Read Creative People Must Be Stopped Online
Authors: David A Owens
Creative People Must Be Stopped (26 page)
Gibson decided to join a consortium created by the Rainforest Alliance called SmartWood. Companies in the association agree to buy only wood that had been certified by the consortium as having been sustainably and legitimately cultivated. Each tree now had an audit trail, which created some costs, but these were insignificant compared to the threat of idling production of Gibson's high-end guitars. Another benefit was that the customers who bought these guitars valued the fact that they were made from wood that had been fairly and sustainably cultivated.
While on a tour of the factory, I saw a large tractor-trailer being filled with sawdust and the small wood chunks left over from the guitar-making operations. I joked, saying, “I guess you have to audit the sawdust, too!” Completely serious, my host replied, “Yes. And that tractor is heading down to the Jack Daniels distillery, where they use the wood as charcoal to filter their whiskey!”
Find ways to work within the bigger system. Similar to the Jack Daniels example, Starbucks makes bags of used coffee grounds available for customers to take home and use in their gardens. Although coffee grounds are not problematic materials to put into the landfill, giving them to customers who are already at the store anyway saves a bit of transportation energy, saves the customers money, and reinforces to them that Starbucks cares about the environment.
Putting the Framework to Work: Technological Constraints
To aid you in assessing the constraints at this level, use the following diagnostic survey. It is intended to help you assess the extent to which the constraints described in this chapter may be unintentional hindrances on innovation in your organization.
Technological Constraints Diagnostic Survey
The survey lists twenty statements that describe symptoms that can be caused by the constraints discussed in this chapter. As you read each statement, consider how closely it describes the technological context in which your organization operates. Record your assessment by putting a checkmark in the box that best indicates how accurately the statement describes your situation.
1 = Highly Descriptive; this occurs often or on a routine basis
2 = Moderately Descriptive; this occurs sometimes or occasionally
3 = Not Descriptive; this occurs rarely or not at all
Using the Results
Note the total number of statements that you rated as “Highly Descriptive.” If you have rated more than six of them this way, then working on technological constraints will be a productive effort. Now that you have identified the specific constraints, you can take action. You may wish to turn back and reread the description of the problem and of the specific strategies for addressing this constraint. You may also find that strategies are obvious given the symptom you have identified. For detailed instructions on working with your assessment results, use the steps outlined in Appendix A, Using the Assessment Results, to determine if these constraints are a significant impediment for you in your organization and to develop strategies for overcoming them.
After completing the assessments for the other chapters, you can compare constraints to see if one of the other levels poses a greater challenge for you overall than do these technological constraints. Of course you need to recognize that technological constraints represent among the most difficult to change to the extent that our understanding of the natural world is in any way unclear. Still, this framework can help you understand and anticipate the ways others are likely to view your innovation efforts.
Summary
We are usually quite good at buffering ourselves from the physical world, which makes us susceptible to the illusion that we can operate independently of it. The potentially constraining effect of the technological world should be considered as you explore the universe of possible options available for your innovation. Your needs may be decidedly nontechnical; however, they will still be subject to the demands of physics, time, and the environment they may occupy. Staying aware of what we know (and don't know) about the world, how we think about coordinating our efforts within it, and where we situate those efforts can keep the inadvertent constraints at bay. The following chart offers a recap of the constraints discussed in this chapter, along with some strategies for overcoming or living with them.
| Physical Constraints: Knowing What You Know (and What You Don't) | |
| Unconscious incompetence Conscious incompetence Conscious competence Unconscious competence | Determine how hard the problem might be Hire an alien Let other people do the hard part Invest (to a point) |
| Time Constraints: Having Time and Making Time | |
| Sequencing and coordination requirements Long feedback loops Time required for learning | Leave time to learn First things first Watch the clock Mind the learning gap |
| Natural Environment Constraints: Altering Landscapes | |
| Availability of necessary inputs Suitable site for transformation Outlets for necessary outputs | Use what's available Come in from the wind and rain Mimic something that works Get smart about your supply chain |
Chapter Reflection: Technological Constraints
It can be helpful to reflect on your insights about technological constraints and the process of diagnosing them in your organization and industry. You may wish to consider these questions:
- What evidence is there for the existence of the constraints you named?
- How important are these technological factors compared to the individual, group, organizational, industry, and societal constraints you identified?
- What constraints might get overlooked because of your limited consciousness of the technological issues that govern your problem?
- Would others agree that there is a need to fix these constraints?
CHAPTER 8
When Failure Is Not an Option
Leading an Innovation Strategy
“Houston, we've got a problem.” These words open an amazing episode of creativity, leadership, and innovation for NASA, just fifty-six hours into Apollo 13, the third mission to explore the surface of the moon (Krantz, 2000, p. 11). The movie
Apollo 13
(Howard, 1995) dramatizes the scene: chaos erupts as the astronauts report an explosion on board the wildly gyrating spacecraft, amid screeching alarms, with ground controllers listening in disbelief, unsure and mistrustful of the multiple failures their instruments are indicating. In what just moments before had been a normal day at the office, mission director Gene Krantz suddenly has to find some way to bring the group back together and the astronauts back to Earth.
Both the group members' sense of purpose and their emotions explode in the uncertain atmosphere of Mission Control. The astronauts cannot provide the needed understanding of what is happening, nor can the ground-based team rely on its instruments on the ground or in the spacecraft to tell it the nature of the problem it faces. “The instruments have never read this way . . . this can't be right . . . a quadruple failure?” wonders one controller, unsure if the problem is the control panel, on board, or somewhere in between.
As groups do when facing chaos, the group begins to disintegrate as the members of Mission Control retreat into their smaller and safer worlds. Despite remaining in the same physical space, they focus their attention on the displays and headsets they are using to communicate with the members of
their
own support teams outside the room and off-site. But because Krantz cannot solve or even understand this complex problem working as an individual, he must pull them back together as a team by restoring meaning and giving them a focus for their anxious energy.
“Quiet down, quiet downâlet's stay cool, people.” Getting their attention, he announces the urgent but dispassionate information processing that will need to occur. He then directs the team in how to gather the information needed to understand the nature of the problem and, possibly, to understand the constraints on a meaningful solution. “Wake up anybody you need and get them in here. Let's work the problem, people. Let's not make things worse by guessing.” They are empowered to use all the resources at NASA's disposal and are directed to focus on the actual data, not their assumptions about the data.
Later, as the life-support subteam realizes that the CO
2
levels are rising, they learn that there are plenty of scrubbers, or oxygen filters, on board, but these were designed to fit the round hole in the command module, whereas the lunar module requires a square one. Seeing this as an urgent problem, but one that he does not have the detailed knowledge or expertise to fix, Krantz pushes the problem back on the life-support subteam. “Well, I suggest you gentlemen invent a way to fit a square peg in a round hole. Rapidly.” Not only does he not have the expertise, but overly detailed involvement in this one problem would distract him from his more important role of keeping the larger group coordinated and focused on information processing and problem solving.
With the responsibility and authority to do what it needs to do, the life-support subteam begins work. The mandate and goal are made clear: “The people upstairs have handed us this one, and we've gotta come through. We gotta find a way to make this [holds up square filter] fit into a hole for this [holds up round filter] using nothing but that [gestures to a table of materials currently on board the spacecraft].” This team has not only a clear and important mission but also access to a duplicate set of the actual materials. This allows the team members to test and refine their solution. Another subteam working to reestablish power in the spacecraft's frozen command module uses a full-size replica simulator to explore and test its options in much the same way.
Again and again, as the film demonstrates, Krantz models the behavior of a successful leader of innovation. Sensing creeping despair and divergence in the group, he pulls them together and reasserts the goal by literally throwing the existing mission plan into the garbage can. “Forget the flight plan; we are improvising a new mission. How do we get our people home?” To search out the best ideas in the team, he starts with an arguable claim about the best way to get them home: “We turn around, direct abortâ” Taking the bait, team members immediately interrupt, interject, and begin a loud argument about the various options and their relative chances for success. Instead of stopping the group from engaging in this healthy task conflict, he encourages it, making sure that everyone is heard and every idea considered. Having had their say, they end up committed to the chosen solution.
When the Northrop Grumman contractor is asked if the new reentry plan might work, he replies, “We can't make any guarantees. We designed the [lunar module engine] to land on the moon . . . not to make course corrections.” Krantz uses this opportunity masterfully to reinforce the focus of their innovation effort and the strategy, mind-set, and commitment they'll need to achieve it: “Unfortunately we're not landing on the moon. I don't care what anything was
designed
to do; I care about what it
can
do.” And, in case anyone had residual doubts about the goal, he offers a compelling reminder: “We've never lost an American in space, and we're sure as hell not gonna lose one on my watch. Failure is not an option.”
As the Apollo 13 story suggests, being successful at innovation means identifying and negotiating your way through multiple kinds of constraints. Although I've handled the principal constraints on innovation individually, each of them needs to be kept in mind as you move toward implementation of your innovation. In this final chapter, I offer a way of thinking about the larger, more holistic context within which you will be pursuing your efforts, with particular attention to issues of management and leadership. I'll focus on three main inquiries:
- Up to now we have focused on factors that can constrain efforts to innovate. But what about the people we would have adopt our innovations? What constraints operate on them?
- What are the big-picture issues you need to attend to as you lead a team in an innovation project?
- What is the larger role of innovation within your organization? If your organization wishes to become more strategic about innovation, what steps might you take to help bring this desire to fruition?
Show Me the Money: Constraints on the Adoption of Innovations
The six general types of innovation constraints refer to those truths of innovation that we know can stop a project cold. The diagnostics and tools in each chapter have offered insight into the general context within which you pursue innovation, and aim to reveal, for example, how the particular behaviors in your group or in the structure of your organization may help or hinder your efforts. Now, with that understanding and a specific problem at hand, the next step is to turn the view outward. You want to understand how the constraints apply not only to you in your context but also to the people you'd like to have adopt your proposal for positive change. Unlike you, these people may have very little invested in the innovation you intend, but they do have a great deal invested in their current way of doing things, a way that they know works. It makes sense that they would want some form of proof that the world will, in fact, be a better place for them if they believe you and adopt your ideas. This means that the obligation is on you to “show me the money” if you want me to change.
To help build a case for the value of your proposal, use the following questions that derive from the insights generated in each of the chapters. The answers will help you diagnose, for a specific innovation that you have in mind, what is likely to get in the way of acceptance and adoption by others. Just as the truths of innovation will apply to you, they will apply to your intended user as well. As you read the questions in the table here, consider your adoptee as the focus of the question and see how well you can answer these kinds of questions that will invariably be generated by your proposal. For help answering the questions, refer back to the relevant chapter to review the strategies you can use to yield an affirmative answer.
| Individual Constraints: Do They Understand Your Innovation Proposal? | |
| Perception | Can they actually see your proposition clearly? What perspective are they likely to take on it? |
| Intellection | Will they believe you, given their sense of how the world works? What reasonable questions are they going to ask? |
| Expression | What language will they be using to gain their understanding? How will they talk about your proposal to others? |
| Group Constraints: Does Your Innovation Create Emotional Risks for Them? | |
| Emotion | What risk is there that it can, in any way, make them look foolish? How might it endanger their social status? |
| Culture | Why should they change the way they currently do things? How does it affect their membership in important social groups? |
| Process | How will they know how to integrate it in their lives? What steps will they need to take to derive the most value? |
| Environment | Is their environment an appropriate place for this proposal? Does the environment reinforce the message you are sending? |
| Organizational Constraints: Does Your Innovation Support Their Mission and Goals? | |
| Strategy | Is it consistent with their strategy? Will they recognize that? How will it impact their current alignment and priorities? |
| Structure | Are they in a position to gain value from your proposition? Do they have the authority to make the adoption decision? |
| Resources | What resources will they need to control and provide? What additional risks are you creating for those resources? |
| Industry Constraints: Does the Innovation Account for Their Landscape? | |
| Competition | Who are their competitors? What are the substitutes for them? For you? |
| Suppliers | Does it threaten occupations or professions? Does it devalue any suppliers or resources? |
| Markets | How many others will be adopting this? Will the economic conditions allow them to adopt? |
| Societal Constraints: Does the Innovation Support Their Values and Identity? | |
| Values | What does it tell others about them if they adopt? Do they actually want to be what it makes them? |
| Social Control | Which stakeholders will claim that it is likely to cause harm? What are the current and future regulations about? |
| History | Why are they doing things the current way? Will your idea work with what they already have and do? |
| Technological Constraints: Can They Make the Innovation Perform as Promised? | |
| Physical | Will it actually work in their context? Will it increase their control over their world? |
| Time | Do they have time to learn a new way of being? Is the window of opportunity still open? |
| Natural Environment | Are the inputs and outputs sustainable? Are there adverse impacts during the life cycle? |
Of course receiving supportive or affirmative answers to all of the questions doesn't guarantee adoption success. However, your innovation will be doomed to rejection and failure if critical questions are left unresolved or unanswered in the minds of those you hope to convince. Consider the situation from their perspective: you are asking them to take on risk and adopt your change without satisfying answers to reasonable questions. You'd have to admit that they would be fools to adopt with a lot of big questions outstanding.
