The Academy Award®-winner movie  “The Pirates of the Caribbean”  is one of the top blockbusters of the industry. If you didn’t watch the movie, do yourself a favor and go see it after reading this article! Featuring a world-class soundtrack, breathtaking special effects and famous actors like Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley and Johnny Depp, the movie tells a compelling story of love, adventures and, of course, pirates!

Additionally, if you look more closely, the movie also features some insightful lessons on innovation from Captain Jack Sparrow himself.

Let’s begin.

Lesson #1: Set clear & ambitious goals combined with a plan that’s easy to remember.

Without clear goals you’re easily lost. If you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish, how do you expect to innovate? This seems common sense, but many companies today are so desperately trying to innovate that they forget what they’re trying to reach. Remember that innovation isn’t the end of the journey. Companies famous for innovation don’t publish a new innovative product and say: “Finally we’ve reached our goal!” No. They say: “Great job everyone. Now, what’s next?”. For these companies innovation it’s about the journey itself.

In the first movie of The Pirates of the Caribbean triology, Captain Jack Sparrow had a simple goal: “Become the captain of the Black Pearl.” Now you must understand, that Jack Sparrow used to be THE captain of the Black Pearl. At least until the crew mutinied and left him alone in a desert island. Alone with a gun that had only one bullet. This could be easily a major setback for anyone. But not for Jack Sparrow. He positively had no trace of doubt in his mind, that he would, once again, become the captain of The Black Pearl.

The plan? “Recruit a crew, steal a ship and go after the Black Pearl.” Simple and easy to remember.

Lesson #2: Use your resources wisely!

If you had unlimited access to resources, like time and money, the only limit for innovation would be your ability to use your creativity to create something of great value to a customer. Unless this is your case, you have to learn to use your resources wisely!

Don’t wait for the perfect conditions to set sail because they will never come. You’re just making excuses for not shipping. “Let’s talk things over.” That’s what we say to our family, friends and mentors before deciding if it’s the right time to launch a new business or a new product. However, we’re not searching for ways to make it work. We’re searching for ways to make it go away. Besides, if you don’t decide to do it, you won’t fail, right?

Take a lesson from Jack Sparrow. In the beginning of the “Curse of the Black Pearl” he barely reaches the local port with his little ship sinking. He had nothing besides his know-how and his will to win. Do you think that he sat down waiting for “the perfect conditions to arrive” or for “the right resources to appear”? NO! He knew his goals and his plan, so he went finding the resources he needed to make it happen.

Having limited resources isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it’s a good thing because it makes you focus on what you have, instead on what you don’t have. It’s also a great way to spark your creativity, which is an essential ingredient for innovation. Creativity comes when you absolutely need to solve a problem using the available tools.

Lesson #3: You’re going to fail!

What you do about failure is what makes you a success or a failure. If you’re trying to innovate, you are walking paths that few people have dared to take. And there’s a good reason for it. They are all afraid to fail! If you’re not failing, chances are that you’re not really achieving the best levels of innovation that you could be.

When something fails, you have a great opportunity to understand what went wrong and what you can do about it so it won’t happen again. It’s called learning experience for a reason. It’s also a good time to go back to your initial plan and make the necessary adjustments. The plan that started your journey and got you here, doesn’t have to be the same that will got you to your goals. Especially if your plan failed.  Sea conditions change. Wind changes. So should you. Adapt and move on.

Things will go wrong. That’s just part of life and a part of business. But the only way that you’re going to fail is if you quit. Watch any Pirates of the Caribbean movie and count how many times Jack Sparrow was caught and went to jail or worse.  How many times he faced near death experiences? Now, count how many times he decided to quit?

I understand that this is so easy to write and to watch in a big screen movie, but so hard to do. However, I do know that it’s also the key to innovate and win. Ask any great successful innovators. From Steve Jobs to Richard Branson. Ask them how many times they thought about quiting. It wouldn’t surprise me if they said a few times. Things get tough in business. But they still didn’t quit and they succeed!

So can you.

Lesson #4: Follow your passion

Jack Sparrow had one very special tool with him at all times. A compass. At first sight, it would seem like a broken compass. What’s the use for a compass that doesn’t point North? But you’re not trying to find North, are you? Jack Sparrow’s compass pointed to the thing that guided his journey: it pointed to the thing he wants most! It pointed to his passion!

It’s very hard to innovate in something that you’re not passionate about. This is true because with innovation comes a lot of hard work. If something hasn’t be done before you have a lot of things to complete. You’ll need determination, heart and discipline to do all the hard work before you begin to see the final results. Don’t fool yourself by thinking that all that it takes to innovate is to have a brilliant idea. An idea is the start not the end. The really hard work comes with the idea implementation. To make it happen.

Passion is the main motivator behind the greatest innovators of all time. Not money. Of course, that no one is in business to lose money. Money exists to measure the applause you get by the innovations you create, not to be the main goal of your efforts.

Lesson #5: Perfection is the enemy of innovation.

You don’t need the perfect ship. You don’t need the perfect crew. You don’t need the perfect weather conditions. What you do need is to get going!

If I didn’t follow this advice, the article that you’re reading right now, wouldn’t exist. (If I tried to perfect the article until the very last possible detail was covered, perhaps you wouldn’t even remember what the Pirates of the Caribbean movie was.) Do you think that the iPhone is a perfect product? Of course not. But is there such a thing as a perfect product? No. If Steve Jobs delayed the iPhone shipping the competition would beat him to the market. By the time he published the iPhone it would become obsolete. How many times someone has shipped something that you’ve already thought of? And you know why they did it? Very simple. Because they worked, they shipped and you did not.

What’s considered to be a curve jumping, paradigm shifting and world changing innovation today, isn’t necessarily true tomorrow. The pace of change today, fueled by constant technology breakthroughs, is unprecedented. In this kind of environment, time-to-market is a very important concept to understand if you want to innovate. Jack Sparrow knew this.  Steve Jobs knows this.  And so should you!

Be true to yourself. One of the reasons that you seek perfection is to find yet another excuse for not shipping. “Who wants to ship a good product? If we’re shipping anyway, then let’s ship perfection.” That doesn’t exist and you know it. You’re just too afraid to ship something that others will criticize. That’s understandable. Many people find fault like there was a reward for it. But if you’re more worried about the opinions of critics than worried about creating a world changing innovation, you’re in big trouble. No matter what you do. No matter how good your product is. It won’t be perfect for everybody. And that’s OK! If you’re try to please everybody you’ll destroy what makes your product different!

This happens all the time with Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean. He’s not worried about finding the perfect ship, the perfect crew and the perfect opportunity. He’s even less worried about what others think about him. However, he’s extremely focused on achieving his goals!

A great innovator called Henry Ford once said: “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” Don’t try to build a perfect product in one take. Improve it as you move towards your goals! Just get going!

Conclusion

In this article, I’ve showed you five simple but critical lessons for innovation, inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean story main character: Jack Sparrow.

Jack Sparrow was a pirate that, like every innovator, challenged the status quo all the time. This comes with a price: you’ll upset people in the process. Innovation involves change and the status quo hates change. An interesting question for you to ask yourself, to determine if you’re innovating is: “Who am I upsetting?” If the answer is no one, you’re not really innovating.

I really hope that you can take a few of Jack Sparrow’s lessons to heart and change the world!

-Bruno Coelho

Bruno Coelho is a Portuguese entrepreneur who loves Marketing, Innovation, Leadership, Customer Service and Entrepreneurship.  Read more from him at  http://bcoelho2000.blogspot.com” and find him on Twitter at @bcoelho2000

Photo Credit: Richard Winchell

This entry was posted on Friday, August 27th, 2010 at 1:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.