Clips on slime: some thoughts on innovation and organisational culture

Clips on slime: applying measuring clips to lovely green slime and looking for a healthy voltage across the whole organism.

A while back I read an article by Skinner & Spira (see below) which talks about a continuous line between two extreme management positions – of trust at one end, and control at the other. When it comes to getting results from a team, many organisations sit nearer the ‘control’ end of this line, meaning that a close watch is kept on people, and management strategy is dictated rather than emergent; local autonomy is not valued.

Mike and I have found that an organisation’s attitude towards how it trusts its people has a direct bearing on its ability to permit innovation in its ranks. When firms manage individuals closely, great compliance is achieved, but extraordinary things normally cannot (by definition) occur. Conversely, when measurement stops at the boundaries of divisions or teams, and individuals are trusted, innovation may flourish.

We look to emergent systems for inspiration. Complex problems are solved by abstract models such as neural networks, even though we don’t comprehend the precise contribution of each node to the result. Synergy is exactly that: more than a simple sum of parts.

In a lab, we use a Petri dish to create the best environment for a living culture to grow, and we give it time. We don’t measure the output of each cell, but look for division and growth of the whole culture. We may be surprised by how it grows. We only intervene at the individual level – the cell, the person – when we’re diagnosing a problem, to unblock progress.

In the business world, Management may impede the building of innovation teams to do good stuff. Heritage prevents organisations from allowing innovation teams to form – cutting people some slack to produce good ideas by working with others. The desire for measurement may ironically obstruct an increased level of output that stakeholders desire, because a new concept couldn’t readily emerge from within old structures.

It often amazes us that businesses that aspire to growth fail to overturn structures that block social networking; they fail to encourage the development and sharing of knowledge; and they don’t deliberately create environments to seed the creation of new ideas.

Our views are these: strive to agree on a bold team vision; provide the best environment for innovation to occur; measure the larger division, not the individual; use time and resource constraints to drive creative solutions; unblock problems; and get out of the way.

Think: clips on slime!

Andy Delin
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Spira, L. F. and Skinner, D. (2002) ‘The trust-control nexus: an unrecognised interdependence’. Paper presented at the European Academy of Management (EURAM), Stockholm, May 2002.