Dave
Snowden's new organization Cognitive Edge is launching a new initiative
to use complex system approaches to foster innovation. His thesis is
that there are three necessary preconditions to innovation: starvation (what I call scarcity -- a shortage of resources where usually there is abundance), pressure (what I call urgency
-- an immediate and relentless demand for resolution of the scarcity),
and perspective shift (new ways of thinking about the problem). He's
planning on testing this thesis with a program in the Australian
outback co-hosted by aboriginal guides.
Here is what I wrote to Dave when I read about this:
I've developed a theory recently to explain human behaviours like procrastination: We do what we must, then we do what's easy, then we do what's fun.
The first two of your necessary conditions for innovation
(starvation/scarcity and pressure/urgency), are consistent, I think
with We do (first) what we must. Your
third precondition for innovation (perspective shift) is, I believe, an
attribute that some people enjoy entertaining and some people (not
entirely the same group) are particularly good at. My experience is
that perspective shift is a skill that can be honed, or learned. I
think it ties into Then (to the extent we're capable) we do what's fun.
Many people are neither skilled nor enamoured of perspective shifting
-- they are change resistant. You might be able to make them better at
it in the outback of Oz, but my guess is that your attendees will
already be innovation champions and change resilient. My
theory as to why most (especially large) organizations are so poor at
innovating is that they don't have to innovate to succeed (it is
cheaper and less risky to buy out, buy off, scare off or crush
innovators that threaten them), and that they do not attract or retain
people who are competent and interested in perspective shift -- new
ways of looking at problems and challenges. And the economic system is
increasingly rigged in their favour. Only what Christensen calls Disruptive Innovations,
introduced by stealth, can dislodge them, and when they do, the
dinosaur organization doesn't move to adapt in this case either, so by
the time it "must" change, it is already too late. Christensen's
argument that the dinosaurs can learn Sustaining Innovations
to mitigate the risk of being disrupted out of existence is, I think,
just wishful thinking (after all, he has to give them some hope or they
won't pay his consulting fees or buy his books). On a larger
scale, this same "can't adapt until it's too late" problem presents
itself in our inability to deal with global warming and other 'wicked'
complex social problems, which is why philosophers like John Gray have pretty well given up
on our civilization and our culture. [Some readers wonder why, if I
agree with Gray, I care about how businesses, innovative or not, will
fare until civilization's collapse: There's a reasonable explanation,
but that's the subject for a future article.]
Dave Snowden is, like me, a fan of Open Space, and he plans on using a modified version of it in his program. He has six qualms about Open Space, however, that he plans to address with his modifications:
- It requires outstanding facilitators, but can be over-influenced by their charisma.
- It is overly focused on the event itself, rather than seeing Open Space as a part of a journey.
- There is insufficient use of dissent and debate and an over-focus on consensus and dialogue.
- The
pendulum is swung too far from expert based interventions, to assuming
that the group assembled will have the necessary expertise.
- People not at the event can be excluded from involvement in the follow through.
- Issues
of judgement and validation are assumed to belong to the group
regardless of context and responsibility; it is worth remembering that
Socrates was condemned to death by an open space event because he made
the other participants uncomfortable.
The modifications he proposes are:
- Use
of a catalytic event or process to disrupt entrained patterns of
thinking and prepare participants to be open to novel or new ideas.
- The
assembly of a diverse range of perspectives on the issue, objectively
to prevent premature convergence on any analysis or determination of
action.
- Inclusion of people who, while not naive in their area
of practice, interest or expertise should be naive in respect of its
potential application to this issue to allow for innovation.
- Initially
focusing on maximizing friction between the diverse perspectives and
naive participants to create the conditions for innovation, and then
focusing on specific interventions and tools which are refined before
the end of the event into concrete and tangible actions.
My
sense is that Dave's experience with Open Space has led him to believe
his six qualms are inherent in the Open Space process rather than the
result of a flawed application of it. Here's my response to each of
these qualms, in order.
- With each experience in applying Open Space, I believe participants learn to self-manage the process and cease to be 'led' by or dependent on facilitators. Every methodology has a learning curve.
- The
critical part of Open Space is the collective actions that participants
sign up for once they have achieved a deep understanding of the issue,
and the personal actions that each participant decides to undertake as
a result of that understanding, in the context of his/her own job or
capacities. Any particular issue will involve series of conversations
and possibly several Open Space events as components of the personal
and collective 'journey' of resolving the issue or problem at hand.
- Maybe
it's the Welshman in Dave that makes him fond of dissent and debate as
'creative friction'. One of the things I learned from Hugh Brody's
study of indigenous people's complex problem-solving processes
is that wide open, candid, detailed knowledge sharing (largely through
stories), letting people learn by doing, precision in communication,
deep listening skills, strong analogic and inductive thinking capacity,
excellent memory and recall, Let-Self-Change rather than solutions
imposed on others or on the environment, profound respect for
individual decisions and autonomy, waiting to be asked for advice
rather than proffering it, great self-confidence, egalitarianism,
trusting individuals with personal responsibility to act as they see
fit, and deliberate recognition of uncertainty, are critical to the
process and to the success of methodologies like Open Space. These are
skills and capacities that many of us in modern societies lack, and
they must be re-engendered before any methodology will be effective.
Creative friction is no substitute for these skills and capacities and,
I would argue, are unnecessary once these skills and capacities are
present among the participants.
- As a champion of the Wisdom of Crowds
I have developed enormous respect for consensus and dialogue, and
confidence that if the 'crowd' is large enough, diverse enough, and
sufficiently informed, they will do a much, much better job than any
so-called 'expert'. In my opinion, the pendulum Dave refers to hasn't
swung nearly far enough.
- A proper Open Space process trusts the
participants to involve others as appropriate in the follow-through and
personal action plans after a particular event. The event is only a
small part of the 'journey'; many others with passion about the issue
will inevitably be involved in that journey.
- I think my points
4 and 5 immediately above address Dave's concern about reckless and
irresponsible actions coming out of properly-convened and
properly-conducted Open Space events. If the results of an event are
reckless or irresponsible, I would argue that it's a problem with the
execution of the Open Space methodology, not the methodology itself.
So in conclusion, I still like the 9-step process I reviewed in yesterday's post
-- the Collective Complex-Environment Problem Resolution Process, as
the mechanism for organizing collective action around a particular
complex problem (including the problem of lack of innovation). And I
still like my new 15-step process laid out and diagrammed in that post
(I've included the graphic again above) for Dealing With Complexity
Day-to-Day, as a mechanism for responsibly governing ourselves
throughout the 'journey' that, collectively and individually, will allow 'sensible' resolutions to complex problems, over time, to emerge. |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
