Everybody wants Innovation
If there’s one theme that dominates Leadership writing, its the idea of having the courage to step into new territory, to try something new. If you’re not Innovative you’re not doing the right thing – and you’re definitely not cool.
This positioning of Innovation as a “moral virtue” is so pervasive that it has become like many moral issues, publicly trumpeted and privately ignored. In other words it has become a motherhood statement which covers up the fact that many leaders actively discourage it.
What CEO doesn’t publicly believe in “innovation”, or its most recent sibling “agile”?
The important question is not whether you want innovation, but why so many fail to achieve it.
Last week we said that the most important decision is to “solve the problem” rather than just take the quick answer. The 2nd important decision now hits us.
That question is: do we want to Trial, or not? Will you try something new, or to go for the comfortable answer? The popular answer is “yes, of course!” but we all know that is often not true. Why not?
This is not a single point question of course, it’s a culture setting.
The culture question isn’t just are we encouraging experimentation or not? Your attitude to innovation isn’t what you say about innovation, it’s what you do about mistakes. The deeper culture question is what is your attitude to mistakes?
Your true attitude to Trial is revealed by your treatment of Error.
The basics of Trial are so deeply ingrained in our DNA that young children do it without prompting. They vocalize sounds, grab, taste, push and walk then climb and run, all automatic acts that make toddlers who they are, and us what we are.
Every task in human existence starts with an experiment! Whether it’s learning to talk, or write, or kick a ball, or play golf, or drive or build a society, all starts with a first step.
When I learnt to play golf I didn’t read a book or write an essay about it, I picked up a club and took a swing. Whether or not I ever got good at it is another story, but everything ever built or achieved by humans started with a Trial, with action.
Trial that mostly ended in failure, not success. Trial that wasn’t killed just because it caused errors.
If innovation is part of our DNA, and if every CEO wants it, why are we not seeing more of it inside organizations?
The answer lies with leaders. With you.
Wanting innovation isn’t enough, you have to behave in a way that encourages it. To encourage innovation, you have to control the things that kill Trial. You have to allow Errors.
“Your true attitude to Trial is revealed by your treatment of Error“
There are many things that kill Trial. Two common leadership types which are very good at this are the Controller , and the Planner. They do so by trying to eliminate errors.
The Controller hates errors. (except their own, they are only human after all…) Errors aren’t a good thing, but they’re necessary to produce good things. It’s no coincidence that many of the great inventors ran their own organizations, they weren’t subject to tight control.
Henry Ford didn’t build the Model T before A to S failed. Ditto iPhones, and everything else you’ve ever bought.
Errors have to be managed, not eliminated. Minimized, studied, recycled, learnt from.
Suggestion Boxes can kill trial (and should be banned in my view..) as they reinforce the idea that all that workers can do is “suggest” while managers “check for errors”
The 2nd Trial killer – the Planner – is more subtle than the Controller but no less deadly. They believe the problems of the world are solved by calculation, not by chance. They believe errors can be avoided. Typically they like a lot of planning and detailed evaluations with carefully proven steps. They love Gannt charts.
Planners also love Rules. Rules and bureaucracy kill trial because they’re usually designed to promote compliance not creativity. Rules are designed to stop errors, after all.
Unfortunately the genesis of almost every major innovation was chance, so truly new ideas rarely pass these processes. A baby learning language doesn’t use a Gannt chart. (though their parents may!)
Innovation killers are often undetected. Why? Because the outcome of the culture they create is not mistakes that can be seen but emptiness – inaction or lethargy or just repeating the old way. These are harder to see, unlike the mistakes of the poor innovator who survived their attacks.
If you have some of the above things in your business they’re there for a reason. Controllers and Planners and rules are useful. Controlling and Planning almost certainly part of your own style. If you want to solve problems innovatively, you need to keep them under control. They should definitely not be feared or in charge, just parts of a Balanced ecosystem.
A problem solving culture doesn’t grow by what you don’t say, but by what you do say, and do.
Success doesn’t come from simply tolerating Trial, but from actively encouraging it. Errors can’t just be tolerated, they have to be encouraged as part of the learning process.
Ask yourself this: what do you say or do in your team that discourages errors? Do you have a System for encouraging Trial? You know, like the systems your organization has for things they believe are really important, like accounting and timekeeping?
If you’re not serious about Trial, your people will look for the comfortable answer, and take you straight back to the first obvious answer, not the solution of the problem.
If you use mistakes instead of punishing them, and if you have a System that actively encourages Trial (and Error), you’re still on the road to success.
More to come…