Innovation Folklore & Fairytales – Self deception and the stories we tell
July 6, 2010 by Andrew (Drew) · 1 Comment
The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best – and therefore never scrutinize or question.
- Stephen Jay Gould
As a process to connect people and transmit ideas within organizations, effective communication is essential for fostering innovation. 
Aristotle told us, nearly two and a half thousand years ago, that if communication is to change behavior, it must be grounded in the desires and interests of the receivers. Organizational life relies on folklore and myth to create a connection between its members that influences their behavior, including the creation of innovation.
Folklore serves as mental scaffolding to help us gather, sort, organize, and support our thinking about the world around us. From an organizational standpoint, folklore provides what Ronald A. Heifetz termed in Leadership Without Easy Answers a “holding environment.” A holding environment enables a witness to the folk tale to distance her or himself from present reality. It enables the conception of possibility, and is a key ingredient in sense-making. To understand how it can inform, or impede, innovation, it’s necessary to explore folkloric communication and the way it helps define boundaries for action and dialogue in the life of organizations.
A billion little pieces
The universe is made of stories, not atoms.
- Muriel Rukeyser
Storytelling reveals and explores the potential of individuals and the social context in which they find themselves. Stories open the organization to the power and relevance of innovation as the organization members seek to grow and evolve it over time. Folkloric communication helps to define organizational reality, providing deeper levels of meaning. By capturing reflections of the past and displaying them in ways that are engaging to the present, it brings to light the fundamental building blocks of the organization which can then be used for creative ends.
In their reflective work on the possibility of a more holistic model of organizational life, A Simpler Way, Rogers and Wheatley note that “most people have a desire to love their organizations.” This notion drives much of the latent, often unexamined, innovation in organizations. It also means that organizations embrace stories about themselves that may not be factually accurate.
From the big reveal to the big conceal
Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.
- Hannah Arendt
The identity of the organization as it is expressed–its potential–speaks to participants’ own potential. Participants, through folklore and stories, envision places for themselves in the organizational whole. They see ways they might add to, or live out, a part of organizational history. Organizational folktales become ways for building shared coherence, defining the “fundamental integrity about who we are.” The key is shared commitment to the intent behind a story. Regardless of whether it’s a tall tale or true account, if enough people in the organization recognize its validity, it will have enough weight to influence practices.
The boundary-making qualities of folklore show organizational participants how to transgress, to reach beyond them, and build new tales. The dual nature of folklore is its ability to define both the boundaries of organizations and the people within it. Folklore in this manner is fundamental to the culture of an organization through its constant interaction with the organization’s own social dynamics.
Culture is both a product and a process. As a product, it embodies accumulated wisdom from those who came before us. As a process, it is continually renewed and re-created as newcomers learn the old ways and eventually become teachers themselves.
– Bolman & Deal (1997, p. 217)
At its root, folklore in organizations is a metaphoric framing device, providing a context in which newcomers to organizations see ways they might engage with the organizational whole and leave their own mark. For this reason, the guardians of organizational folklore have significant power within it. They set the tone by determining when and where folklore may be revealed. They choose the focus of the delivery. Their opinions and attitudes directly color the way in which others may view the organization. Stories are a filter through which others catch glimpses of past organizational life. For any person new to an organization, this may be intimidating or welcoming, depending upon the manner with which the mythology is engaged.
It is vital, however, for people to feel at ease with an organization’s folklore if they are to become an engaged component of the systemic whole and add their own creative spark. Avoiding folktales, or denying their power within the organization, is the denial of an elemental part of how the organization operates. Folktales exist for numerous reasons, and each serves a unique purpose for the organization, be it framing patterns of behavior, orienting newcomers, or galvanizing the weary. For many organizations, however, the concept of a place for myth and folklore is not only foreign to them, it is anathema to their technical and rationalistic worldview. What need do they have for stories when there is a budget to be balanced and a headcount to be reduced?
There are a thousand stories in the naked city
To be a person is to have a story to tell.
- Isak Dinesen
The dark side of organization myths and folklore is that they may be the result of confabulation or impression management. They are tales told with willful, ill intent, and can play havoc with an organization’s success. Sometimes these tales may be used to create distractions, or to hide the true intent of storytellers.
In the case of confabulation, the reporting of events that never happened, it creates confusion and distraction. Rather than reinforcing a deep-seated truth about the organization which all may tap into as a source of inspiration, like the most powerful folktales, it causes chaos and distraction. Think of this factitious behavior as a mild version of Münchausen’s Syndrome, without the tendency to invent illness.
That and four bucks will get you a cup of Starbucks
Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.
- Robert McKee
A more hazardous practice is that of impression management. In both sociology and social psychology, impression management is a goal-directed conscious or unconscious process in which people attempt to influence the perceptions of others about a person, object, or event. Usually this practice is adopted for the improvement of their own standing within a given social context, and is accomplished by regulating and controlling information in social interactions: access to information, the way that information is presented, and the rules by which it might be shared are controlled.
The resulting distractions, as people seek to sort fact from fiction, cause confusion and frustration. One other victim in this process is the truth, without which clear thinking about innovation is sacrificed.
Impression management is usually synonymous with self-presentation, in which a person tries to influence the perception of their image. Impression management also refers to practices in professional communication and public relations, where the term is used to describe the process of forming a company’s or organization’s public image.
An organization that embraces its mythic traditions and openly embraces its folkloric symbols is one that is living with rare vigor. If the folklore and myth resident in an organization are used to galvanize and energize existing members, and create engagement points at which new members can find a way to contribute and belong, the resulting creativity and innovation will be remarkable.
A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled.
- Raymond Chandler
Innovation & Authority – Why accepting authority may mean dumbing down
June 28, 2010 by Andrew (Drew) · 1 Comment
Think for yourself and question authority.
- Timothy Leary
When introducing innovation into existing, stable organizations and systems, you must navigate around authority. Like the tip of an iceberg, the influence of authority across an organization may be quite visible, but that only accounts 
for a small percentage of the influence it has on the successful introduction of an innovation. The types of authority involved are not only the explicit authority that comes with subject-matter expertise, role definition, and position within a hierarchy, but also the perception of authority, real or imagined. That influence lies hidden from view but is no less profound, especially when you run into it.
Rather than dwell on the explicit authority, we’ll explore three different aspects of perceived authority: directed deference, projection bias, and asymmetric insight. Each bias offers a different slant on the challenge of authority to the viability of innovation. Once again, forewarned is forearmed.
I don’t know much, but I know I love you
Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
- Albert Einstein
There is an ongoing infatuation with the idea of the heroic leader in organizations that belies the true extent of their power and capability. Setting aside his tin ear and habit of only opening his mouth to exchange feet, Tony Hayward, the ever-hapless and likely short-term CEO of BP, is a case in point. While serving as a focal point for the ire of a nation looking on in horror at the disaster playing out in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of BP’s oil spill, Mr. Hayward can personally do little more than remain the public face of his company. Our expectations of him as a leader have not been met. For some reason, we actually expected him to correct the damage his company has wrought. A similar pattern exists in the way people appear to perceive President Obama. In both cases, the circumstances these leaders find themselves in overrun the public’s perception of their responsiveness and capabilities.
Each leader has been measured and found wanting. But the reverse is true, too.
We love the myth of the heroic CEO. The man or woman who, through their personal excellence, intestinal fortitude (aka, guts), and general capacity for delivering results saves the ailing enterprise is a tale we love to hear. Much of the reporting of a company’s success refers to the role of a heroic CEO. This too is a false perspective. We ascribe collective success to individuals, especially in circumstances where we have little understanding of the context in which success was achieved.
This mindset is termed directed deference, and it represents the tendency to value an ambiguous stimulus (e.g., a company’s financial performance) according to the opinion of someone who is seen as an authority on the topic. For those who seek to innovate, it means that what is and is not possible may be impacted by our perspective of those who lead us. If we fail to question our perspectives, we may kill an innovation before giving it an opportunity to grow into something meaningful.
I’m feeling you
All authority belongs to the people.
- Thomas Jefferson
Another aspect of the way our perspective on leadership can influence innovation choices is found in projection bias, the tendency to unconsciously assume that others (or one’s future selves) share one’s current emotional states, thoughts, and values. The weight of our own perspective means we may color our choices based on personal experience rather than the facts on the ground.
The impact of projection bias on innovation is one of homogeneity. The inclination to look across the organization and see only ourselves, or slight variations of ourselves, limits what we can conceive. Our leaders, and their motivations, look like our own (or what they would be if we were in the same position). This means that our attempts at innovation may suffer from small ambitions and a limited will to see them to success. Or we may misread what the organization can tolerate and over-commit resources to fruitless endeavors.
Knowledge and understanding are essential to avoid the pitfalls inherent in this slanted perspective.
I know you are, but what am I?
Rather than having a twisted perspective of a leader’s motivations and attributes, what if we think we know others better than they know us? A reversal of the directed deference perceptional bias is the illusion of asymmetric insight, which occurs when people perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers’ knowledge of them. Instead of seeing an authority figure external to us, we find one in ourselves. Falling into asymmetric insight bias means we believe our keen powers of insight and remarkable personal ability to assess the mannerisms and patterns of behavior in others enables us to stay one step ahead of the experience curve. At an extreme, we consider ourselves flawless prediction engines.
The only problem with this is that in the absence of data, our predictions are not rooted in any basis of reason, and our successes come from pure luck rather than wisdom.
From an innovation perspective, we are mentally running through the childhood taunt, “I know you are, but what am I?” a never-ending response to all perceived or actual slights or criticisms. Whether ignoring the evidence of a particular situation or ascribing our innovation success to our ability to second-guess others’ motivations, we are playing a foolish game.
How do we address these biases? How do we contend, in the absence of any meaningful information, with the over-reliance on position or status as a signifier for comprehension, wisdom, or insight? The answer comes through observation and engagement. By taking the time to assess the ways in which our innovation efforts are perceived and understood, we can gain more data that will inform our decision-making and design practices. But unless we seek to close the gaps in our ignorance with data gathered through inquiry instead of our own biases, our innovation efforts will struggle to be realized.
Anyone who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding, but rather his memory.
- Leonardo da Vinci
Recap of Day 2 at the World Innovation Forum June 8-9, 2010 – OnInnovation
June 21, 2010 by Andrew (Drew) · Leave a Comment
The following is an account of the second day of the World Innovation Forum. For a review of the first day please see here. Speakers for Day 2 included: Seth Godin, Brian Shawn Cohen, Wendy Kopp, Ursula Burns, Joel Makower, Jeffrey Hollender, and Robert Brunner. It must be said that one of the bigger disappointments during the event was something over which HSM, the event organizer, had no control. Twitter, for whatever reason, decided to embrace its inner FAIL Whale and choked for much of the proceedings. This was a disappointment to many for whom Twitter is a great way to keep in touch with the themes of a conference as they arise. Not too sure if that feedback made its way back to Biz Stone (final speaker at the conference on Day 1) but we can only hope so.
That said, for those in attendance the World Innovation Forum itself became a backdrop to a whole lot of innovative happenings and the following is a rapid journey through some highlights.
[The recap of the first day is here]
Innovation Perception – the joys and disappointments of expectations
May 19, 2010 by Andrew (Drew) · Leave a Comment
It is one of the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive.
- C.W. Leadbetter
The best phrase to capture the spirit of innovation is not, “Eureka!” as some would have us believe. That is more appropriate for the instant of invention. Rather the most fitting phrase for innovation is, “that’s interesting…” 
This fits because it is through the discovery of the unexpected while we work toward solutions addressing our most wicked problems that we begin to tease out the most robust ideas. The willful focus on meeting our expectations is the next cognitive bias that we must address as we seek to build a culture that supports innovation. We are prisoners to perception when we must strive to be open to the possibility of surprise.
Punished for trying
Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.
- Camille Pissarro
Perceptions are often erroneous. Yet, we base much of our decision making on our perceptions of circumstances. Those perceptions are driven by our expectations. The errors of our perception may be systematically related to interpersonal expectations (what we want from each other or anticipate from each other), our in-the-moment motives (our expectation of need fulfillment), value patterns (what we expect to attract us, repel us, what we prize or disregard), and our personal defense mechanisms (our emotional defenses triggered by our previous experiences brought to bear on current circumstances by our present expectations.) With all this going on, all the time, how the heck do we even get out of bed in the morning?
We psych ourselves up to it. This is a true challenge especially when we expect to be punished for our failures.
In a recent Q&A session conducted by the good folks at 800-CEO-READ, Mark Frauenfelder the Editor in Chief of Make Magazine talked about how the current education system is designed to prevent discovery through failure. His approach is to throw oneself directly into the path of failure, as often as possible in order to be “effective.” Frauenfelder sees that the inability to make mistakes is tied directly to the expectation of poor marks unless perfection is attained…
Students are afraid to make mistakes in class because errors result in bad grades. Striving for a “perfect score” takes your mind off the real goal, which is to learn and to be effective. In organizations we are afraid to make mistakes because a mistake is a convenient way for others assign blame. A fear-based workplace discourages risk-taking and experimentation. The worst mistake is to punish people for making mistakes in the pursuit of doing something in better way.
In innovation, if we tie our efforts only to an expectation of success, then our efforts will become smaller over time. Each attempt will have less at stake. We will risk less, because the anticipated blame associated with any failure is too much to bear. And who likes to be punished for trying?
Say…what’s a mountain goat doing way up here in a cloud bank?
People only see what they are prepared to see.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our perception can also make it difficult to see the circumstances around us. There is a classic Gary Larson cartoon drawn from the perspective of looking over the shoulders of two pilots out the cockpit window. The caption reads: “Say…what’s a mountain goat doing way up here in a cloud bank?” Funny and frightening. But this is also emblematic of how our expectations can cause us to miss large perceptional indicators. Our minds are unable to wrap themselves around such a disconnection between what we expected to see and what we actually see.
Rather than seeing that something is different to what we expect, we develop a blind spot to it. This perception bias has been identified for many years. One of the earliest examples was in research conducted by Seymour Smith, an advertising researcher from the 1960’s who saw that people were screening in and out what they were seeing and hearing based on what their expectations were. He noted that,
“They do so because of their attitudes, beliefs, usage preferences and habits, conditioning, etc.” People who like, buy, or are considering buying a brand are more likely to notice advertising than are those who are neutral toward the brand. (Source)
More recently this research was bolstered by the work of doctoral student Alison Jing Xu and her research partner Robert Wyer of the University of Illinois, College of Business. Their research focused on the examination of the power of puffery. Scott Berinato brought this to light in his recent post at Harvard Business Review, The Power and Perils of Puffery, in which he described their experiments in assessing the influence of the perception of their subjects in relation to subjects about which they were familiar or not. As cliché as it might seem, they structured their questions for men around beer and for women they focused on a personal care product, a cleansing gel.
In both situations where the subjects felt they were familiar with a particular product, they were less likely to be influenced by puffery in support of that product. Unsubstantiated claims were a turn-off. But when they were unfamiliar, they were more accepting of the unverifiable claims. It seems expectation, derived from past knowledge and experience, determined what was acceptable or not. When there were greater unknowns, puffery won the day.
How is this reflected in innovation?
Innovation is the attempt to create a new solution where none are known. It seems that when we are faced with the unknown we are more inclined to rely on our unquestioned perceptions, which rest on our expectations, rather than seek to push and explore to seek a deeper understanding. Unquestioned perception is an impediment to innovation because it limits possibilities.
It seems, as with so many other cognitive biases forewarned is forearmed. If we know we are predisposed to perceptional bias that is half the battle. Our awareness of that bias is a signal to dig a little deeper, question a little harder, and fail a little more a little more often. After all innovation is not about any single eureka moment, it’s about the next interesting discovery just beyond the horizon.
If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is – infinite.
- William Blake
FastCompany: The Most Important Leadership Quality for CEOs? Creativity
May 18, 2010 by Andrew (Drew) · Leave a Comment
Austin Carr has presented highlights from a new study by IBM focused on the most important leadership quality for success in business. And creativity comes up the winning trait. Good news for those of us in the innovation space.
He writes:
Steven Tomasco, a manager at IBM Global Business Services, expressed surprise at this key finding, saying that it is “very interesting that coming off the worst economic conditions they’d ever seen, [CEOs] didn’t fall back on management discipline, existing best practices, rigor or operations. In fact, they [did] just the opposite.”
For one, I’m not surprised. When forced to do more with less, address the tide of employee dissatisfaction, and reach beyond a pallid market recovery, I think the best senior leaders understand that they need to reach beyond what they know and create something new.
For more on the survey results see here.
The Benefits of Perspiration in Innovation – Recap from the 99% Conference April 15
April 15, 2010 by Andrew (Drew) · 5 Comments
Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
- Thomas Edison
For those of you for whom the 99% Conference is not familiar it is an exploration of the work of delivering on the promise of creativity. “The goal of the 99% Conference is to shift the focus from idea generation to idea execution, providing road-tested insights on how to make your ideas happen.” The notion is to not provide a space for more ideas to be created but to create the opportunity for those ideas to see the light of day by executing against their promise and delivering them. To that end, today’s sessions at the 99% Conference were a great blend of insights from the fields of culture, business, design, social action and technology. All that, and presents, too! (Note: full day recap = longer post)
Jointly hosted by Behance and Cool Hunting, and their respective Founder / CEO’s Scott Belsky and Josh Rubin, this conference is like catnip to designers and creatives alike. (Side note: as the only visible person wielding a Dell in this very, very Mac-centric universe, it was very interesting how little play technology received.) The conference itself has been run incredibly professionally (which is fantastic considering that this is only the second year it has been run.) From the attendee materials, to the integration with the conference space (The Times Center on 41st), the 99% conference is a very well-designed experience.
To kick things off Eve Blossom, the Founder / CEO of Lulan Artisans, gave an impassioned presentation on her awakening as a social entrepreneur as a result of her response to witnessing the impact sex trade first-hand. She has created a network of designers and weavers who, as artisans, practice their centuries-old techniques while being paid sustainable wages, growing their local economies, and embracing low environmental-impact bheaviors. Her recommendation when faced with the execution of your idea was to recognize that: “It’s bigger than you think. It’s not what you think.” Being open to the possible beyond your initial idea was something that came up in later presentations, too.
The next in the line-up was Fred Wilson, the Founder / Managing Partner of Union Square Ventures. His focus was on how to create the most appropriate framework as you begin to execute your ideas and take them to market. His topic was, 10 Ways to Be Your Own Boss, during which he covered everything from husband and wife partnerships (DailyLit founders, Susan and Albert Danzinger) to the Tour Bus model (Hype FM’s Anthony Volodkin). The classic, much-tweeted, line from Fred was a comment posted to one of his sites by Nassim Taleb: “The three most harmful addictions in the world are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.”
Stefan Sagmeister, master-designer-prankster, delivered a presentation that was very close to his recent TED presentation. Which was okay, but when so many conferences are live-streamed and/or edited and posted for HD review almost immediately, it makes it hard not to feel a little deflated (as Tina Roth Eisenberg alluded to). In all fairness to Mr. Sagmeister, he was not feeling well (a little feverish, he said) and his work does warrant an additional look as it is exceptional
When Jack Dorsey, Founder / Chairman (seems to be a lot of Founders today) of Twitter presented he immediately struck a nerve for me. His early fascination with maps, especially the way in which his desire to overlay live data of activities on a map could give you a better understanding of how a massively integrated system like a city works, gave me the most compelling insight into why Twitter works for me. Additionally it was great to hear his acknowledgment of the power of Twitter users in changing the Twitter experience. Users generated the Hashtag, the use of RT and the @ symbol. His principals for execution were also clear and pointed: Draw (to get the idea out of your head), Luck (being able to recognize a situation that allows build-out of an idea), and Iterate (know your idea must evolve, but also know when to stop it’s evolution so you can move onto the next idea’s execution.) Mr. Dorsey also shared images from the ideation of his latest venture Square.
Jonah B. from HTC rapidly presented the design approach behind the new HTC Incredible phone and landed the execution model they used which was design from the inside out. The phone – she is very pretty.
In one of the most interesting presentations for me, based on the focus of re-envisioning a public space (which leads me to think of re-envisioning cities…but that’s for another post), was delivered by Leslie Koch the President of the Governor’s Island Preservation and Education Corporation. Her past experience in the corporate world was on display as she shared her 5 lessons she has learned in order to execute effectively:
1. Listen and ask the right questions
2. Understand the customer, product and market
3. Develop a strategy and stick to it (but make sure your mother can understand it!)
4. Think big. Act small.
5. Marketing is all.
My favorite line from Ms. Koch came in relation to number 5, to paraphrase: You need to market, but you may not be able to call it that. It’s outreach to some (in the government arena), or cultivation (in the non-profit world), but really it’s all just marketing (business). And you need it too close the credibility gap between what you want to achieve and what you achieve in the short term on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis.
As the creator of the 99% Conference and newly minted author, it was great to see Scott Belsky present his vision for tackling the perspiration part of bringing ideas to life. He labeled the problem we face as “The Project Plateau” that time when the energy for implementing an idea dissipates and our progress with it. His new book (mine’s signed!) is Making Ideas Happen and covers key practices such as:
- Generate ideas in moderation
- Act without conviction to keep momentum and rapidly refine ideas (e.g., don’t fall in love with your ideas)
- Encourage fighting within your team (conflict creates opportunity
- Seek competition (it boosts accountability and strengthens the defensibility of your approach)
- Reduce bulky projects to discrete, actionable units (increments of time, milestones and tasks)
Overall, Mr. Belsky’s response is to develop an approach to, “have an idea find a way to survive the project plateau.”
The master storyteller, Jay O’Callahan, captivated the attendees with his imagined dialogue between Neil Armstrong and a failing Navy Admiral in a nursing home. In the story, part of a larger work Mr. Callahan was asked to create for NASA, Neil Armstrong recounts the landing on the Moon. In the telling, Mr. O’Callhan highlighted that stories are dramatic because stories are people, places and a bit of trouble, and that by telling stories people can imagine themselves into the situation. A great lesson for creating stories, but also for execution was that there needs to be Listeners (someone who is a part of yet listening to the story), Appreciations (the way in which a positive aspect of the story is highlighted as “they can be gold”) and Suggestions (on how to improve the story when the story is strong enough to take it.)
The armchair panel discussion between wife and husband partners in Antenna Design New York, Inc., Sigi Moeslinger and Masamichi Udagawa and Scott Belsky and Josh Rubin offered up many gems on the role of effective partnership in enabling execution…
Partnership should be based on need – the need to find complementary traits and match up with them in another. – Masamichi Udagawa
Do a trial project together to test the viability of a working partnership – Sigi Moeslinger
Successful partnerships must yield both a result and the enjoyment of working together – Masamichi Udagawa
Be willing to share the ownership of an idea that comes from the partnership. – Udagawa & Moeslinger
It was obvious that with the give and take in their dialogue that Mr. Udagawa and Ms. Moeslinger’s partnership seems to be a profitable one for them.
As the Executive Director of the Hawthorne Valley Association, Martin Ping wove a tale of the ways in which all aspects of the association in the valley come together to support a self-nourishing system. For Mr. Ping, the work of execution is never-ending. Based on holistic and biodynamic methods everything from farming, to the market garden, dairy, organic bakery, grocery store and school are part of an interdependent system. And it all comes down to an inner picture of what might be and what needs to be. “Everything we know and everything we do started with an inner picture.”
In what was perhaps the fastest and most boisterous presentation, Franz Johansson the Founder /CEO of The Medici Group, talked about the catalyst for new ideas coming from the intersection between disciplines. His book on the subject, The Medici Effect, is a fantastic read. When it came to execution, his approach was to ask yourself the question: “What is the smallest executable step you can take to go where you want to go?” And then when you have defined the response – do it. Then ask the same and do it again. By taking smaller leaps of faith you can test your thinking as you go. Your original idea may only serve as the catalyst for your long-term success and the two may be quite different.
In the last presentation of the day, John Maeda the President of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) extolled the virtues of awkwardness in creativity. As a creative himself, Mr Maeda found that becoming a leader (reluctantly) under the direction of a soon to be departing Nicholas Negroponte at MIT, was an awkward process of discovering how a leader creates. One of his colleagues note that, “all artists yearn to struggle, when they struggle they know they’re alive and you lose that when you lead,” as a way of explaining why a student would say she was feeling guilty (she had struggled to fit in but was no longer struggling.) For Mr. Maeda, execution will increasingly rely on the leadership of creatives because they (we) are at the forefront of being okay with ambiguity. It was a great insight which I hope will be willingly embraced by participants.
Finally, I would be remiss in not highlighting two great contributions from the team at Cool Hunting. First, was that the often tedious but all-important job of hosting and emceeing the conference fell to Josh Rubin who did a great job in keeping things moving. Second, Cool Hunting produced a series of videos that were featured throughout the day including snapshots of the work of Hastens, a hand-crafted bed manufacturer in Sweden, Jamie Oliver, the chef who is challenging us all to feed our school children and ourselves better, and the Mast Brothers (master chocolate craftsmen) from Brooklyn (thanks for the chocolate guys!) The videos were great snapshots and were a nice sidebar to the featured speakers.
All in all, a great day out. Much to digest. Much to put into practice. And loads to share with clients
Presenting at the ODN – Long Island Annual Conference April 8
March 31, 2010 by Andrew (Drew) · Leave a Comment
The ODN Long Island Chapter is hosting its annual conference on April 8, 2010 at the Marriott Residence Inn, Plainview, NY . The focus is on building stronger, better organizations so that they can not only succeed but thrive as we work our way out of the Great Recession. More details here.
My topic is: Manufacturing Magic – The Hard Work of Creating an Innovation Culture
In the phrase, “we need to be more innovative”, lies a universe of misspent time, energy and political capital. As the popular media love affair with the notion of innovation continues, and leaders begin looking for answers to their businesses’ economic health beyond those actions necessary to survive the Great Recession, many organization development professionals are being tasked with making their organizations “more innovative.” Unfortunately, it seems that the concept of innovation has been coupled with that of creativity and unless we deliver something bright, shiny and magical, we’re going to disappoint.
Creating an innovation culture is not easy. As with change initiatives that have come (and gone) before, it is fraught with miss-comprehensions, false starts and dead ends. With the right effort applied to the appropriate leverage points in your organization, you might just be able to deliver the results you and your leadership seek.
This presentation, backed by current research in innovation best practices, will provide a rapid overview of the different entry points to begin creating an innovation culture. It will highlight key concerns, critical decisions, potential problems and the planning necessary to begin the process of making an innovation culture that fits your organization’s needs and wants. It will also address the business value to be obtained in terms that are clear and meaningful. While creating an innovation culture may be costly and hard work, the key question to ask is – what is the business impact and cost of lack of innovation?
Teaching a Person to Fish – Learning and Development for Innovation
March 30, 2010 by Andrew (Drew) · Leave a Comment
Why learning how to innovate is as important as the act itself
Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can – there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.
- Sarah Caldwell
It’s like any muscle – you have to use it or lose it
Give a person a fish and they will eat for a day. Teach a person to fish and they will eat for a lifetime.
- Chinese Proverb
Learning is physical. At its most basic level, learning is the process of changing the structure and actions of neurons so they retain information in long-term memory in both the temporal and parietal lobes of the cortex. Increasingly, neuroscience will play a larger role in our understanding of the process of learning.
This doesn’t mean to say that there is still not a wealth of information to be gleaned from cognitive psychology, behavioral psychology, and social psychology as they relate to the way in which people learn. Neuroscience will simply afford us another window into the way our minds work. And what will we do with that knowledge?
What both the behavioral observation of learning and the physical understanding of learning agree on is that for learning to be lasting it must be practiced. In fact, the best learners not only practice, they study – hard. Malcolm Gladwell proposes that for true excellence to emerge the magic number of hours required to dedicated practice and ever-increased proficiency is 10,000. Less than that and the learning may be substantial but will not result in elevated performance. The same can be said of innovation. Unpracticed innovators make fewer cognitive leaps, fewer bold choices, have fewer insights and their innovations are poorer for it.
The approach of IDEO, the design shop headquartered in Palo Alto, takes the concept of the learner even further and describes “T-shaped” people. These are learners who have not only gone deep into an understanding of a particular field of interest (the perpendicular stroke in the “T”), they have also developed a broad awareness and understanding of many subjects (the horizontal stroke in the “T”). A consistent attention to both types of learning increases the utility of these people in the design and innovation domain. Perhaps the Gladwell number needs to be an equation, i.e., 10,000 x 1000 x n? Where “n” is the number of separate domains of learning pursued?
Think differently for different results
Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.
- Chinese Proverb
Innovation fosters new thinking, including the way we learn to think. The way we create the promoters (activities or environmental factors) that support learning is a key component to improving learning and development outcomes. Did you know that there are five key promoters to consider? They are:
1. Innate learning programs (the things we just know, you know?) (Gallistel, 2002)
2. Repetition of information. (Repetition of information – get it?!) (Squire and Kandel, 2000)
3. Excitement at the time of learning (Woo Hoo!) (Cahill & Gorski, 2003; LeDoux, 2002)
4. Eating carbohydrates at time of learning (A personal favorite) (Korol, 2002)
5. 8-9 hours of sleep after learning (To sleep perchance to dream) (Kuriyama, Stickgold, & Walker, 2004)
Very few learning programs actually consciously accommodate one or two of these promoters, let alone all five. Is it any wonder that the process of learning may seem draining and even futile at times? To maximize the learning and development outcomes change the nature of the learning environment, change the perspectives of the participants, and change the delivery mechanism. All can be achieved in simple ways. Use a rapid prototyping method – what can you change in under an hour for less than $100 (or less than $10)?
When considering learning and development focused on innovation practices the inclusion of elements that actually promote learning might be worthwhile, might it not? Take two innate learning programs for example; the first allows us to rapidly associate words and labels to objects within situations, and a second enables us to compute social status and insults to social status. If we acknowledge and fold into our learning and development activities these innate learning programs we can structure experiences that capitalize on them. Improvisational activities, like improv theatre games, could help us unlock the influence resident within these learning programs so that the experience fosters increased innovative behaviors (resilience, risk-taking, generosity, etc.)
Letting go and leaving justification behind
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.
- Benjamin Franklin
Lessons learned are not necessarily procedural or systemic, they are predominately behavioral and social. One of the key learned behaviors is that with success comes praise and possibly adulation. Well, the process of innovation actually requires that we be less-than-successful at times. Yes, we sometimes have the glorious opportunity to fail (perhaps not the first time, bust certainly more publicly than we would like.)
There are two essential behaviors to learn and develop in order to “make it” as an innovator. The first is the ability to let go of an idea. The concept of ownership within corporate organizational life is one that people learn early. The people with the best ideas not only “win” they also receive the reward of advancement. That may mean access to things previously unavailable, i.e., the offer of increased responsibility, or even greater compensation, perks and benefits.
A successful innovator needs to understand that her idea may actually find greater success when used by another or in conjunction with another person’s idea. They also need to understand that while their idea might be a great idea, if there is no passion for it among the people who need to capitalize on it and bring it to market then it is as good as dead and useless to all. Letting go is an essential learning that is counter to so much we have learned in order to survive in organizations. But letting go is not the hardest lesson to learn for many.
Perhaps a more damnable habit to break is that of justification.
Justification is the hard-earned ability to defend your position in the face of withering opposition. It brooks no alternate view, nor does it easily accommodate modifications to its core or demarcated essential truth. The power of justification is that it makes ideas unassailable (especially when carried out by a master or mistress of the art.) The only problem with justification is that as a practice it allows no room for the new, the additive, or the tangential. Justification creates cul-de-sacs in which innovation goes to die.
Learning how to combat holding onto an idea too tightly and justifying an idea to the point of lunacy are essential practices. Which leads us to the role of exactly that in innovation – practicing what we have learned.
Practice makes permanent – practice with feedback makes perfect
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
- Douglas Adams
Most have heard of that old aphorism, “practice makes perfect.” My experience, and the firm word of a former business associate, Tom Doyle, is that practice does not make perfect, “practice makes permanent; only practice with feedback makes perfect.”
In order to become better at the art and substance of innovation it is necessary to work on it. In working on this skill set it is also critical to receive feedback and coaching. The application of observational assessment and associated feedback to an innovator enables them to see their mental models reflected in the words of others as well as the way a life time of habits influences how they not only see the world, but seek to change it in the present.
Having a subject matter expert observe and provide feedback, even if they are not a practiced innovator, may be of great benefit to those seeking to innovate. The critical eye is an essential ingredient in improvement. To borrow another Gladwell-popularized concept, that of the maven – a trusted specialist or subject matter expert connected to other like-minded practitioners across a community – it is a given that mavens make the best mentors. Their deep expertise, and the authority with which they can observe, mean that the feedback that they provide can not only provide clear opportunities for growth but may also provide ways to create a step-change in our approach to innovation and the challenges at hand.
After all, while it has been said that those who can – do, and that those who cannot – teach, it is preferable to think on Seneca:
While we teach, we learn.
Twitter: DrewCM
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