I’m always amazed at our local talent, one being Incline Village resident Terry Jones, who founded Travelocity, is currently on the board of Kayak.com, and travels around the world sharing his ideas on how to run a successful business. Last year, he published a book on his business strategies, “On Innovation: Turning ON Innovation in your culture, teams and organization.” As the title suggests, ideas might flow, but unless the culture, team, and organization is innovative, an idea might not come to fruition and an organization might not run to its full potential. In seven sections, Jones introduces 72 “ideas,” concepts that speak to those who have a good idea, but don’t know where to start or how to implement it or build a solid, thriving team. With section titles such as “Allow Failure – Harvest Learning,” “Turn Customers into Sentries,” and “Turn the Organization on Its Side.” Jones backs up each “idea” section with two to three “Questions to Kick-Start Innovation,” which are highlighted in a text box.
Jones begins his book with a piece of advice he repeats throughout, “You won’t get anywhere if you don’t create an environment where employees can let go of yesterday and grab on to tomorrow.” Enter the 21st century, he advises, and learn what’s out there. Many people don’t want to move out of their comfort zones, Jones says, addressing new ideas with “But, we’ve always done it this way.” He understands the hesitation to vary known practices, but in order to grow business, change must occur. Other ideas Jones confronts are in strategies such as “Idea 11: How Do You Select Members of Your Innovative Team?” In this scheme, he suggests that a company should be willing to hire misfits and rebels.
“Our initial Travelocity team was like that,” he writes. “They were self-described rebels who had self-selected to work on a risky project.” In the following chapter, Jones also mentions hiring “rock stars,” experts in their fields. Jones also strongly believes in walking in another’s shoes, encouraging every employee and manager to work in each other’s departments in order to experience how each division thinks and acts.
Jones, 64, began his business career as a travel agency receptionist, “printing tickets and such, starting at the bottom.” Taking the lead from his boss, he co-founded an agency that specialized in travel to the Soviet Union. Later, he got involved in computers, selling SABRE, an internal reservation system, to travel agents. SABRE is one of the biggest computer systems in the world and was a big part of American Airlines’ profits. While at SABRE, he advanced to become vice president of applications development and vice president of product development. In 1996, he left SABRE and led a team to launch the popular website booking site Travelocity, where he was president and CEO until 2002. Today, this mover and shaker is chairman of Kayak.com, a website that compares hundreds of travel options in one easily searchable database. He lectures worldwide and serves on multiple boards of directors, including the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, which he chairs.
When Jones was asked to advise those interested in starting a new company, he said, “Find something that frustrates you, an unmet need, and see if you can turn that idea into a business. That’s what we did at Kayak. Customers wanted to search everywhere and then buy directly from the airlines, so we built a company to do just that.” An avid reader, Jones also suggests that people read often and widely. The more widely you read, he said, the more you will connect the dots of what you are reading, and insightful ideas will begin to appear.
For those who are looking for a simple “how to” book from an experienced traveler and businessman, “On Innovation” provides plenty of suggestions on how to get an idea out into the world, successfully.
To learn more about Terry Jones and cultivating an innovative environment, go to tbjones.com.
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