Where has the innovation gone?

I’ve just been to a conference about innovation.

One of the snippets of anecdotal information that was given almost as a throwaway line was the 80% of the inventions in the Bell laboratories, during its most prolific 10 years, were born out of conversations in the canteen. I don’t know that this is true but the speaker then went on about how their software enabled people to collaborate over great distances, as if they were in the same room. Clearly he thought that collaboration was very important for innovation. Or was he just trying to sell his software?

However collaboration, whether over great distances or within the confines of a research lab, are formal interactions not the random “chaos” of a canteen. I doubt that the advances in Bell’s laboratories were due to the research team all sitting down to lunch at the same time. It is more likely they there was an element of random interaction. Not with some person off the street but with someone conducting research at a tangent. Someone with the intellectual capability of appreciating the problem, without understanding the detail, and suggesting an alternate approach or, simply talking about their work sparking an idea in a someone else.

The conversations would be struck up by the need to find somewhere to sit and eat. Spotting a familiar face, a well known ex-colleague, or team, even someone only vaguely known. The conversation would start with small talk and eventually the inevitable “So what are you working on” would crop up. This would often lead to a dead end, maybe one person might take the problem away and think about it, or mention it to another colleague. In this way problems could have many minds working on it without the need to consciously organise a conference call, set up a workspace or use “collaboration” software.

In my company we used to have canteens in every building. Everyone went to work (no home or distance working) and you worked together in the same office. The accountants can only measure things and so unable to measure innovation looked at the cost of the canteens and decided that they could be cut. To some extent this made sense. Buildings that had housed 100 to 300 engineers only had 5 as equipment got smaller and more reliable. But some buildings retained 100’s of people. Undeterred the canteens were replaced with coffee/snack bars. No longer did people sit for 30 or 40 minutes on tables that held 8 to 20 at a time. They sit at a 2 or 4 person table and have a meeting over lunch they can’t fit in at any other time of the day. These are not random collisions, no “chaos” and no innovation.

The company I work for has recognised, from time to time, that it now lacks innovation. Many people would point to the red tape and formal process that prevent or at least obstruct innovation. Senior managers would say they welcome and encourage innovation. They have had a few initiatives to try and encourage innovation. All have failed. One initiative, about 5 years ago, tried to map the interactions between people. They compared the relationships of people in successful teams with those in other teams. The successful teams are much more chaotic. Post research showed they failed to record many of their connections and where potentially even more chaotic. One striking thing was they were much more social people (in general) as a group, than others. They would meet outside of work on at least two or three occasions during the year and would have an external hobby or interest that involved meeting and working in groups, from scuba diving to bridge clubs.

This social network made friends, required varying degrees of dependency and confidence that fostered trust as a normal part of their life. The ability to throw in a suggestion without fear of it being ridiculed and with the comfort that it would be considered and that no one would claim it as theirs.

By contrast at work today, many fear for their own job and they want to be important. They want to be Sir Alan Sugar’s next apprentice. They see the world with themselves at the centre. They name drop about who they have met/know as a means of establishing the pecking order. They bully people into doing what they want, by threatening to escalate issues to “senior management”. This so called senior management are even bigger “wannabes”. They are looking for their next promotion their next company. They can’t be bothered with people, details or right and wrong and come down on their people with “just fucking sort it”. So the crisis gets solved until the next, which tends to be ever closer to the last. Not to worry I’ll be gone before I have to really deal with it.

The organisation encouraging innovation. is sadly laughable. I have worked with two innovations one of which had the potential to save Telco £300m a year. The divisional CTO didn’t like the technology so didn’t progress (he left 8 months later). The commercial/product manager wanted the ideas to be fully costed and forecast for the next 5 years. Not unreasonable! But he wanted the technician, that had the idea, to do it (or get it done). This technician was 34 had left school at 17 and worked for Telco all his life. He didn’t have the knowledge to present an MBA thesis with a full business plan and so the idea was dropped. The CTO no longer cares (if he did in the first place) and the product manager has confirmed (because the technician didn’t produce a business plan) that the idea was too difficult and wouldn’t have delivered the benefits. Three years on Telco is almost a billion out of pocket.

Worse than this is that without innovation based on sound understandings the organisation has become ravenous for ideas. This vacuum, allows those with their MBA mumbo jumbo, to present flaky ideas, with promises of huge revenues that will save the company. The bigger the numbers the more these ideas take on a life of their own. Even when people see that it’s all smoke and mirrors the company keeps running forward. Why? Partly that everyone is afraid to bring the bad news, as the messenger may not get shot, but will be castrated. Partly that I can ride this and keep a job until they find out and partly I don’t think about what I’m doing I just do what I’m told (that way I can’t get blamed).

To bring back innovation you need to create an environment and opportunity for chaos. Not safe, shielded and cosseted but a trusted environment. Successful ideas become better, because they are challenged. If your idea is not challenged then no one is passionate about it. If your idea can’t withstand challenges it isn’t that good.