Enlightened Organizations!

Enlightened Organizations!

Tom Morris, in his book, "If Aristotle Ran General Motors", has presented a case for "a new ethics in business and for a workplace where openness and Integrity are the rule rather than the exception".

He goes further and shows that "any company that is serious about attaining true excellence must adhere to four timeless virtues first identified by Aristotle more than two thousand years ago: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity".

Enlightened Organizations! Anyone?

Institutionalizing Innovation – A Paradox?

Institutionalizing Innovation – A Paradox?

Innovation involves “Out-of-Box” thinking and institutionalizing innovation is a contradiction of sorts. How does one organize creativity in “process-perfect” (read Quality certified) organizations, inevitable conflict-ridden workplaces and a dynamically changing chaotic market-place?

A widely-held belief is that Creativity is forte of lonely geniuses and that it is “in-born”. Peter Drucker is one of the pioneers who said that innovation could presented as a discipline, capable of being learned and capable of being practiced. He states in his book “Innovation and Entrepreneurship”:

Systematic innovation consists in the purposeful and organized search for changes, and in the systematic analysis of the opportunities such changes might offer for economic or social innovation.

The challenge in organizations is to foster un-hindered creativity across all levels of organization and yet have a structure in place to channel the ideas systematically into usefulness.

Innovation is the introduction of new ideas which are useful. In the marketplace, innovation is the successful exploitation of new ideas and, hence, successful commercialization is the ultimate goal. Innovation always brings a significant difference to the situation at hand and creating or adding “value” is an essential element.

Organizational innovation initiatives are usually aimed at improving efficiency, effectiveness or competitive advantage. Thus, the application of new ideas could (a) result in an improvement in an existing product, service or process and/or (b) result in an entirely new product, service or process.

The bigger challenge is to be ready for the next "unknown" external threat to business. It is not enough for organizations attempt to anticipate the next “Disruptive Innovation” in the market (and grope in the dark, waiting to get hit). Organizations should themselves take initiative to unleash the next series of “Disruptive Technologies” into the market.

Finally, in the commercialization stage, the trap to avoid is the “Early Mover” principle. A highly successful Innovation may not equate to Commercial Success when the “Imitators” rush in at “The Right Moment” in the market with “deep pocket” marketing and distribution.

Ideation, Idea Databases and Idea Management

Ideation, Idea Databases and Idea Management
Various thought methods are available to us to go beyond our current levels of thinking and the sum total wisdom being used consciously (or subconsciously) at a given moment. The principles of Lateral Thinking allow us to set the context for a free (un-hindered) flow of ideas to the problem at hand.

With this “free” context, we can easily set-up a system to continuously build a haystack of ideas. This process of forming and relating ideas is called IDEATION and it usually leads to an IDEA DATABASE for the specific problem at hand. And, of course, there are many “ready” databases on the internet. For example:

www.creativitypool.com could be a starting place to browse for ideas and you could submit your own ideas and be rewarded for brilliant entries.

www.trendwatching.com scans the globe for “the most promising consumer trends, insights and related hands-on business ideas”. They rely on a network of 8,000+ spotters in more than 70 countries worldwide.

With a large number of people working on the same problem, there arises the need to “institutionalize” systematic recording, sharing, and evaluation of ideas – the entire process is called “Idea Management”. Commercial Ideation tools like “Ideation Brainstorming” by Ideationtriz are available in the market.

Another player is Imaginatik who are one of the pioneers of Idea Management “as a specialized application of Knowledge Management principles to harness the collective innovation potential of companies”. They use the idea of concept of “Idea Richness” - the extent to which an idea is described so that it is understandable to others, and avoids the need for most follow-on questions.

The parameters of Idea Richness are - Understandability, Completeness (scope of problem covered and how detailed), Questioning (How much extra work?), and Longevity (How easy is it for some to recall the ideas after a long period of time?) and Intuitive Fit (How evident is the solution?).

So much so for quality of ideas. What about quantity? How many is too many? The Economist estimated that an enterprise has to start with 3000 bright ideas if it has come up with 100 worthwhile projects, which in turn will be winnowed down to four development programs for new products.

So, “Never say Never” whenever an “insert” operation is requested into an idea database!

On a mystical note:

Say not, “I have found the truth,”
but rather, “I have found a truth.”
Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.”
Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”
-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Lateral Thinking

Albert Einstein famously said that “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”.

So, what are tools available to us to go beyond our current levels of thinking and the sum total wisdom being used consciously (or subconsciously) at a given moment?

One such tool ‘Lateral Thinking’ was pioneered in 1967 by Edward de Bono, a Maltese psychologist, physician, and writer. Bono said that the (usual) concept of LOGICAL thinking is SELECTION and this is brought about by the processes of ACCEPTANCE and REJECTION.

Now, we can easily see that the mind's usual REJECTION of ideas based on already known knowledge and wisdom would most often limit a mind to move around endlessly in a very limited domain.

The usual Logical Reasoning, it seems, has no access to “What the mind does not even know that it does not know”.

Bono explains that the concept of LATERAL thinking is INSIGHT RESTRUCTURING and this is brought about through the REARRANGEMENT OF INFORMATION.

REARRANGEMENT is the BASIS of LATERAL thinking and the mind is NOT trapped by its usual YES or NO to ideas.

Instead of saying "Yes" or "No", Bono invites us to say "Po"! The term PO is derived from Provocative operation. The concept allows us to continue thinking forward to a new place in an unencumbered fashion where new ideas may be continually produced.

So, as new ideas keep pouring in from diverse angles (in a typical brainstorming session) they are not evaluated immediately. Every idea is simply recorded without any judgments.

Then the process of evaluating the transcripts of the Brainstorming session at a later meeting is the first access to “breakthrough” insights into the problem being considered.