 12 surfers from around the world converged on Maverick's at Pillar Point, just a few miles from San Francisco, to challenge each other on the big waves that have made this a legendary surfing destination. The sixth Mavericks Surf Contest had been announced only forty-eight hours earlier to ensure optimal wave conditions for the contestants. Surfers from as far away as Australia, Brazil, and South Africa scrambled to make their way to this invitation-only competition. It was magical to watch these athletes challenge twenty-foot waves with an ease and grace that made it all seem so natural.

Beneath the surface, though, there is a different story here, one that contains important lessons for business executives. While all attention was on the athletes riding their surfboards, the technology and techniques used to master big wave surfing have evolved over decades, driven by dedicated, perhaps even obsessed, groups of athletes and craftsmen. Executives can gain significant insight into the innovation process by looking at this sport.

Find Your Relevant Edge

First, if you want to push your performance levels, find the relevant edge. In the case of big wave surfers there has been an ever-expanding search for the breaks that would produce bigger and rougher waves to test new board designs and surfing practices. In 1953 a group of Southern California surfers, including Greg Noll, inspired by newspaper photos of surfers tackling fifteen-foot waves, boarded flights to Hawaii and made the trek out to Oahu's Makaha Beach. There the warm water and gently tapered waves proved to be a fertile ground for big wave surfing. Major breakthroughs in performance did not occur in the milder surf of Malibu, but in the pounding surf of Hawaii's Waimea or Jaws, or the notorious Teahupoo break of Tahiti.

Following the lead of big wave surfers, business executives need to find relevant edges that will test and push their current performance. For example, companies making diesel engines and power generators should be actively engaged in finding ways to more effectively serve lower-income customers in remote rural areas of emerging economies. These demanding customers could prompt significant innovation in both product design and distribution processes in an effort to deliver greater value at lower cost. The innovations resulting from these efforts on the edge could lead to significant improvements in their product lines.

Assemble Innovations Hothouses

Second, attract motivated groups of people to these edges to work together around challenging performance issues. In the late 1950s, Waimea Bay, on the North Shore of Oahu, became the next test bed for athletes seeking to push the boundaries of big wave surfing. In the isolation of the North Shore, dedicated surfers spent eight to ten hours each day, every day, challenging themselves and each other on the big waves. The real advances in surfing technology and practices occurred at the breaks where surfers gathered and formed deep relationships over extended periods of time. They learned rapidly from each other and pushed each other to go to the next level.

Large companies have become very adept at establishing remote outposts in places like Beijing, Hyderabad, Haifa, and St. Petersburg to attract local talent and push forward challenging research and development projects. Often, though, these outposts either become disconnected from their parent companies or fail to establish deep links with other leading edge participants in the local area. The key challenge is to connect these company-owned facilities more effectively with their local environments as well as with each other through challenging and sustained innovation initiatives that build long-term, trust-based relationships.