I’m sure we have all come across the Rubik Cube, a 3-D mechanical puzzle, invented in 1974 by Erno Rubik as one of the world’s best-selling toys.
The classic cube has six faces covered by nine stickers each offering a solid colour (white, red, blue, orange, green and yellow). The cube has a pivot mechanism enabling each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colours.
For the puzzle to be solved you must achieve that each face is to be made up of one consistent colour. It was suggested the cube was originally built to aid students to understand 3D objects but actually Rubik’s actual purpose was solving the structural problems of the parts moving independently without the entire mechanism falling apart.
When you have some sun on your back after a long period of those winter months, you just always begin to feel life is so much better going forward.
Life seems to reawaken within. I often wish we could capture the ‘sense’ of spring and what it promises to bring from this change of season. Those of us who witness the change of seasons are so lucky.
I’ve also been reminded recently about the phrase offered by a number of leaders to explain a positive encouraging shift after a tough time, it goes like this: “we do see some green shoots that are offering some early signs of growth and recovery.”
Spring captures that growth moment. It is often talking to us of renewal. Innovation needs that capturing opportunity as well.
How often have we left it too late, we are suddenly under pressure. We need to get to that critical meeting and we take risks, or we simply just left it too late, so we ‘run the red light’.
If we get to this point we are not just the ones in danger but we more than often involve others in this stupidity, with potentially serious consequences for all involved.
Care on intersections
Organizations so often leave their own futures to the last minute by failing to recognize or acknowledge they are running out of time, the situation they have been so use too for such a long time has suddenly changed.
Well, for the vast majority, there was nothing “sudden” about it, they simply left it too late, ignoring all the warning signs and they decided to cross that “red light” as a last-minute panic to catch up and be back in charge of their innovation destiny.
Often all organizations want to do is get back in control, revert to being comfortable, managing “as usual” but in the process have missed so much innovation opportunity in these panic moments because they did not plan for it. T
hey just had a simple failure in not anticipating and thinking ahead, they “ran the amber”, not being alert to their surroundings and wanting to learn so as to adapt to changing conditions.
Not being open and receptive to reacting and exploring, in different more flexible ways, they simply have no time to manage changing events, they are suddenly out of their comfort zone.
I have recently been in some different discussions about the merits and balances required for the separation to manage incremental and radical innovation. Partly this is in preparation for a workshop later this month but partly from a conversation, I am having with a sizable, well-respected organization, with its head office based here in Europe.
In the conversation within the organization, we were discussing the breakdown in their treatment of incremental and radical and they suggested this was being managed within an “ambidextrous structure” yet I was not convinced. I have to point out this was only a part of a broader story on the difficulties of managing conflicting innovation demands that they were having.
We have been entering some perilous times recently and I can’t imagine when Joseph Schumpeter outlined his groundbreaking efforts for explaining “creative destruction” he or anyone else, could imagine this being flipped around to what we are facing more today, in a more innovative era, that of “destructive creation”.
Schumpeter saw “creative destruction” as the renewing, through new innovation, society’s dynamics that would lead to higher levels of economic development and welfare.
At the same time recognizing that this destroyed a few of the incumbents to the benefit of many more newcomers and increasing value creation for broader society.
Today it seems we are caught in the reverse of this- the process of “destructive creation”- where it benefits a few rather than the many. This sets out often to destroy or greatly diminish the usage value of existing products and services before it is optimal to actually do so, and in the process incurring often significant costs not taken into account at the time.
“Slow constrains quick, slow controls quick” There is so much built in tension, bias, barriers, mindsets, mental model conflicts, and all types of friction seemingly going on around us, you must sometimes think all our organizations can only be totally dysfunctional.
The Scream by Edvard Munch for Dysfunctional Organizations
Has anyone not come across some or all of these?
Dysfunctional leadership symptoms and those typical warning signs of dictatorial leadership, no feedback on performance, personal agendas, more ‘political’ compensation than ‘performance related ones, inefficient use of resources, empire-building practices, unequal workload distribution, too much management, fragmented organization efforts.
There is simply just too much talk, ineffective and incessant meetings, a lack of collaboration across departments, ‘selective’ low productivity when you are working way beyond the normal, feeling in a constant crisis mode, watching a morale deterioration take place before your eyes, the backstabbing, starving projects of essential resources and finally, working in highly stressful workplaces.
Making innovation a constant daily task for everyone in finding time and space to become involved in, is certainly a real problem for many organizations.
Innovation does not sit comfortably alongside efficiency or effectiveness as it requires a much looser structure. It constantly ‘flies’ in direct conflict too much for many within organizations to create resistance and adoption.
Innovation is looking to increase variability, nearly everything else in the organization is the exact opposite. How do we address this resistance and make innovation part of the daily working routines?
Where can we start? We have to open up our thinking to a number of “possible paths” to allow it to flow. I believe innovation should not be highly structured; it should be more loosely structured to allow the possibility.
For a start individuals and organizations needs to explore multiple ways to learn and find the right pathway for innovative learning as they progress.
This needs a more ‘dynamic social fabric’ to allow it to flow, it needs organizational encouragement. It needs mutual adaption and mutual adjustment. The understanding of the absorptive capacity framework I’ve outlined before helps structure this.
Firstly stop and survey our world from a new advantage point
Can you imagine standing on top of a mountain, looking out across a vast expanse of nothing but mountains and valleys stretching out before you? If you squint hard enough you can just make out that somewhere in the hazy distance, the endpoint of your travels.
The distance you have to travel towards that much-needed innovation understanding, that is made up of so many different dynamics that make you and your organization that much fitter to compete in today’s challenging world seems really far off, or actually is it?
Exhilaration can quickly turn to reality.
Clearly, while you are on top of this mountain you feel exhilarated to have even got up to this point. To even get there you have already made a decision that you and your organization need to become more innovative.
One that needs to look beyond what you have, to what is possible, you are curious to explore this further, you have to, innovation is a strategic imperative for, adding value, growth and improved wealth creation.
Each organization seems to favour one design approach over another when it comes to how they innovate. It favours either the more comfortable repeatable zones or is determined to push the boundaries out on its innovation activities.
We often talk about simply incremental and radical, yet we do have other choices such as a more ‘distinctive’ design or one that sets out to be ‘disruptive’.
Let me offer this for thinking through on your fits on the innovation path you want to take and ‘flag’ some areas you need to consider. Each degree of innovation (or type) has considerable organization design issues to think through. Continue reading “Your dominating innovation design is?”
Emotional attachment prompts some incredibly strong bonds, a host of clear affections and different reactions when it comes to our favourite brands or products but then something disruptive happens and these bonds are broken.
When something suddenly ‘disrupts’ this, it triggers a set of mixed emotions that shakes you and stirs up different feelings that take some time to re-order in your mind.
I try to seek understanding and then simply have to let go, even when they so often stare me in the face. Sometimes you still don’t want to finally let go until you are ‘hit’ by such a disruptive event.
The recent Kodak moment is one of those
One of those has happened to me with the filing of bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 for Kodak.
For so many people those “Kodak moments” make up such incredibly important parts of our lives. Stuffed under the beds, in boxes, in cupboards are those images of youth, family, important occasions and holidays that sit happily in the back of our minds waiting to be prompted by those images captured with the help of Kodak.
