Resources for Innovation – The Power of Constraints

The wise stewardship of resources is the task of any organization. How those resources are deployed for maximum gain is the key responsibility of organizational leadership. The only problem with this concept is what happens when wise stewardship comes up hard against the necessary risking of resources for the material benefit of innovation? Unfortunately, in the present “economic unpleasantness” as a dear friend keeps calling the train wreck that is this great recession, stewardship of resources has digressed to hoarding of resources. Save for one notable exception – human resources.

We don’t have the energy to exploit…anything
The greatest tragedy in America is not the destruction of our natural resources, though that tragedy is great. The truly great tragedy is the destruction of our human resources by our failure to fully utilize our abilities, which means that most men and women go to their graves with their music still in them.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

The crisis in our economy is shedding harsh light on the absence of any true understanding of how to overcome the organizational need to protect the bottom-line while also leveraging the most creative asset any organization can access, its people. Instead, jobs have been cut in record numbers. The unemployment rate, not just in the USA but in many Western economies, is approaching record highs. All the while the usual levers are being pulled. Reductions in capacity. Reductions in expenditure. Reductions in our expectations for a more positive future. And this means that a pervasive, innovation averse, risk-avoiding mindset is prevailing in most quarters. It’s simply all, too, hard.

As an aside, it is fascinating that one of the major beneficiaries of the economic downturn is global climate change. Apparently the idling of the voraciousness of the economic engines which has been burning so hot last decade has been a significant boon to the limitation of the emission of greenhouse gases. Thank you for small mercies, I guess. That problem set is still not solved but we seem to have bought some additional time in which to avoid doing anything meaningful. It’s too complex. And hard.

What happens when people stop, well, everything? A cascade occurs, and not a good one. It certainly doesn’t mean resources become instantly abundant and available. No, we can thank the remarkable export of the Toyota Production System (as Lean initiatives) across many manufacturing sectors for the fantastic ability to only produce to demand. This latest cascade means everything becomes scarce. There is no excess. Nothing with which an innovator may play, or test, or prototype. Just like a faucet being turned off. The flow of goods, services, and money has slowed to a trickle or even stopped altogether.

All we are left with, all that we have available to us, are the people who comprise our organizations. And what have we done to them? Nothing save lower their expectations or show them the door.

Serve more than one purpose
The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one’s opportunities and make the most of one’s resources.
- Marquis de Vauvenargues

Let’s reframe the challenge. What if we take as true that oft-quoted phrase, “our people are our greatest assets”? How does that mindset begin to influence the choices we make about innovating our way out of our current mess?

One creative agency in Toronto, Zulu Alpha Kilo, decided that the best way to advertise itself was to actually take what it does to the streets. They setup a “box” in Dundas Square in the heart of downtown Toronto and on the first really cold day of the season in the city. They placed a team of eight interdisciplinary thinkers into the plywood box where they solicited creative challenges from passers-by – over 117,000 in all some of whom waited over two hours to present their challenges. Twelve hours later not only had the team presented solutions for many problems they had also cracked open the façade of a design agency so the public could see the workings inside. Not a bad piece of self-promotion either to put creativity on display.

Organizations like the agency above that choose to create a meaningful creative bargain with employees seem to be finding their way. Organizations like Google, SAS and 3M, which even in downturns still expect their employees to devote a percentage of their work time to personal projects, also will continue to see the benefit of a similar trust over time. It will be returned in goodwill, enthusiasm and commitment, to say nothing of the possibility of new products and services that might drive top and bottom-line growth. Their people are asked to do more than one thing, they have a “job” to do for sure, but they are also expected to explore and contribute in other ways, too.

While contemplating setting new expectations for our human resources why not also consider setting the expectation that all resources be used in more than one way. Paper being reused for notepads is nothing new, but what about expired materials such as this novel idea from a design student involving expired prophylactics. Yes, the humble condom as haute couture. But the concept of reuse is nothing new. Making it an embedded and expected part of all aspects of production and trade is.

Many technology firms are leading the way. Oracle is continuing to support the work that Sun began even after the acquisition; usually this would be a signal for abandoning “non-additive” projects to the bottom-line. HP has also made reuse a fundamental part of its approach to its business. Now if only “Big Ink” could figure out a way to reclaim the ink on paper destined for recycling! It seems Xerox has a similar idea but has taken a different tact.

These efforts are good first steps but this mindset needs to be seeded as widely as possible. The innovation required to do that may point to a way out of the economic doldrums and toward a vibrant alternative economic reality closer to the cycles presented in William McDonough’s “Cradle to Cradle”. Which doesn’t begin to cover what might be accomplished by repurposing from the private sector to the public sector or from the for-profit to the non-profit.

It’s now how much – it’s how well
Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.
- Peter Drucker

Many artists relish resource constraints, although they might initially grumble at the limitations. Instead they often apply themselves within limitations to create art that is unique and surprising. Sometimes those constraints aren’t only material; their constraints may be social, cultural or even political. Yet still they find a path to success by not taking the box they are handed at face value. This ability to look beyond what is in hand to what is possible with that resource applies in all cricumstances in which innovation can and must thrive.

The work of Inc. Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Kevin Surace the CEO of Serious Materials, is a case in point. He is picking up bankrupt firms that have been strip-mined of all their resources (and their human resources previously carelessly set aside.)He is willing to invest in the R&D and building out production capacity to ensure his company’s long-term health. He is willing to forgo profit to do so, too. He is applying his limited resources, placing bets now, to ensure his economic future. How many other companies are willing to do that today?

Here’s the thing. If we don’t invest time, energy, effort and our resources in innovation now, when we need it most, we are in for a long and painful ride. We need to take the time to innovate. To find the better way. Those who do will be most successful in the long-term. Not because they happen upon a great idea, but because the habit of spending resources on innovation even during down times sets a pattern for revitalization that is necessary for any organization.