the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said
that truth passes through three stages
ridicule than violent opposition finally
acceptance as if self-evident
I believe that innovative ideas will
pass for those same three stages I lived
this when I led a project called Orion
Orion looks at the things that delivery
driver needs to do by the way it stands
for on-road integrated optimization and
navigation it tries to figure out the
best way for a delivery driver to run
his or her route it first looks at the
stops that need to be served but some
things have to happen at specific times
like your errands on a weekend you need
to get to the bank before it closes
figuring this out is much more complex
than it appears and I'd like to give you
a little insight let's say you have six
things to do let's look at this
mathematically and understand what
complexity means from that perspective
there's seven hundred and twenty ways
you can do six things 720 different
orders to accomplish those tasks if you
have ten things to do the math says
there's now more than three million ways
to do that work and if we make it 12
almost 500 million ways to do just 12
things if this is surprising look how
many ways there are to do things as
tasks increase this is called
combinatorial explosion if you want to
see combinations explode let me show you
how many ways a UPS driver can run his
or her out look at that
it'll stop eventually trust me this is
one driver for one day there is no word
for this number in fact it's so large it
might as well be infinite and this is
where the idea for Orion sprung the
thought that people even professional
drivers can't think through these
alternatives but our scientists said
that operations research and advanced
mathematics could so we started a
project that would last a decade
eventually requiring 700 people to solve
a problem others didn't think we had
using mathematics on this scale I could
have just worn a target on my shirt
right so what does it take to
successfully innovate you obviously need
a good idea and great people but you do
need to be in an organization that
understands innovation and fortunately
for me way back in the 1950s our CEO
said that operations research was a key
to company's success even in an
organization though like mine with a
culture of innovation there will be
ridicule so you better have a deep
belief in your ideas and a very
thick-skinned I was called
pie-in-the-sky manager trying to make
rocket science work and people said we
were chasing rainbows I heard over and
over no computer can show a driver how
to deliver more efficiently and after
four years when the team really
struggled some colleagues thought I was
committing career suicide
one day after a meeting one of the best
people I've ever worked with followed me
into my office and she shut the door
behind her she had a pained look on her
face and she didn't want to sit down and
she said you know jack we've done a lot
together over the years
I love your vision and I love your
passion but you need to know everyone
thinks you're nuts
she said maybe I need to give up on
Orion well for 4 years there was
research there was trial and error
there were missteps and of course there
was criticism and I have no secret for
persisting through this stage it might
just need to be part of your DNA I know
that I don't like status quo and for as
long as I can remember I wanted to make
things better and I don't mean
incrementally better I mean next
generation better
I've spoken to lots of innovators and
they all seem to feel the same they
they're drawn to these type of hard
problems if we're easy to do someone
else would have already done it right in
those days there were way too many
evenings that I went home feeling maybe
they were right maybe this problem was
just too hard I made a point to shelter
the team from my doubt
I thought they needed to see me as a
rock in year 5 my belief in them and in
Orion paid off because it finally starts
working in the lab we now need to move
from research to development from theory
to practice we need to be a real project
and have an executive sponsor along
comes Chuck Chuck is a vice president
he's a great engineer and a great leader
and he has a track record of supporting
innovation so I set up a meeting and I
walked him through Orion step by step I
explained the breakthrough science and
when I put up my thank-you slide no
doubt in my mind this man was dazzled
Chuck sat up in his chair and he looked
at me really didn't have any emotion on
his face then he cleared his throat he
said so are you working on anything
important
I was deflated my heart sunk I I lost
the color from my face I'm sure and this
man my mentor didn't see what I did and
I assure you I didn't sleep a wink that
night well we met again the next morning
we wanted to show him a prototype that
we built over Ryan we went in a rental
car we'd wrote a drivers route using the
system about an hour into the ride
Orion does something counterintuitive it
decides it's going to drive right past
three deliveries and come back and do
them later a driver is never going to do
this see Orion thinks differently than
you and I it doesn't think about what's
the best thing to do now it thinks about
what's the best thing to do for the
whole day
Orion figured out that coming back here
later was going to cost a half a mile
now but the penalty of doing this work
at this moment meant we were going to
have a bigger problem later like maybe
not getting to the bank on time well I
wanted to explain to Chuck why Orion did
what it did the wheels were spinning and
I could see it on his face and he told
me to be quiet and he gave me his hand
like that
then all of a sudden like you see in a
movie I've got cartoon a light bulb goes
off over Chuck said and he said we've
been wrong all along and how we taught
drivers to deliver haven't we I said yes
he said this is big isn't it that's what
I've been trying to tell you Chuck
becomes Orion's greatest supporter he
sets up meetings throughout the
corporation with senior leaders we
demonstrate the system and Chuck would
work to get their buy-in and you'd think
with this kind of support the chatter
stops nope it only gets more pointed now
I hear well anybody can make this work
on a small scale you can't make a work
in the real world people would say this
can't be real I'm not buying the Ryan
kool-aid and then drinking it and during
one of our sessions one of chucks peers
said if you think anyone's going to like
this you're wrong this has no real
chance of success so how do you get past
this stage prove the skeptics wrong we
spent all of our time working on
transferring our knowledge our vision
and
passion for Orion to the field we worked
on communicating and educating we worked
on changing behavior and conversations
and we measured the impact you know I'm
often asked how do we sell senior
leaders on taking a chance on this
innovation unless it we didn't
innovation is not a pet rock that needs
to be sold no one wants to be sold to
but everybody loves to buy give them
something to buy I remember the day we
showed a Ryan to our most senior leaders
and a very influential man walked up to
the front of the room and he studied the
screen he said you know Jack this is
impressive I'm assuming that these
savings are for a five-year period no
that's just for one year today
Orion is seen as self-evident when fully
deployed it's going to reduce 100
million miles driven a year that's 10
million gallons of fuel that won't be
purchased and a hundred thousand metric
tons of co2 that doesn't go into the
atmosphere we will reduce between 300
and 400 million dollars of cost
I honestly still pinch myself every time
I think about this I'm often sharing our
learnings with Orion with others of
countless people and they all nod their
heads when I talk about the importance
of teams and culture and prototypes and
of course change management but the
thought that resonates most with them is
when I talk to them about getting past
the ridicule and the opposition that
Schopenhauer mentions see at the
beginning people are going to go this
idea is crazy it doesn't work when you
keep going and get traction they'll say
well this is just too different and
they'll dig in their heels and they'll
fight the change when it works they go
this is obvious you all weren't so smart
I tell them an innovator needs to be
willing to look foolish to the crowd
this is a picture of a plaque in my
office
it says chaos where brilliant dreams are
born before the beginning of great
brilliance there must be chaos before a
person does something great he or she
must be willing to look foolish to the
crowd and I'm proud to have played the
fool thank you