It’s a Cultural Thing “We were surprised to find," the GE innovation champion said, "that it's a cultural

thing. You can't have a process for everything. Some of this has to be felt,

experienced, and embraced. Culturally and individually we have to find ways of

making those changes seem necessary. So that people do things differently rather

than simply making no mistakes"

Anthropologists and artists have been brought into the company to try and help

it's hard working, pedal-to-the-metal management "feel the difference" between

innovation and production, to help them find the courage to look stupid and the

discipline to find new answers when none have previously existed.

Culture is the sum total of the values, beliefs, assumptions, and traditions of the

organization. Culture is established at the time that the company is founded and

it develops based on the experiences of the people in the organization. It is not

the same as a neatly typed mission statement and cannot be transformed with

half-hearted attempts or superficial declarations.

There are differences in character, rhythm, preferences, traditions, jokes,

discipline, and priorities between the most successfully innovative organizations

and the rest. Turning great insights into practical solutions is the result of what is

done and the way it is done. Making the transition to an innovation culture is

difficult because it doesn’t depend on policies or processes in isolation.

We used to get away with treating the world as complicated or “folded together”.

Parts to be separated from the whole and reduced into simple things we could

understand, list, and control. Relationships reduced to hierarchical organisational

charts, roles to bullet pointed job descriptions, understanding the past to tidy

graphs un the company report, preparing for the future replaced by project plans.

This view disguises the messy, interconnected, sometimes grubby,

interconnected, ambiguous reality of getting things done and making things

better that has always faced humanity. It avoids the truth – which is that the

world is complex, or “woven together”. Changes to one part of the organisation

will lead to consequences in another.

Accepting Complexity helps improve your organisation as a whole. It reveals the

limits of management ability to dictate to their organisations or control the

future. It brings humility and a helpful pragmatism. The attention of your

organization can turn to producing conditions that are more likely to produce

innovation, survival and growth.

Cultures That Encourage Innovation Cultures That Discourage Innovation

Emotionally Connected Dispassionately Disconnected

Power Sharing Power Hoarding

Visionary & Forward Looking Tied to Routine & Past Practice

Trusting With Minimal Rules Controlling and Negative

Positive & Highly Principled Highly Financially Focused

People Identify With Leaders Remote Managers Issue Edicts

Customer Service Obsessed Performance Freaks

Thirst For Listening & Learning Excessive Denial Psychology

Valued People Like The Company Best People Feel Devalued

Decisions Are Based On Merit Hierarchy Slows Progress

Curiously Connecting with the world helps your organization understand how the

world works. You build human relationships of interest and respect with

customers, partners, suppliers, departments, universities, anyone and everyone

that can help. Managers encourage instant messaging, parties, social networking,

and anything else that keeps people exchanging ideas and solving problems

together.

Loving Diversity produces a high performing cocktail of individuality and

community. Differences are celebrated as an attractive, vital feature of the group.

Collaboration benefits from increased levels of trust and from people who feel

comfortable in their own skins, styles, and status.

Embracing Uncertainty encourages the risk taking necessary for progress. It is

natural for many people to feel uncomfortable with anything that they haven’t

tried before. Venturing into the unknown is scary for the majority who need

develop confidence that their first mistake will not be punished and the lessons

learned will be worth the pain of failure.

Sharing Power is the best cure for indifference. This is not just about the number

of managerial layers flat organizations can also hoard power. It is about getting

beyond a master-servant or expert-novice dynamic. Strategy should not be

limited to the boardroom. Secrets are unhelpful. Behaviour that shuts one group

out and creates cliques disrupts the flow of improvement.

Ditching Dogma frees companies from the iron grip of the one best way. There is

no perfect off-the-shelf solution for all circumstances. There are principles, there

are theories, but everything should be open to question.

Doing What’s Right allows organizations to deliberately, methodically, even

joyously renew themselves. Their cultures deliver competitive advantage. By

shortening the cycles of renewal or innovation through experimentation such a

culture naturally replace its own products and services by finding better

alternatives.

Patagonia, the outdoor equipment company, began when its founder forged high

quality pitons to climb higher, more difficult cliffs. He kept improving the design

not because he was forced to by competition, there was very little, but because

he wanted the best possible solution. When he realised the damage caused by his

flagship product, he replaced it with specially designed chocks, metal nuts on

steel wire, to allow climbers safe support without damaging the rock face.

Of course, it’s easier to build these values and behaviours in at the start. It’s much

more difficult to break with the past and transform culture. Many of those

managers who are asked to make innovation happen are part of a tradition that

discourages innovation. They resort to dispassionate, controlling, negative, highly

financially focused methods to try and encourage everyone else to be creative

and collaborative!

Change Experiences and people will change their behaviour. Over time this

behaviour will become sustainable. An orthodoxy of unorthodox, If your culture

doesn’t have these characteristics you will have depend on companies that do for

the innovation you need. So, start from wherever you are and work outwards.

References

Chouinard, Y, 2005, “Let My People Go Surfing: The Education Of A Reluctant

Businessman”, Penguin Books

Kanter, RM, 2006, “Innovation: The Classic Traps”, Harvard Business Review,

November 2006

Mckeown, M, Whiteley, P, 2002, “Unshrink: Yourself - People - Business - the

World”, Pearson

Menzel, HC, Krauss, R, Ulijn, JM, Weggeman, 2006, “Developing Characteristics of

An Intrapreneurship-Supportive Culture”, Eindhoven Centre for Innovation Studies,

the Netherlands

Williams, WM, Yang, LT, 1999, “Organizational Creativity”, In Handbook of

Creativity, Sternberg, RJ (Ed.)