SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST Embracing and Thriving While Re-Imagining Everything By Jim Thompson
H
ow do we balance who we are, as individuals and organizations, and what we’ve historically been known for with the urgencies of now and the musts of tomorrow? If you haven’t given it thought, you’re already irrelevant. For organizations to survive in an ‘innovate or die’ world, it’s becoming imperative to master current demands while anticipating and planning for future innovation. New technologies are disrupting industries faster than ever before, and we’re faced with finding a balance between thriving in the now and continuously reinventing ourselves and our organizations. Those who survive are agile and adaptable, with ultimate success depending on how comfortable we are stretching ourselves in new, uncomfortable and disruptive ways while adjusting to rapid change. THINK LIKE A START-UP As organizations evolve, a common theme is that we need dreamers and doers at the same time. Sarah Ban Breathnach sums this sentiment up nicely with “The world needs dreamers and doers, but above all, the world needs dreamers who do.” It’s thinking like a start-up. Action over research and testing over analysis; coming up with quick ideas and rapid testing to make sure those ideas bring the value necessary to push things forward. The educator Sir Ken Robinson talks about the differentiation in terminology where imagination, what we all think about creatively, the ideas that pop into our heads, can make us feel like we have this wonderful thing that we can do. He goes on to say, however, that creativity is when you craft something new with that imagination. There is important differentiation beyond imagination and creativity: innovation means you do something that has value in the marketplace.
8
Beyond Workplace II
INNOVATION IS NOT EASY In his book The Three Box Solution, Vijay Govindarajan talks about the balance of simultaneously managing and optimizing what an organization does today with the imperatives of what needs to happen for tomorrow, and he shows this in three principles – his Three Box Solution. One of his principles, or boxes, is Manage the Present, which refers to how we optimize what we do today; how we become better, faster and cheaper with the opportunity and workload that we have today. We also need to immediately be thinking about how we selectively abandon things that are no longer valid or are losing value in the marketplace while investing in another box – Create the Future. The world is changing so fast that it is increasingly important to consider these boxes with respect to our own businesses and the imperative to innovate or die. Govindarajan's logic is balanced with his three ‘traps’ that prevent innovation. The Complacency Trap is where the future is shrouded in a fog of misplaced confidence and understanding as to what’s happening today and how things are exponentially changing around us. The second trap is the Cannibalization Trap where leaders are persuaded that new business models based on nonlinear ideas will jeopardize the firm’s present prosperity. As Steve Jobs once said, “If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will”. The final trap is the Competency Trap. This “arises when positive results in the current business encourage the organization to invest in core competencies and provide little incentive for investing in new [age] and future-oriented competencies; employees skills reflect the company’s legacy success”. It becomes about managing past success and not acknowledging or realizing how significantly the world is changing.
COMFORT VERSUS DISCOMFORT The inability to see the future, of misplaced confidence, of looking inward verses outward and challenging what may be, are the competencies of the future. What has become the comfort zone of many organizations is a lack of understanding change. We may not know with certainty what is in front of us, but we need to feel uncomfortable in order to find a way to progress; to define our stretch zone. There is risk and a fallacy that thinking innovatively is thinking about ‘the next big thing’. The next big thing does not necessarily have to be big or even a thing. It can be a service. It may not be “next” either; it may be later. Rather than always thinking of mega innovations, we should recognize that a small, incremental moment can be extremely beneficial.
TWO SIDES TO THE INNOVATION COIN Innovation cultures and organizations are depicted as ‘fun’ because there is a willingness to experiment, to step out of bounds and have a tolerance for failure. These organizations are psychologically safe, highly collaborative and non-hierarchical. While there is tolerance for failure there is little tolerance for incompetence. They also have ‘rails’ to maintain a true path forward: highly disciplined people with a willingness to experiment, a psychologically safe culture that manages unflinching candor in its quest to be agile with a velocity towards remarkable solutions, highly collaborative dynamics with individual accountability, and a flat non-hierarchical organization with strong leadership.
