Innovation

Driving Organizational Innovation – Roles and Responsibilities Part 2

Published date: September 5, 2021 в 2:00 pm

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Category: Innovation

In Part 1 of this series, we shared a table detailing roles and responsibilities, with several caveats:

  1. Not all roles need to be defined in all organizations;
  2. Names of roles vary across organizations, as do the demarcations between territories and responsibilities;
  3. Role definitions can and should be dynamic, changing with the development of the innovation program or drive;
  4. Roles can start as part-time activities and develop into full-time, or they can start as FT and settle down into PT when processes flow more independently and require less external pushing and driving.

As roles and processes are being defined, organizations often ask themselves whether governance and responsibility over innovation should be centralized into a corporate entity dedicated exclusively to innovation or better be distributed throughout the organization. The table below assumes a hybrid approach: some of the functions are centralized (Sponsor, VP Innovation, SC, Coordinator), while others are expressly dispersed (coaches, managers, owners etc.). This structure is designed to make the most of both variants, each with its pros and cons.

Advantages of the centralized approach:

  1. More efficient in terms of budget and headcount, by avoiding the replication of efforts in numerous divisions or territories;
  2. Allows the creation of a dedicated team of high-caliber experts in innovation who can then share their knowledge and expertise throughout the organization;
  3. Facilitates quicker and easier access to top decision makers and purse-controllers;
  4. Makes it easier to align with company strategies and design innovation policies according to the big organizational picture;
  5. Some activities, such as incubation of startups, may require isolation from daily activities, which is easier to guarantee outside of the business units;
  6. Promotes cross-pollination, knowledge transfer and use of shared resources between diverse units, by becoming an innovation hub.

Advantages of the distributed approach:

  1. Innovation is perceived as an aspect of the “real business” as opposed to an impractical theoretical exercise of “the suits” in corporate;
  2. Goes in hand with the dictum of “Don’t do innovation, but rather innovate in what you do”, because innovation is happens where the organization’s core activity takes place;
  3. When business units need to pay for innovation activities (even if, as we recommend, they are sometimes subsidized by corporate) there is an immediate feedback loop, since they will agree to pay only for those activities that generate tangible value for them;
  4. The cycle – innovation-process->implementation->testing->adaptations->launch->innovation-process – is much quicker the closer one is to the field, which makes for a more adaptive and thus eventually more effective innovation process.

We therefore believe that a good mix of centralized and distributed roles can create an optimal structure. Below you can see the table as it appeared in Part 1, and following the table, some comments and a bit of a deeper dive into several of the roles that appear in it.

 

Some comments and tips about several of the roles:

  • iSponsor, CEO/President. At the risk of stating the obvious: we have consistently seen a strong correlation between the level of involvement and commitment of the head of an organization and the traction of an innovation drive. Although the easy route, and the policy of choice for many a CEO is to remain at the declarative level, the effective approach is to prove to the sceptic internal public, tired of bombastic initiatives that dissipate within a few months, that this time around he or she really means it. Practically speaking this requires: a) allocating budgets (money where mouth), b) participating in innovation-related meetings and activities, and, the toughest and therefore rarest of innovation-promoting behaviors, c) demonstrate that s/he themselves can change their habits and modes of thinking as expressed in (some of) their actions.
  • Steering (“Stirring”) Committee. The SC’s role is pretty obvious, we just wish to add that the adjective “stirring” is not a typo, but the expression of the idea that unlike many a SC, this one should engage both in giving directions and in rocking the boat so that other associates will be free to move and shake, challenging and changing existing structures. I wanted to write “easier said than done” but realized that this concept isn’t even easy to say, let alone do. Still, it is very much worth the effort of trying to instill this spirit in your SC which in turn will hopefully transmit it to the organization.
  • Core Steering. Just because a SC, even of the “stirring” ilk, tends to be unwieldy, and you want to have the ability to move quickly (but try not to break things(:
  • iCoach. Of all the roles mentioned in this list, the iCoach is our favorite and thus the type of role on which we spend most time and energy. (Click here to be notified when we post our 2-part series on Building a Robust Coach Community) According to our approach, a strong network/community of coaches can be the mainstay of an innovation drive. We train coaches for three main tasks:
  1. Lead what we call “mini sessions”, in which 3-5 participants spend 2-3 hours solving a problem or exploring opportunities for change, as the coach facilitates using thinking tools;
  2. Engage in what we like to call “Opportunistic Innovation”, which means unofficially injecting innovative thinking into meetings, especially when thinking is stuck in a rut, but without declaring that it is what they are doing;
  3. Become the go-to person for their immediate surroundings for all matters concerning innovation.
  • iCoach’s manager. The only role in the list for which one is not officially appointed, but finds him or herself in by dint of someone else’s official appointment. We will come back to the topic of coaches and their performance in more detail in a specific post, but here I will just mention that our experience shows that the most crucial factor in determining a coach’s level of engagement and their productivity is the type of support or lack thereof that they receive from their direct boss. This is why we currently include activities with coaches’ managers as a standard component in our coach training programs.
  • Participant/User. Without bestowing upon them an official title, reaching these guys and gals is a huge part of the goal of the entire endeavor. Companies can create innovative ideas and offerings through the efforts of small, isolated and dedicated teams, but those that wish to achieve true transformation and cultural change, will need, by definition, to reach the rank and file of the organization. In the optimal scenario, innovation skills and behaviors cascade throughout the organization through myriad activities led by all the roles listed in our table, but these activities achieve traction only through active participation of the other associates. For example, in an organization with 100,000 employees there can be 5-10 executives in key innovation-related positions, several dozen part- or full-time innovation managers throughout areas and geographies, some 1000+ coaches, and a long-term effort to reach out to the rest of the 98,000+ employees, without which the innovation impact will be limited.
  • iCoordinator. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this role (and yet it is so often underestimated) for the success of an innovation program or drive. While other, more glamorous roles, will define strategy and put it into action, someone needs to make sure that communication flows, dates are marked on calendars, activities are monitored, action items are reported when completed and all the other small details that ensure that plans are executed. This role is usually filled by an associate with administrative abilities and an admin position, but often it is an opportunity for an admin with motivation to expand her or his horizons as the job grows and develops.

There is much more to say about these roles, as well as those not detailed here, but I believe that these notes can serve as a good basis for a discussion and analysis of what you may already have in your organization and what you wish to define going forward. As usual, you are very welcome to share your thoughts, questions, suggestions and experience either as a comment to this post, or directly to me. Any inputs will enhance our knowledge and hopefully, through our work and writing, enrich others as well.

Houston we have an Opportunity! Qualitative Change and the Inventive Solution

Published date: September 1, 2021 в 4:25 pm

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Category: Innovation,Problem Solving

In a famous Seinfeld episode, Kramer sues a coffee chain after scalding himself with boiling coffee. This fictional lawsuit is based on a true story in which a jury awarded close to three million dollars in damages to a woman who burned herself on boiling coffee at McDonald’s. As a result, McDonald’s took two actions: it chose the knee-jerk, trivial response, and reduced the temperature of the coffee from 90° to 60°C (194°-140°F), thereby eliminating the harmful effect, i.e. the boiling coffee. They also added a warning on the lids of the coffee cups, indicating that the hot liquid could cause burns. Both solutions do protect McDonald’s from future lawsuits. However, they are deficient in two aspects: the first solution spoils our coffee-drinking experience, as the coffee is now not hot, but warm. The second solution is not effective as most consumers do not notice the warning on the lid.

Those of us who like our coffee hot, but prefer drinking it without suffering burns, might search for more inventive solutions.

The SIT – Systematic Inventive Thinking® method contends that there are two sufficient conditions for a solution or idea to be inventive: the Closed World condition, and the Qualitative Change condition. The Closed World condition stipulates that when developing a new product or addressing a problem, one must utilize only elements that already exist in the product/problem or their immediate environment. In this article, however, we will focus our attention on the second condition—Qualitative Change—which stipulates that when trying to solve a problem, we must search for solutions in which a harmful element (one that either creates or aggravates the problem) becomes either neutral or instrumental in the problem’s solution.

This begs the question: is there a way we can transform the harmful phenomenon, i.e. the coffee’s high temperature, into an instrumental factor in reducing the risk of scalding? Smart-Lid Systems have developed such a solution—a lid that changes color according to the temperature of the liquid in the cup. The idea is so simple that one glance at a picture of the product reveals its brilliance. When the liquid is too hot for consumption, the color of the lid changes from black to red, giving a clear indication of the risk.

There are two ways in which the Qualitative Change condition can be satisfied: Reversal—as the intensity of the harmful element increases, that of the undesired phenomenon decreases; and Elimination – the intensity of the undesired phenomenon is not dependent on the [no longer] harmful element. Smart-Lid’s solution uses Reversal. Under normal circumstances, the hotter the coffee is, the greater the chances are of getting burned. Using the innovative lid reverses this correlation—the higher the temperature, the more conspicuous the indication is, which in turn reduces the risk of a burn.

The qualitative change condition is considered, for a good reason, the surprising and elegant element in the inventive solution. When properly implemented, it no longer matters if the previously harmful factor continues to exist. Either we become indifferent to it, or it becomes a corroborating element in limiting or eliminating the problem.

The scorching coffee case exemplifies how the Qualitative Change condition can help in problem solving; but it can also be easily implemented in developing new products and services. Most successful products solve a problem, even if the problem only becomes evident after the solution has been found. All-you-can-eat restaurants, for instance, use the Elimination strategy in Qualitative Change. Post factum, we can report a problem that has been solved: usually, the more food and drink a customer orders, the more expensive and complicated the dining experience becomes (both for the customer and for the proprietor). The Qualitative Change is manifested in the billing process, which is no longer dependent on the number or type of dishes ordered. For many consumers, this solution simplifies the experience and allows them to limit and control their expenses in advance.

Those who are well trained in SIT – Systematic Inventive Thinking®, focus on exploring the space of the problem instead of the solutions’ space (simply because the latter is virtually unlimited). Rather than look for ways to minimize the damage caused by the source of the problem, they concentrate their efforts on examining the relationships between the various harmful elements and other factors in the system. Searching for a solution that will enable us to alter the correlation between the harmful element and the undesired phenomenon, leads us away from the trivial solution strategy, where we simply rid ourselves of the harmful factor, and promotes surprising and inventive yet simple solutions.

Closed World – Inventing Inside the Box

Published date: August 25, 2021 в 1:54 pm

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Category: Innovation,Methodology,Strategy

Legend has it that NASA invested millions of dollars in developing a “space pen” that would perform well in zero gravity conditions. At the same time Soviet cosmonauts simply used pencils.

Regardless of the fact that we now know this story to be a myth, it provides an important insight into the characteristics of inventive ideas and solutions. It is that most of us prefer simple inexpensive solutions over complicated costly ones. This is also true when we address new product development processes. Obviously, we favor ideas that are easy and inexpensive to implement over those that require the introduction of new technologies and heavy investment. All this may sound trivial. Yet the really interesting question is: why do we so often come up with needlessly complex ideas, and how do we get to the inventive, inexpensive solutions?

The Closed World condition – thinking under constraints

Dr. Roni Horowitz, one of the developers of the SIT methodology, indicated in his PhD thesis, that an inventive solution requires two sufficient conditions: the Qualitative Change condition and the Closed World condition.

The Closed World condition stipulates that in

the development of a new product or when

addressing a problem, one must utilize only

elements already existing in the product/problem

or their immediate environment.

This condition forces us to rely on resources

that are already at our disposal

instead of “importing” new external resources

for the solution.

 

The wetsuit

The wetsuit is a simple example of the Closed World condition. It functions in cold water environments, where body heat loss is a problem potentially causing hypothermia. Solutions that call for external resources, i.e. ones that are far from the Closed World, employ added elements such as external heaters embedded in the suit or thicker insulation layers. Indeed, when it comes to extreme diving situations, such as deep-water or ice-water diving, these types of solutions are in fact required. However, they are expensive, complicated and cumbersome. By contrast, the simple wetsuit utilizes a resource that is abundantly found in the scuba diver’s environment – water. The suit’s fabric absorbs water from its surroundings and envelops the diver’s body with a thin layer of water. The diver’s own body-heat warms the water in the suit, producing a layer of warm water insulating the diver’s body from the cold environment. The diver’s body is kept warm using resources from the Closed World of the problem, namely the diver’s own body heat and the water from his or her immediate environment. It is actually an especially elegant example of the condition, since the cold water, the original cause of the problem, is converted into a resource for its solution. This kind of reversal, in which the problem is transformed into a solution, is also an example of the Qualitative Change condition mentioned above.

The meaning of the “Immediate Environment”

The concept of the “Immediate environment” is relative, and depends very much on context. Nevertheless, there are several principles that help one identify elements from a product’s (or system’s) immediate environment:

First we look for resources that have physical proximity, i.e. are actually touching the product or problem system, or are close to them. Next we look for resources that have functional proximity, i.e. their function is similar to that of one of the resources found in the problem system or product. For example a pen and a pencil have similar roles and thus one can say that the pencil is functionally close to the pen. Last, we look for resources that have structural proximity, i.e. their structure is similar to that of resources found in the product or problem space. For instance, one could say that a cellular phone is structurally close to a calculator since they both have a key pad and a screen.

 

Inventing Inside the Box

The Closed World condition often provokes resistance as it runs counter to some of the most common intuitions about creative thinking, especially the ubiquitous notion of “thinking out of the box”. The essential claim of “thinking out of the box” is that in order to produce ideas that are new and different, you need to somehow move beyond normal thinking patterns, to a universe located outside the metaphorical box. The problem is that the imperative to “think out of the box” is not usually accompanied by clear instructions of how to actually do so. The Closed World condition, by contrast, forces the thinker to find a creative solution by heavily limiting his or hers space of possibilities. It forces one to wander down new thinking paths, with the constraint that these paths are found in the immediate environment of the problem, in its closed world. Since the scope of possibilities is artificially limited there is no choice but to reconsider the relations between elements found in the problem or product and pay closer attention to them: their arrangement in space and time; their assigned functions and their necessity. Thus, the Closed World condition sets us on a collision course with our fixedness, allowing us to arrive at solutions which are both innovative (different from the usual) and simple (since based on existing and known elements).

A Closed World brainteaser To round off this introduction to the Closed World condition, we’ll leave you with a problem to solve.

The problem – An engineer working at a metal processing factory encounters a problem. Hard metal pellets, used for processing metal sheets, are accelerated by an air jet in a bent pipe. The systems works continuously and the pellets abrade the pipe at the bend or “elbow”. As a result the bend must be replaced every four weeks. An attempt to install a tougher elbow did improve the situation but as the elbow had to be replaced every seven weeks, the solution was deemed unsatisfactory.

 

Your turn to use Closed World thinking!

Take a few minutes to try and solve the problem. Remember that in order to work within the Closed World of the problem, you must use only elements and resources found in the immediate environment of the problem space.

 

One Closed World solution – The engineer decided to create a cavity or pocket in the elbow (see diagram). Since the pocket is always full of pellets, the collision energy of the flowing pellets is absorbed. The result is that the elbow itself suffers little or no abrasion and is seldom replaced. This solution is an example of an inventive solution in the closed world since no new resources were employed, nor any new technical capabilities that were not easily accessible to the engineer.

Driving Organizational Innovation – Roles and Responsibilities

Published date: August 22, 2021 в 2:00 pm

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Category: Innovation,Organizational Innovation,Strategy

Your organization has decided to embark on a program to boost its innovation capabilities, maybe shift the innovation culture or even try to change the organizational culture. Assuming that you will proceed in a structured approach, you will definitely ask yourself whether you need to assign specific innovation-related roles, and if so – which and how.

Like good, annoying stereotypical consultants we offer two pieces of seemingly conflicting advice:

  1. Avoid as much as possible creating a parallel governance structure, and steer away from overloading the organization with even more unnecessary bureaucracy;
  2. Make sure that specific innovation roles are defined and that at least some of them will be exercised by full time dedicated associates.

The first of these two is self-explanatory, I believe. The reason for the second is that if you rely exclusively on part timers and on a generalized motivation among the troops, innovation will simply not happen, since an associate’s “real” day job will always take precedence over their innovation assignment. A mix of part- and full-timers can do the job, provided that a proper structure is put in place and managers throughout the corporate ladder are committed to collaborate with the full-timers and support the part-timers.

The “correct” or proper structure obviously varies immensely depending on the organization implementing it. Very few organizations that I am aware of implement all the roles in the table below, and even those who do, don’t persist with all of them for a long time, mostly because not all are needed as a permanent fixture. In fact, as an organization develops and progresses in its innovation journey it will tend to need less of a supporting structure, until, in its ideal end stage, it can completely shed the structure as more and more people innovate in what they do, simply because it is ingrained in their modus operandi and their newly formed thought structures (for a useful definition of innovation, that can help understand what is it exactly that you are driving to achieve, see our post What is Innovation). But meanwhile, on the way to this elusive and lofty goal, here is the perfect, optimal, full blown, often unrealistic-but-still-useful-reference org-tree of innovation governance in a corporation.

Again, it is important to stress that:

  • This is a catalogue of many possible options, which only rarely appear in the same organization at the same time;
  • This structure obviously applies to large organizations, often multinational;
  • Terminology also varies widely. For example, the terms iAmbassador, iCatalyst, iLeader are often used interchangeably with iChampion, iCoach, iManager or even VP Innovation;
  • The hierarchical level of those holding the various roles can differ, be higher or lower than the level specified in the table, but note that – as discussed in our post Two Blind Spots – one should take care to drive innovation both from the bottom up, as well as top-down, while heeding the most important agents – middle management. The table above reflects this principle.

In spite of the variability, and the need to adapt roles and responsibilities to the specific organization, we find this list and structure useful, since all of the functions listed have a real and productive role in promoting and driving innovation in an organization. None of the roles mentioned above is make-believe, although they all need to be infused with content and meaning as they are created, and the task is often daunting, given that the person filing them will often be the first in her or his role.

Sixteen years ago, I sat with Oscar, a sad-looking and deflated manager who had just been awarded the title of innovation manager for a division of 8,000 employees. “I like the title and believe that it can be exciting,” he said. Why, then, did he look so forlorn, I asked. “In my former job, colleagues were running in and out of my office all day, my phone was incessantly ringing, everyone needed me. I had a real job. Now,” he sighed, “I’m sitting quietly in my empty office figuring out what to do.” Today, as VP Innovation of the entire 23,000-strong organization, he manages a team of 50 employees, plus several dozens of interns and students in part-time roles, playing a crucial role in the mother company’s ongoing transformation. His team also lends support to the company’s 1200 trained Innovation Coaches, not all of whom are currently active, but many of which have leading roles in promoting innovation in their respective units (click here to be notified about our future posts on Creating an Innovation Coach Community).  One could cynically interpret this development in terms of Parkinson’s Law – a new bureaucracy nourishing itself and creating useless jobs, but on the contrary, they are constantly being monitored, their results measured according to agreed-upon indicators (see our posts on Measuring Innovation (Part 1 and Part 2) and found to be greatly contributing to the corporation’s growth and profitability. Time and again we find that, when correctly defined and executed, an innovation governance structure can be the key to drive innovation effectively throughout an organization.

In Part 2 of this nano-series on Roles and Responsibilities, we will dive into some of the roles mentioned in the table above, discuss characteristics of those individuals who can fulfill the tasks and point out some recommended dos and don’ts when defining and performing them.

Copy with pride: What you can learn from other companies’ innovation programs

Published date: August 18, 2021 в 4:57 pm

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Category: Innovation,Strategy

This week, I received an email from Fast Company offering to propose who I believe should join their list of Most Innovative companies. In fact, every year, Forbes and Fast Company reveal their lists for the most innovative companies. These awards often get people in the non-listed organizations wondering – “How do they do it?” “What are they doing that I’m not?” Or worse – “I’m doing a lot of things like them, why aren’t we up there?” The super-status bestowed upon these companies creates lots of inspiration for trying out new techniques to promote innovation (typically followed by lots of googling and article reading).

Copy and pasting other companies’ innovation methods is not as quick of a fix as one would hope. Think back to when “Idea Boxes” (similar to “suggestion boxes”) first emerged. On the surface, it’s a great concept. And the truth is, its underlying promise still rings true: Anyone can submit ideas. Everyone is invited to take part. But the reality for many companies that tried to implement idea boxes as literally just idea boxes was that it left them with mixed feelings and more stuff on their plate to sift through.

Innovation is not a one-size-fits-all. You have to make sure efforts are customized to your company’s goals, resources, and culture. And so as they say – before you copy from a company, walk a mile in their shoes. Then you will be able to copy them and have their shoes.

Jokes aside, in this day of networking, knowledge sharing, and even co-opetition, there are so many opportunities to investigate firsthand not only what other companies are doing, but how they actually do it. From embarking on an Innovation Journey to another country or keeping it local and visiting companies nearby, there’s much to learn from any organization whether or not they appear on the “Most Innovative List” (they’ll be flattered, trust me). The key here is having a personal interaction and seeing with your own eyes:

  1. New directions that you haven’t thought of – What is the most unique thing the company you visited is doing? It doesn’t have to be a huge, complex mechanism (although it can be). Look for the impact. Understand why it works for them. Did they need to make any adjustments along the way? What changes would you require if you adopted it in your company?
  2. What’s not working #1 – Think what you’d like to improve in your company’s innovation efforts and see if this is something your host company has struggled with as well. Have they found ways to overcome it? Is this something you could approach together and share insights?
  3. What’s not working #2 – Don’t forget to find out (diplomatically) what isn’t working for them. Make sure that you avoid those pitfalls in your company also.
  4. Validation for what is working – Is there something you’re proud of regarding how innovation runs in your company that might work well for your host company too? Based on your visits, are you able to gain confidence in how your company promotes innovation?
  5. Same same but different – Look for similarities in your innovation approaches. Do you share methods or innovation structures? Perhaps small differences can provide a helpful tweak.
  6. Knowledge sharing – Visiting companies offers new vantage points and exposure to knowledge accumulated by others. Traveling abroad provides unique insights that can result from having a different cultural outlook. Staying local offers opportunities for continued personal meet-ups, and ideas for resources you can partake in. You never know what might be going on in your own backyard. Regardless of visiting a company near or far, this is a game of give and take. Extend an invitation to meet back at your company. This will be the making of your own innovators’ network where you can all continue to learn with and from each other.
Getting your company to the “Innovation A-list” and sustaining the position over time is a process of implementing, fine-tuning, and evolving an array of techniques and mechanisms. Finding the right combinations for your company isn’t always a matter of reinventing the wheel, and certainly not successful if just replicated blindly. Get yourself out there, gather intel, and then renovate the wheel to work for you.

5 Tips for Running an Excellent Innovation Award (or at least minimizing damages of a lousy one)

Published date: August 15, 2021 в 12:30 pm

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Category: Innovation,Innovation Facilitation,Organizational Innovation

I hate competitions and awards. Some say it’s because I’m not sufficiently competitive, others will consider it a sign that I am too competitive to consider losing. Be that as it may, experience has mostly confirmed my suspicion of the genre. We’ve seen competitions that burnt up hundreds of working days and resulted mainly in frustrated applicants who didn’t win. Other competitions run out of steam after one or two editions, or become a chore that employees grudgingly collaborate with for fear of retaliation. On the other hand, I must admit that introducing an innovation competition or award in a company or organization can be beneficial in several ways, some more obvious than others:

  1. Certain associates who otherwise would not bother to offer a novel idea or embark on an innovative initiative, may do so in the hopes of winning;
  2. Teams may be formed to tackle the challenge jointly thus promoting collaboration;
  3. If the prize is substantial, it can serve to communicate management’s true commitment to innovation;
  4. If the competition culminates in a grand event, it can be an opportunity to put innovation in the organizational spotlight;
  5. If successful, a competition can serve to showcase an organization’s abilities to its stakeholders. Competitions can be excellent PR opportunities;

These and other, less lofty reasons (egos involved, power struggles, etc.) can definitely tip the scales` and lead an organization to launch an innovation competition. This post refers to internal awards or competitions rather than those that are open to the public. Considering some of the following five points can increase the probability of making this kind of activity successful.

1. Ideas or achievements? In most cases, for an internal competition, we strongly recommend the latter.

  • Awards for ideas can be useful to create deal-flow for an internal VC or accelerator. You set aside some funds and turn to the public (or your employees) to uncover ideas that can be developed into startups, whether to be developed internally or to be spun off.
  • Awards for innovative achievements, rather than mere ideas, are much more conducive to actual implemented results. In order to even qualify for consideration, the applicant cannot just present an idea, but must also make sure it is implemented. A much more challenging task, but also much more useful to the organization.

On balance, therefore, for most cases we recommend that participants compete on achievements rather than ideas: they are easier to evaluate and they communicate the message that what the company is after are results, rather than only concepts.

2. How do you define which applications can be considered legitimate innovations? For this, we turn to our definition of innovation (to read the post), by requiring that associates submitting achievements should demonstrate:

  • The impact of what was achieved (a product, a process, a new strategy, etc.), as quantitatively as possible;
  • The fixedness (or several) that had to be broken in order to arrive at the impact, as specifically as possible;

3. Should the call for application be completely open? On one hand: why not? You can send out a call to any associate to submit any achievement in any field, given that it complies with the two abovementioned criteria. On the other hand, we have found that it is useful to nudge or direct applications, limiting possibilities and thus increasing focus and improving quality. You can do so in one or more of the following ways (and, of course, others):

  • Define a number of categories with a separate prize (or prizes) for each. For example: Marketing and Sales, Digital Technologies, Sustainability, Organizational Culture, etc., according to the organization’s strategic priorities;
  • In order to break professional silos, you can require that applications can be submitted only with the participation of, say, both R&D and Commercial. The requirement can be adapted to the characteristics of the organization and/or the silos you wish to break. In any case, when you accept only achievements rather than ideas, applications will naturally tend to be submitted by teams rather than individuals, promoting (by definition) teamwork, but not guaranteeing cross-silo collaboration, which can be achieved through specific requirements like those mentioned above.
  • Chairperson’s (President’s) Challenge: for certain organizations, we have found, a motivating and goal-sharpening way to kick-off a competition is through what is often called “The President’s Challenge”. This requires that top management spend time and effort to select one or several challenges whose solution can have a strong impact on the organization, and then publish their conclusions in the form of a brief. The down side of this format is that it excludes many potential ideas and initiatives from competing, but this loss is more than offset, in some organizational cultures, by: 1) the extra effort invested by contestants when a demand comes directly from the top, and 2) the power of a coordinated effort of many minds to tackle a specific problem with a large potential payoff.

4. The jury – it is recommended to assemble a jury combining high level executives from the organization, including the President or CEO, with external experts. Participation of top executives from the organization is usually the strongest motivator, for obvious reasons. But external judges can play important supporting roles. First, they confer a sense of importance and gravitas on the proceedings, second, they are useful for PR, establishing your company as a reference for innovation (if you deserve the title), and third, if selected wisely, they can contribute a useful external perspective and relevant references from other industries. A fourth reason is that this type of invitation can be an opportunity to strengthen ties with suppliers, other players in the ecosystem and sometimes even clients.

5. Prizes come in many forms and monetary values. A general rule of thumb we tend to use is that prizes for innovation work best the further they are from purely monetary compensation and the nearer they are to the professional and personal needs of innovators. Motivating examples can range from the modest (a voucher for an interesting course) to the extravagant (a 5-day exploration trip for the winning teams to an exotic and challenging location for innovation-by-adventure), and from the purely professional (vouchers for simulation experts and designers to further develop your ideas) to the more personal (a dinner or weekend activity with you spouse and maybe the kids, to compensate for all those extra hours you spent working on this project instead of being with them).

 

In summary: do we recommend that you set up an innovation competition or award in your organization? Yes, we do. But with a caveat: although the concept seems pretty straightforward, it is probably easier to get it wrong than right, unless much care is taken with the details. I believe our 5 tips can serve you as a good starting point, and I am sure there are many others that you, our readers, are aware of. It would be excellent if you shared some with us in this space.

How to become a Green Innovation expert by Breaking Fixedness

Published date: August 11, 2021 в 2:07 pm

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Category: Innovation,Methodology,Sustainable Innovation

Green innovation is an everlasting challenge, where many companies are looking for innovative ways to win this eco-marathon. Some industries are more active than others, affected by regulations and natural resources constraints. Sustainability goals provide many benefits to organizations. In addition to a company’s reputation, executives can enjoy an array of other benefits. But what are the best ways of achieving it? Read on to learn about how to achieve green innovation through breaking fixedness:

Cognitive Fixedness, first defined by psychologist Karl Duncker, prevents individuals and companies from creating new configurations in the systems they manage. This often blocks us from seeing potential efficiencies and material reduction, and breakthrough solutions to problems.

Check out these 3 main barriers to sustainable innovation:

1. Structural – The tendency to view products and systems as a complete gestalt. Many SIT’s tools help break this particular fixedness to achieve sustainable innovation. For instance, a water saving toilet was developed by Villeroy-Boch in an SIT workshop. Multiplying the water streams resulted in more pressure in each stream, therefore requiring less water. This product won the ISH Innovation Prize and was chosen by Deutsche Bank in its transformation of its HQ to become one of the most environmentally friendly high-rises in Europe.

2.  Functional – Seeing objects as capable only of fulfilling their original function. SIT uses the Task Unification tool to help innovators find new uses for existing resources, thus forcing them to find new functions for available objects and tackle functional fixedness.

 

3. Relational – The tendency to view relationships and dependencies between variables of a situation as static and permanent. Assif Strategies, our partners in a Greener by Design Conference, described the following case study during the event:

A bus company’s emissions were well above expectations.

They had 100 old buses and 50 new ones, and 400 drivers. Assif discovered that drivers were allowed to select both their buses and their routes based on seniority. Naturally, drivers chose the easier routes (that had fewer stops and shifts) and the newer buses. The relationship that resulted was that the older buses drove the “stop and go” routes on three shifts, while the new ones drove more continuously and were parked at night, obviously resulting in much higher emissions than necessary.

Breaking this relational fixedness required a

major cultural change in the company, and by

creating a new relationship within existing

available resources, the bus company was able

to reduce over 10 percent of its emissions.

Along with some other simple changes,

it achieved a total reduction of 50 percent.

How to overcome fixedness and break innovation barriers?

The challenge of breaking fixedness is threefold.

First, recognize you could be suffering from cognitive fixedness, and not seeing the entire potential “playing field”.

Second, identify underlying assumptions in the system in question and accept that even though “this is how we always did it” or “this is how it must be done” they can still be changed.

Lastly, be flexible about the structure, functions and relationships between the system’s elements in order to generate new forms that can lead to new thinking and new solutions.

 

This concept ties in well with the message of the keynotes in the Greener By Design conference; they all essentially break a critical underlying assumption about our industry or society: from William McDonough (Cradle to Cradle, MDBC) who questions why can’t a building be as smart as a tree, creating oxygen, food and shelter, to Tom Szaky (TerraCycle) who challenges the entire concept of garbage, to the point that he “no longer sees trash, only cash”, and to David de Rothschild, who endeavors to cross the Pacific Ocean on the Plastiki (homage to the Kon Tiki, of course) using the ocean’s most prevalent waste as means of transportation.

The green line

So what is the key takeaway? Breaking fixedness is a milestone for generating green innovation. Our innovation message for companies working on going greener is to focus on finding and tackling their fixedness.

On Indicators and Measuring Innovation – Part 2

Published date: August 8, 2021 в 2:00 pm

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Category: Innovation,Organizational Innovation

In Part 1 of this micro-series we mentioned 6 observations about indicators and measurements in general, with a focus on some common difficulties. In this installment, we will look at several points relating specifically to the measurement of innovation. This is in no way intended to be a comprehensive treatment of the subject, but I will try to cover some useful points.

Let’s start with the question of the necessity and viability of measuring innovation. When we worked with Tal Givoly, at the time Chief Scientist of the Israeli software company Amdocs, he used to say: “Management is so interested in innovation, that it plants a seed and then pulls it out of the ground every day to see how its roots are growing.” I like to quote him to managers as a call to caution, not only in meddling with innovation but also on trying to monitor it too closely. Still, the opposite approach is no less misleading. According to this, innovation is a magical phenomenon, a spark that one cannot ignite at will, let alone measure, and any attempt at doing so will result in extinguishing the fire. This is obviously misguided since, without measuring the results of your innovation efforts there is a slim chance that you will receive the funding and support to sustain them beyond the initial burst of enthusiasm that started the drive.

Contrary to the “mystical” attitude, we tend to say, with only a bit of simplification, that innovation is like any other business process and therefore should be measured just as you would, say, your sales or efficiency efforts. So, assuming that innovation must be monitored and measured, there are two basic intuitions as to how this should be conducted. The first stems from the following logic: one’s motivation to be innovative is the wish to achieve the organization’s goals (see our post on the definition of innovation) and therefore these very goals, as expressed by their corresponding indicators, can adequately assess the value of our efforts to innovate. If we launch an innovation drive which does not result in an impact on our regular business indicators, then we are wasting our time and money. Therefore, the only indicators that an organization requires in order to monitor and evaluate its innovation efforts are those that are used to measure its performance anyway.

 

 

The appeal of this approach is that it both simplifies the measurement process and ties the innovation efforts inextricably to the company’s goals. Unfortunately, it has two grave shortcomings: 1) it is very hard to isolate the influence of your innovation efforts from the myriad factors that influence business results (factors both external – a pandemic, say, or internal – flaws in a product, or unwise allocation of resources); 2) even when you can isolate the contribution of your innovation activities, their influence on business goals will be evident only after several months, or even years. So how do you monitor your activities and make decisions as you go along, if their effects will appear only, say, within 6 months?

These difficulties often lead innovation leaders to adopt the opposite approach: since it is virtually impossible to isolate, especially in real time, the output of innovation efforts, it is seen as wiser to simply measure inputs. You hatch your plans for innovation, define specific activities, and closely monitor their delivery and implementation.

 

This is indeed a much more practical approach, which lends itself easily to project management and real time decision making. The only trouble is that you may find yourself beautifully and efficiently implementing a useless plan, that does not translate into any important benefit.

 

Our suggestion is, therefore, to create a dynamic “sliding scale” approach to measuring innovation activities, which I will demonstrate in the following scenario (derived, with some generalizations and simplifications, from our work with various companies and organizations).

Imagine that you have decided to train 400 of what we call “Innovation Coaches” (in a forthcoming post, we will describe the design, deployment and management of such a coach community. Click here to receive a notification when the post comes out). Their goal is to promote innovation throughout the organization through the facilitation of innovation sessions. The first indicator will therefore be: number of coaches trained. Since you had reached the conclusion that there was a need for 400 coaches, you want to make sure that they are trained as planned. Not a trivial task, given both the logistic requirements and the HR challenges.

 

But, of course, training a large and increasing number of coaches can end up being a huge waste of time and resources, unless they are delivering results, so, upon completion of the training of your first batch of, say, 16 coaches, you must immediately start measuring the next indicator: number of sessions delivered per coach. This helps assess the cumulative effect of the coaches on the organization, and along the way gives you some insight on the percentage of active coaches out of those who have undertaken the training (if less than 80% are somehow active, we recommend you review either the quality of the training or the trainees’ selection process, or both).

Obviously, as you celebrate a hopefully growing number of sessions, you may only be causing an even greater waste of people’s time and therefore your company’s resources. All depends on what they are actually achieving in their sessions, which is extremely difficult to assess, given that the impact of the participation in a session on a participant’s brain and behavior is extremely difficult to measure. You can therefore resort to a simplified proxy, the most practical and direct you can measure, which is the number of ideas produced in a session, to assess its productivity.

 

These are only the first three steps in an ongoing process. But how should this process be timed? How soon should one move from one indicator to the next? The proper answer to these questions is crucial to the success of the entire enterprise, not only of the measurement itself, but also the actual results, since the mere act of measurement exerts, as we all know, a strong influence on the measured activities. Say that a coach has graduated from her training. She is keen on trying out her new skills, but, on the other hand, she is a bit hesitant about having to stand up and lead her peers, or maybe even her superiors, through an exercise that has less than a 100% probability of success. She may also have to contend with a lack of support from her boss who is complaining that she is behind schedule in her regular work. The knowledge that someone is counting the number of sessions she runs can nudge her in the right direction, together with, perhaps, an extra carrot, such as the promise that any coach who facilitates, say, 6 sessions in the first two months is eligible for participation in an advanced training. So, counting the number of delivered sessions is probably a good idea immediately after coaches’ graduation from their training. But caution! In this fragile stage, counting the number of ideas produced in the session is nearly always premature, and most likely will significantly decrease the number of sessions and lower the percentage of active coaches! “Now, I don’t only need to add to my workload, argue with my boss, stand in front of not-always-collaborative colleagues and risk the embarrassment of wasting everyone’s time in what could turn out to be a useless session, they also want to monitor the number of ideas that came out? I’ll need to spend time documenting and reporting, and then find myself being scolded because they came to the conclusion that my session hadn’t been productive enough?”. Time and again we see that when management pushes to measure session results too early, coaches react either by lowering the number of sessions they facilitate, or by conducting them without reporting, which, in terms of organizational evaluation, amounts to the same thing. This phenomenon emphasizes two key dilemmas in measuring innovation activities:

  1. What you measure doesn’t only affect what you know but also what happens to those you are measuring;
  2. The more data you collect about an activity, and the more you tend to impose reporting efforts on the actors, the less time, energy and motivation they will have to do the actual work.

We strongly recommend, therefore, that you allow coaches to feel confident with conducting sessions, hopefully even enjoying the process, before you start monitoring the sessions’ outcomes. But, at some point, this must happen, and as you start counting the number of ideas produced per session, the next question arises. As we have all painfully learned, mainly thanks to the inefficacy of Brainstorming, quantity of ideas is not only not a guarantee of quality but can also become a burden and an energy drain. Which is why the next indicator is required: % of ideas from a session that made it into the company’s idea-development pipeline. Subsequently, you can select one or more stages of your development process and count the ideas that achieve each one or jump to the next important milestone: number of ideas launched into the market (or, if your output is not products into market, the equivalent measure such as processes changed, services offered, social programs launched, etc.).

 

Using this same logic, the sliding scale for measuring the results of your innovation efforts can be extended according to your organization’s process of product development, or project management. Common additional stages that can be added to the scale are revenues, profits, savings or market share obtained through the launch of a product or initiative, thus converging what started out in one extreme pole as a measurement of pure inputs into the opposite pole of relying on those indicators that monitor your organization’s goals and objectives.

 

Note that the approach described here attempts to address some of the pitfalls and follow some of the guidelines mentioned in my former post on the subject:

  1. Be practical by starting superficially, but do not be daunted by the difficulties and insist on going further and deeper;
  2. Consider the needs both of those who are doing the measuring and those who are being measured;
  3. Remember that measuring is an invasive process that affects the measured for good and bad, and timing can crucially determine which one it is;
  4. Consider carefully what you decide to measure, and be prepared to defend the rationale of its importance;
  5. Be transparent about the results, whatever they end up demonstrating.

In a future post, we will describe how this same approach can be expanded to apply to organizational innovation, rather than to a specific activity, by breaking up the large organizational effort into what we call The 7 Elements of Organizational Innovation. Meanwhile, we recommend that you try to apply the sliding scale approach to one or several of your innovation activities. And we would love to hear how it goes and what you learn.

How to Embrace Failure Without Falling on Your Face

Published date: August 4, 2021 в 3:30 pm

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Category: Innovation,Methodology,Strategy

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Many years ago, I presented what I considered to be a very cool project to an extremely smart VP of Marketing in a large B2C company on the East Coast of the US. Fortunately, she shared my enthusiasm, and the process of engaging us for the project was running along nicely. It was an ambitious and somewhat risky project in the sense that it required the involvement of about 20 high-level managers who were very skeptical about its chances of success. This put “my” VP in the stressful position of either ending up as the initiator of notable success or being forever remembered as the perpetrator of a huge mistake (could she embrace failure?).

At some point, she asked me: “Can we make absolutely sure this will succeed?”And, silly me, I answered with a big smile: “Of course not. Don’t you remember? One of our key messages in this project is that if you innovate you must embrace the risk of failure. So since we are designing such an innovative project, of course, there is a risk that it will fail.” Obviously, we didn’t get the project, because, regardless of the oft-quoted cliché, nobody really wants to “celebrate failures”. People want successes. And if there is one thing they will avoid at all costs, it is failure.

 

Embracing Failure, the Contradiction

 

There seems to be a contradiction: We want to think ahead. We want to try new things. We want to innovate and embrace failure as part of the inventive process. At the same time, we want to be in control of our outcomes. We cannot afford to make mistakes.

This leads to a dilemma: Companies encourage their employees to fail and learn. But they expect them not to fail.

Failures are at best unwanted – at worst systematically concealed, to avoid blame or punishment. Pressure is a means of control. The result: a fear of failure.

The prevalence of fear of failure in companies is alarming considering how paralyzing it can be for the companies’ development.

Three reasons for this troublesome effect:

1. Risk Aversion

Here is one cliché that is absolutely true: Failure is an essential part of innovation. When prototyping a new product, expect failure. That’s what prototypes are for, and that is why you will work on several consecutively, or even in parallel. Therefore, the maxim fails fast and try again.

But, if every failure is considered a mini-disaster, who wants to even consider risking it? Rather, the ultimate goal is to achieve full control of the process. Hence, any change or novel idea is treated as a potential threat.

 

2. Loser-phobia

If one strives to overcome one’s Cognitive Fixedness, a fundamental tool is the ability to reflect on one’s actions and to engage in metacognition (a reflection on one’s thinking processes). Every failure thus becomes a source of learning and a driver of change.

But, when your failures are perceived as a sign of being a “loser,” what are the chances that you will actually take the time to confront your failures, reflect on them, and draw useful conclusions?

 

3. Who? Me?

In cultures that do not truly accept failures, there is a strong incentive to underreport them and to avoid any public reference to them, let alone an open analysis.  This greatly increases, obviously, the probability that the same mistakes will be repeated. A good litmus test: Ask anyone who tells you that you should “embrace failure”, if they are willing to share a recent one of their own. Most chances are they won’t, and that tells you what you will be risking if you share yours.

You probably agree that it can be very beneficial to embrace failure in certain areas – in an honest and consistent manner. But in other areas, we cannot allow for mistakes. The point is, to make this distinction explicit and communicate it to everyone involved. Clarity is key.

 

Instead of pretending to universally embrace failure, you map out areas in which failing is acceptable. Then, you commit yourself to this map.

Here are some actions you may consider to embrace failure:

Mark your “control towers”

Imagine working in a control tower. There is obviously no way to embrace failures here. Imagine an airport with 5000 landings and take-offs per month. a mistake rate of 0.01% would imply 5 crashes per month. There are such “control towers” in every company. In some areas, even if a leader doesn’t care to admit it, failure is not an option. Being explicit about your “control towers” is crucial, if you want people to avoid these specific mistakes at all costs. Only then, everyone is on the same page: We give our best to prevent failure and if it happens, we report it. In other areas, the expectation might not be as clear. 

We suggest three mechanisms: define roles, draw lines and install safety nets.

When defining roles, you assign to a specific group of employees the role of innovators. It is then clear to everyone that this group will generate ideas, try new things – and occasionally fail. Your “innovators” will enjoy the freedom to explore and develop new ideas. At the same time, they will be accountable for their failures as part of the process.

Drawing lines means, defining which parts of a project are open to experimentation and those that are not. Within the defined lines, failure is acceptable. Innovation is welcome.

Safety nets are a similar idea, on a different level. To limit the impact of failures, you innovate in specific areas, e.g. those that are not part of your core business.

In defining roles, drawing lines and installing safety nets, we map out areas in which failures are acceptable. Only then we can truly claim: We embrace failure. Feel free to innovate.

In addition to the above actions, you can also utilize some advice from experts on the subject. 

Have a backup plan

Leon Ho says that it never hurts to have a back-up plan. The last thing you want to do is scramble for a solution when the worst has happened. “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.” This old adage holds solid wisdom. Having a backup plan gives you more confidence to move forward and take calculated risks.

Perhaps you’ve applied for a grant to fund an initiative at work. In the worst-case scenario, if you don’t get the grant, are there other ways you could secure the funds? There are usually multiple ways to tackle a problem, so having a back-up plan is a great way to reduce anxiety about possible failure.

Leon Ho (https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/how-fear-of-failure-destroys-success.html)

Identify the consequences

Theo Tsaousides says that in order to attenuate fear of failure, first identify the consequences of failing that scare you the most and evaluate your ability to deal with these consequences. Instead of talking yourself out of the fear by hoping that nothing negative will happen, focus on building confidence to deal with the consequences.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

  1. Which of these consequences scare you the most?
  2. How much impact will they have on you? Are they merely unpleasant or life-threatening? Will they just make you feel uncomfortable, or will they hurt you deeply and irreparably?
  3. How quickly will you move on? Are the consequences permanent or reversible? Are they short-lived, or will they linger forever?
  4. How well can you handle them? Can you exercise damage control, or will you hide and disappear?

Theo Tsaousides (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/smashing-the-brainblocks/201801/how-conquer-fear-failure)

Now that you’re equipped with the knowledge, it’s your turn: Tell us about YOUR experience in dealing with a Fear of Failure and check out one of our latest article on how to manage airtime!

On Indicators and Measuring Innovation – Part 1

Published date: August 1, 2021 в 2:00 pm

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Category: Innovation,Organizational Innovation

On June 30th, I posted about the meaning of the term “innovation”. These were the post’s opening sentences:

When I typed “definition of innovation” into Google the other day, I came up with 1,710,000,000 replies, which means absolutely nothing, of course, raising the question why the arguably most influential company on earth has been consistently feeding us with this useless piece of data for so many years. So, I promise to use this very same opening sentence in a future post (repurposing, saving on first-sentence-emissions) about some common popular fallacies around indicators and measurement.

Keeping my promise here, I reiterate my bewilderment and will attempt to use this example to shed some light on the oft-asked question: how should innovation be measured? This question came up yet again last week in a conversation with an Innovation Manager in a medium-sized financial company. “They [management] are demanding that we boost innovation throughout the company when I don’t even know what innovation is nor have any idea how to measure it.” The former question was addressed by the post mentioned above. In this post (both parts) we will address the latter.

Here, in Part 1, we will start by using the example of Google’s indicators to share some observations on what should or shouldn’t be done when measuring performance in general. In Part 2, we will analyze some specifics of measuring in the context of innovation.

As I write this, I repeat my search for “definition of innovation”. Why does Google choose to share with me that my search took 0.60 to complete and that it came up with 1,860,000,000 results? Why would I care? What can I do with these two pieces of information? One can imagine that in the late 1990’s this pair of indicators served to signal both “look how fast our engine is”, and “see how many results we can provide you with”. Even then, there was a glaring discrepancy between the search engine’s stated differentiator and the indicators communicated. Google claimed the superiority of its algorithm based on the quality of its results, not their quantity nor the speed of their delivery, so why were they boasting characteristic #1 while measuring #2 and #3?  This is the result of my repeated search today:

 

Keen readers will have noticed that the number that appears above constitutes an increase of 150,000 finds over my former search, quoted in the opening paragraph. Say that Google has indeed found 150,000 additional hits in less than a month. So what? Have I gained anything from this increase? Obviously not. Clearly, then, these indicators have not been selected to cater to my needs as seeker of information. Why were they selected then? One suspects that a possible reason is that they are simply easy to measure. So, the first observation on the misleading use of indicators is:

Observation #1: People and organizations tend to skew towards indicators that are easy to measure.

Ben Gomes, Google’s Vice-President of Engineering, has been quoted as saying, “…our goal is to get you the exact answer you’re searching for faster.” He goes on to explain: “Our research shows that if search results are slowed by even a fraction of a second, people search less (seriously: A 400ms delay leads to a 0.44 percent drop in search volume, data fans).”

Note that although the professed goal is to provide an “exact answer” there is no indicator to measure to what extent this important measure has been attained. This lacuna may be attributed either to a harsher variant of Observation #1 (above):

Observation #1*: If you haven’t figured out how to measure something, disregard it (even if you know it is crucially important).

Or, in more unfortunate cases:

Observation #2: If you’ve figured out how to measure it, but you’re not happy with the results, hide them.

For obvious reasons, we don’t expect Google to show us a search result that looks like this:

 

But wait, you may say, the Google VP did explain the huge importance of speed, so that is a crucial factor that should be measured. Yes, it may be crucial, but for them, rather than for you. This, then, is a prime example of:

Observation #3: Technologists and bureaucrats will tend to measure and communicate indicators that are important for them, rather than for their users/clients.

It is, no doubt, of the utmost importance for Google’s techies to measure and monitor the precise duration of each and every one of the 5.4 billion(!) daily searches (2020) on their awe-inspiring platform. But that does not at all mean that this specific piece of data about my search is of any interest to me. Ask yourself: Have you ever noticed this number? If I tell you that your search x took 0.36 seconds or your search y an agonizing 0.72, would these numbers mean anything to you? It is a stretch to imagine that Google, with its 135,301 employees and 182,527 billion US$ revenue (both numbers refer to Alphabet, end of 2020) can’t figure out that these two indicators are respectively useless and meaningless to their users. Why then, do they appear so prominently? Another possible explanation could be:

Observation #4: If you prefer to avoid sharing certain indicators, direct the spotlight to others.

This may be the most sensible explanation of the Google indicator puzzle: speed and quantity may actually be playing the role of what I propose to name “decoy indicators”. The function of this class of indicators is to enable a company to offer a semblance of transparency, while in fact obfuscating all those indicators that its audience could really be interested to monitor but is not even aware of. The Google-search-indicator-set of our dreams would maybe include some or all of these:

 

A majority of these indicators would probably be as useless to most of us as the two original ones, but would at least supply a welcome variation on the theme, or perhaps could be rotated throughout searches so that the user would either select those she wished to see or would be served a random selection of 2-3 each time. The other indicators could, say, be accessed by clicking on an icon. Does it really matter which indicators are selected? It could, very much.

Nine years ago, when we took our 3-week old youngest daughter to our favorite pediatrician for a small check-up, he noticed a minor irregularity and prepared to perform a small but invasive test on her. I stopped him and asked why he was planning to do so. He answered that it was “the protocol” and would supply him with a piece of important data which he would register in her newly created computer file. When I asked whether the value of this data would determine any specific action to be taken, he admitted that it would not. I therefore asked him not to perform the test to which he immediately agreed. This incident re-confirmed a rule I strictly follow in all my dealings with medical staff to the chagrin of many of them: always politely request that they provide a simple rationale for whatever action they are about to perform. Surprisingly, very often they are not able to do so, apart from quoting “the protocol”. The corollary of this rule for medical tests or examinations, as for measurements in general is:

Observation #5 When you select or design an indicator, make sure you know precisely what you want to know and why.

Even if the price of measuring and communicating a useless indicator is low (even lower than the minimal invasion of my daughter), you would do best to avoid it, as indicators tend to take on a life of their own by bestowing undue importance on the measured quantity.

Observation #6: Indicators, even if selected for the wrong reasons, and therefore useless, will appear important because they’re there.

And, once the indicators are there, you will find yourself playing the corporate-Edmund-Hilary and inevitably climbing the management-imposed-Himalaya, diverting energies from other, more constructive endeavors. This is one of the reasons that we all at times experience a certain unease even as we are exceling according to some set of indicators or other. Deeply, intuitively, beneath our superficial satisfaction at hitting our numbers, some voice is asking: but what for?

In the next post (Part 2) we will discuss how these phenomena play out in organizations’ attempts to measure their level of innovation, as they use indicators such as number of ideas submitted to idea-boxes, number of patents, % of revenues spent on R&D, % of sales derived from new products and other commonly used indicators. We will see that many such standard indicators can be applied usefully, depending on timing and context, and will review several examples, exploring how they can be constructively put to good use.

 

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