Creative thoughts from under African skies

During my recent visit to Malawi I had the pleasure of speaking at seminars and workshops to a large number of charming and very interesting people. My aim was to try and provide some of the latest thinking on Creativity and Innovation in an organisational context and to try and encourage the people I met to use alternative modes of thinking.

Keen readers will remember the 'How do you get a giraffe into a fridge' test that I used last year (click on the giraffe to the right to revisit it). I used this on my audiences and was pleasantly surprised to find that answers were richer and more numerous than elsewhere. It is not right to say that Managers get the answers wrong but their responses are generally poorer than young children. My African friends did very well indeed so I began to wonder why this was. Was it a coincidence?

One of the central themes of Creativity is play, and education systems are designed to help us pass exams and be less creative. We then have to undergo a degree of 'unlearning' to be playful in the workplace. Keen followers of TED (see www.TED.com) may be familiar with the thoughts of Sir Ken Robinson. Click here to view his moving and entertaining talk, but only if you have 20 minutes to spare!

In our so called developed countries we have extensive educational systems, whilst in developing countries the systems are often constrained to keeping young people in school and teaching basic skills well. Yet there has been an explosion in many developing nations within Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. In Cuba, trade embargoes have meant that motor engineers have created substitute brake fluid from shampoo and sugar whilst I have seen young boys in Africa change tractor tyres with only a few levers, a hand pump and some soapy water (no mean feat).

This natural creativity is present in us all when we are born but seems to remain only in countries where there are 'light touch' education systems. You may be thinking 'what about the effect of culture?' This is where things get a little complicated. In young people the two main drivers of Creativity are:

1. An education system that does not stifle or judge
2. A culture that allows play and lets 'children be children'

As we grow up, different factors come into play which are mainly cultural. This often means that:

• In developed countries we are keen to be creative and innovative but we have lost the tools to work this way - our solution is to undertake even more training
• In developing countries, people have the natural tools but social pressures sometimes inhibit the ability to be critical or express radical thoughts openly - some people are just too polite. The solution may just be to overcome these personal barriers

In my view, the developing countries could have the edge but it will be a close run thing. The situation is obviously more complicated but these points should give us all food for thought. Any feedback is always welcome!

Why Innovation Programmes Fail

There is only one real reason for your Innovation programmes to fail and that is the fact that you have taken no action at all! I’m sure, however, that is not what you want to hear and you will be shouting ‘not true’ at you computer screen. One of the components of any such programme is learning, so that even if you don’t hit the targets you set for yourself you will collect some knowledge on the way and thus not ‘fail’. The only way you can fail, therefore, is by not doing anything thus not making any progress and not learning anything.

If you have read much literature on the topic of Change Management then inaction will be a recurring theme. Many Managers mistake discussion, planning and specification for action thus they believe that an initiative may be underway when it is not. When asked what is happening they will tell you that the Innovation Task Force is meeting regularly and soon they will have objectives and a plan. Great in the early stages but you should ask the question ‘Have you actually done anything?’. In many cases the answer will be no. So no surprise that your initiative will be flagged as failing when it never actually started. To Innovate you must DO SOMETHING.

Readers will I’m sure like a few pointers as to why they have not made the progress they anticipated when they have taken action, so here are some potential reasons. Not all will apply to you but use them as a checklist:

• Employees do not know about your initiative – check communications
• Employees do not care about your initiative – check motivation and morale as well as management sponsorship
• Poor performance – did you identify any areas for training and development?
• Nothing is happening – have you officially kicked things off, have you changed what YOU do? Are others sabotaging your efforts?
• It all seems like hard work – do you have a team in place to help?

There are four broad categories of people to address when kicking off your innovation programme:

• Enthusiasts – no problem here, welcome them with open arms
• Disbelievers – ‘no that will never happen’, simply ‘do’ and conquer
• The Angry – ‘over my dead body’ hard work (see below)
• The Followers – ‘well if its going ahead I might as well tag along’, welcome these people also.

It is only the Angry (or Awkward) who pose a problem. What you need to realise is that a 70:30 rule applies here. If you run your innovation programme in an appropriate manner (you can borrow from Change Management here) then you will have 70% of your employees onside. There things aren’t so bad are they? So just DO, and you can’t actually fail!

Creative Management Challenge

Below are four simple questions. Try to answer them all before looking at the answers.

• Q1 How do you put a giraffe into a fridge?
• Q2 How do you put and elephant into a fridge?
• Q3 The King of the Jungle is holding a meeting for all of the animals. One of them is not there. Which one?
• Q4 You are standing on the bank of an Alligator infested river and have to get to the other side. What do you do?

A survey by Accenture found that around 90% of Managers are likely to answer all of the questions incorrectly. Many school children under the age of six will actually get these questions right. What does this say about Management thinking? And now for the answers:

• A1 Open the fridge, put the giraffe inside, close the fridge.
• A2 Open the fridge, remove the giraffe, put the elephant inside, close the fridge.
• A3 The elephant. The elephant is in the fridge.
• A4 You swim across the river because all the alligators are attending the gathering.

I can already hear you say "Its not fair" and "they are for kids". This is what the questions are trying to find out:

• Q1 checks to see if you try to make simple things complicated and make assumptions about problem boundaries. Nobody actually said that the fridge was not big enough to put a giraffe inside!
• Q2 tests your ability to consider previous actions. Who says that they are four separate questions?
• Q3 simply tests your memory.
• Q4 checks to see how quickly you learn. After all you must have got question 4 correct if you were a successful Senior Manager.

Try these on your colleagues and see what happens.

Innovation – the way it works

This is not the definitive guide to innovation. It is just one way, and it works. The process outlined below is for a single innovation project, not continuous innovation. That is a step too far for a newsletter.

To start with there will be some sort of startup event in which key stakeholders are seen to give approval. The traditional rallying call to troops is not appropriate here. Next you are likely to take stock of where you are in terms of skills and capabilities. Our Innovation Toolkit can help you to do this. The ‘end of the beginning’ is to set up the necessary infrastructure, define objectives etc.

If there are any skills or capability gaps then these need to be covered with appropriate training before entering a research phase. This includes market research, feasibility, trend spotting, reviewing legislation etc.

Next comes the idea generation phase. Although it sounds like chaos, the aim is to produce a number of options for products, services or processes but to then filter them down to a manageable number.

There will then be a period where ideas are prototyped, tested and refined. At this point (and not before) you can produce a plan for your new business venture and work with production and operations people to implement and roll out your idea.

Although you will be sitting down pleased with yourself at this point you need to do one more thing, ensure that the lessons learned (from success as well as failure) are captured for future use.

The pleasing thing about all this is that it is possible to successfully plan your innovation project. Good luck with yours.

Slow Innovation

Around fifteen years ago, the Italian journalist Carlo Petrini was strolling past a new MacDonald's franchise in the centre of Rome and launched a major eating revolution. He paused and said: If this is fast food, why not have slow food? There have been other ‘slow’ movements such as ‘slow education’. In the business world there is huge pressure to deliver results ‘fast’, but do the changes we make, the consultants we employ, and the money we spend create a lasting difference to our businesses? We seem to make a constant stream of satisficing decisions that just get us by, until the next crisis that is.

In much the same way as the other ‘slow’ movements, I began thinking about ‘slow innovation’. Innovation has become a buzzword, if we just come up with some good ideas and do some market research then we are bound to get some new products into the market and ensure the future success of our organisation – right? Not necessarily.

What we have created, with our knee jerk reactions, is the fast business, driven by objectives that have not been thought through. What seems to matter is the outcome, not the process. In our quest to achieve a short term goal we have neglected the systems that should be put in place to properly manage ideas, to ‘un manage’ our employees, to create the right culture, ensure that our money is spent wisely and create a long term programme that will avoid a constant stream of (expensive) knee jerk interventions. As with fast food, these events are not pleasurable for our shareholders or staff. We will suffer from obesity (consultant overload), additives (things we do not need), hypertension (change fatigue) and of course an empty wallet. This is Taylor’s scientific management applied in the wrong context.

The route to slow innovation means savouring the flavours of diversity and learning, blending ideas and know how and ultimately becoming self sufficient. In our fast consumer society we can throw away what we grow tired of or find not to our taste. We cannot throw away our businesses and start again. Slow Innovation, the sustainable way, is surely a better way to create the business of the future.