Innovation as a Social Enterprise

Stories abound about the lone inventor, cloistered at the moment of “eureka”! Like most myths it makes good theater, and is far from the reality of modern R&D. Janet Rae-Dupree said in a recent New York Times article, “Truly productive invention requires the meeting of minds from myriad perspectives, even if the innovators themselves don’t always realize it (my emphasis)”.

Invention is a social phenomenon. Some of us primates have evolved the capacity to see, hear, and experience others as if we were them, empathy. It is a trait that helps us negotiate the complex political terrain we inhabit as social animals. It can also function to feed our imagination using the thoughts of others, to build on not only the explicit content, but the underlying sense of what they are trying to express.

I recently watched this in action with eight colleagues, relative strangers, at a weeklong forum on “Measuring Sustainability”. Our focus was energy systems, our challenges, too little time, too much complexity, and a book chapter to draft on the last day. The group had two assets: a diverse set of backgrounds and the ability to build on each other’s ideas, criticisms, experiences; empathy. This “meeting of minds from myriad perspectives” produced an insightful, inventive, useful and novel approach to the problem. We’ll be proud to see it in print with our names on it.

The ability to harness this capacity can be a critical asset for R&D leaders. Rae-Dupree quotes Robert Fishkin, president and chief executive of Reframeit, Inc. “We need to get better at collaborating in noncompetitive ways across company and organizational lines.” We need empathy to unlock the power of diversity.

Jack Johnston - Contributing Author

Corporate Culture as Primary Driver of Radical Innovation

A new study about to be published in the Journal of Marketing “Radical Innovation Across Nations: The Pre-eminence of Corporate Culture” powerfully reinforces work we launched last summer on “Culture and High Performance in R&D”. The authors of the new study, Tellis, Prabhu, and Chandy, (Rajesh Chandy is professor of marketing at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota) rigorously document their findings. Their conclusion: corporate culture drives radical innovation in firms around the world much more than metrics more commonly or readily used by management. Their study is based on data from 759 firms across 17 major economies of the world. I encourage you to read it!

While verifying the distinctive importance of corporate culture as a driver of radical innovation, the study does not provide leaders with tangible means of engaging with culture as a leadership practice. In fact, in a footnote to the study, the authors write, “Other firm-level factors such as leadership quality and cross-functional integration may also drive innovation.". This is about leadership development and collaboration, the work we do in supporting leaders who are not merely working in a corporate culture or through a corporate culture, but on corporate culture.

As Chandy and colleagues note in their study:, “Indeed, corporate culture is a factor that is unique, intangible, sticky, and very difficult to change. ... These cultural traits can blind a firm to radical innovations on the frontier. “

Just as an ophthalmologisty tests visual fields of the eyes, we check periodically for blind spots of leaders. Paradoxical as it may seem, successful leaders know how to look for their own blinds spots as well as those of their organization. Many of those blind spots are in the "culture" field of vision. That is where we work!

You Need to Have a Great Question!

I heard Tammy Erickson speak yesterday on employee engagement, innovation and collaboration. "People rarely innovate because you tell them to innovate," she said. "Rather, you need to have a great question. That is the leader's job."

Week before last I presented a workshop in Portugal on the Politics of Creativity at the International Congress of Creativity and Innovation 2008, Portuguese-Spanish Environment
Feedback indicated that the "question game" I invited participants to play mid-way through the workshop was a highlight for them. The thing is, I had not planned to do that. It was more or less a spontaneous decision to make the three hour workshop more interactive. Ironically, now that I think about it, I have attended many many lectures, presentations, and workshops on creativity and innovation that invite little or no inquiry from the participants.

On this first post-election day in the U.S. I am eager and curious to watch whether or how President-elect Obama poses powerful questions for us, as opposed to providing quick answers for some difficult, deep issues we face as a nation.

Thanks, Tammy, for verifying once again, the power of questions!

Telling the Truth about Failure

For the last several weeks, as the U.S. financial services industry has crumbled before our very eyes, I have been writing a talk which I will give on several occasions in the next few weeks. The topic, chosen months ago, is "Telling the Truth about Failure: Ambition and Ambivalence". I finally completed a first draft yesterday after more than the usual procrastination. As I look back at the churn and turmoil of the past few weeks, in the U.S. economy as well as in my own creative process, I am more aware than ever of the ways in which we seek to distance ourselves from failure.

I recently participated in a meeting of top tier R&D leaders who were being briefed on the "organizational fitness" exercises which were about to commence (read: downsizing and layoffs). Later in the same meeting, the group reviewed their performance to date as reflected in their Balanced Scorecard. The total points to date indicated they were on a trajectory to achieve 96.5 out of 100 points. There was a long silence as the senior leader asked: "What's wrong with this picture?"

The contradiction slowly began to sink into the participants in the room. The organization's capacity to continue to document performance success while urgently acknowledging threats to its very survival is an ironic example of how commitment to succeed can obscure truth about failure.

When one considers thoughtfully the cultural biases and systemic forces that drive large organizations, there is much more to telling the truth and understanding failure than initially meets the eye.

Telling the truth about failure first requires us to acknowledge that instinctively we all want to distance ourselves from failure. Maybe that's why I had such a hard time writing the past few weeks? Is that what's happening in Congress at the moment? I wonder.

Clumsy Solutions

My good friend and colleague, Jack Johnston, loaned me a book to read on vacation this past week. It's entitled, Clumsy Solutions for a Complex World, Government, Politics and Plural Perceptions.

What’s a “clumsy solution”? My take on it: one that acknowledges and takes into consideration the cultural point of view of any position a group, organization, or nation takes when making decisions or establishing new policy. It’s not nearly as clean and precise as we might wish our positions – any position – might be – but it is much more viable and valuable in today’s complex world.

The editors' review of cultural theory provides a very accessible framework for assessing the prevalent "social contract" that governs decision-making, whether we are aware of it or not. The various contributors to this volume apply the theory to global issues from climate change to gun control to open internet access. Their study has enormous relevance for anyone concerned with the “politics of creativity” and innovation. The pursuit of innovative solutions must necessarily include rigorous inquiry about the embedded assumptions that are inextricably a part of culture.

I am very cautious about recommending any book that lists at $85.00. (That's why I borrowed it form Jack.) But I wish both John McCain and Barak Obama would read it. And you too.

Our Need for "Answers"

Leaders are distinguished more by the questions they ask

than any answers they may have.

We have asserted this to be true since the earliest days of our consulting practice. It sounds good, most of the time. But affirming it in practice is yet another matter. When times are tough and resources scarce, I am struck by how deeply leaders struggle to find the "solution" by imposing on themselves, often unconsciously, the belief that they need to have the "answer", preferably yesterday! Ironically, the more intense the pressure for "answers", the poorer our questions become. Powerful persistent inquiry gives way to paralysis by analysis in search for the "answer".

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, commented recently, "How do you create a climate in which truth is heard? The first thing is to increase your questions-to-statements ratio. Have someone track it and see if you can double it next year. The leaders in our studies asked lots of questions. They were Socratic. By asking questions, they got the brutal facts, as well as lots of insights and ideas." (Business Week, August 25/Sept 1 , 2008)

We're ready to do just that - track the balance of advocacy and inquiry in a given group or organization - and document the impact over a period of time - as a new component to our Disciplined Inquiry methodology.

How does one know, as leader, when to share the "answer" (if you, indeed have one) and when to pose a new, powerful question? If you're exhausted and feeling way overwhelmed, if not outright discouraged, consider the latter as indeed the more productive way to generate commitment and recover a productive path forward.

Intangible Drivers of Performance

"Not everything that can be counted counts,
and not everything that counts can be counted."

Albert Einstein

When I feel especially frustrated or impatient with those who want metrics for anything and everything of value, I reference this quote from Einstein. The play on words makes it almost too easy to throw it away as just another slick slogan. And I fear that's what our clients often do, regrettably.

I recently heard the CFO of a Fortune 50 company speak to a group of senior R&D executives about the impact of non-financial, intangible factors on how Wall Street analysts make their buy/sell recom-mendations. But when it comes to promoting innovation and enhancing performance, it's remarkable to me how quickly leaders revert to their apparent comfort zone of finding or creating metrics which can be analyzed, scrutinized, and then refined in order to make their case for improved productivity.

There is a great map of intangible assets as part of an article, "Do Intangibles Matter?" in the current issue of Chief Executive. Check it out! As the article notes, only one-third of executives polled "claimed that their companies were proficient in monitoring critical non-financial indicators of corporate performance."

What's required to appreciate more fully the impact of these "intangibles"? One place to begin: ask yourself the question, "What's the difference between inspiration and motivation?"

Facebook and the Military

While I have been a member of Linked In for some time now, I admit to being ambivalent about how much value those connections really generate for me, personally as well as professionally. Then, last night, I get an invitation from my son, currently in Bolivia, to view a virtual album of recent photos on Facebook. But I was not a member. After logging in and completing my user profile, I am now a member of Facebook as well.

The migration to such networking tools is inevitable, if not essential, for those wanting to be in relationship with a new generation of professionals.

Though popular websites such as YouTube, MySpace, and other social network sites have been banned in the military, some senior officers in the U.S. Air Force were recently "appalled to discover a number of junior officers using the still permissible Facebook Web site for the purpose of organizing their squadrons." (Strategy and Business, "Military of Millennials") The article continues: "As current military leaders look more closely at the nature of this new generation, they will discover that it conflicts with both their organizational structures and their communications strategies."

I share a similar concern with regard to many of the R&D organizations with which we partner through our consulting practice. Command and control cultures persist in trying to manage information in a way that is not congruent with how young professionals establish relationships and actively communicate with one another. The rationale for protecting proprietary IP parallels the military's concern for security issues.

Investment in "relationship capital" provides organizations with the most competitive advantage in today's networked society. Engaging new leaders requires learning and adapting to their communication style; that does not come naturally to many of us.

Talking about Culture but...

This past weekend we completed our white paper on "Culture and High Performance in R&D". Our preliminary findings based on interviews with 23 senior R&D leaders in the Twin Cities are summarized therein. I undoubtedly am listening with new attentiveness to what others are saying (0r not) about the role of organizational culture in today's business environment.

Yesterday I attended a forum at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, on "Innovation, Drivers and Impediments". Among the panelists were Carlos Gutierrez, U.S. Secretary of Commerce as well as Bill Hawkins, President and CEO of Medtronic, George Buckley, President and CEO of 3M, and Marilyn Carlson Nelson, chairman of the Board of Carlson Company.

Frequent and recurrent reference was made to "culture" during the course of the afternoon.

George Buckley, in commenting about 3M yesterday, said "3M is more like an organism than an organization. ...It comes down to culture. People respect what you inspect. ...Culture comes down to what it is you talk about, what it is you communicate."

Marilyn Carlson Nelson said, "Cultures willing to accept tolerance for risk have the greatest opportunity for innovation."

There was nothing dramatically new or radical in what I heard yesterday. Furthermore, in doing a literature search on the subject earlier this summer, my colleagues and I found that very little has been written on organizational culture in recent years. Most of the literature on the subject dates to the early 90s. I wonder why this is?? And there is even less written about culture and the R&D function. Maybe we can change the tide?

Can anyone cite recent work on culture that has especially grabbed your attention? Let us know.

Meanwhile, be glad to share with you a copy of our white paper.

Too Many Meetings

"Boredom is a compromise between desire and fear."

A professional whom I very much respect and trust made the above statement in a recent discussion. We were talking about the endless number of meetings that populate the calendars of technical professionals these days. Indeed, in my experience, the number of ineffective meetings that land on calendars is a persistent and pervasive inhibitor to high performance.

I sit through any number of management meetings in a given month in my role as consultant. I repeatedly observe first-hand the all too evident behavioral signals of impatience, frustration, and boredom. "Why am I in this meeting?" the body language so readily communicates.

A column in last Sunday's NYT "Another Meeting? Say It Isn't So?" offers some tips for dealing with meetings run amok. There's nothing profoundly new here, but I find that it's meeting basics that even the most senior leaders need to be reminded of again and again (e.g. be clear what kind of decision you are asking for, if any, and who's making it).

Next time you're sitting through yet another "boring" meeting, you might ask yourself these two questions: "What is it that I desire?" "What is it that I fear?" Maybe what you attribute to boredom will be transformed to ... what?? Try it.

Missing the Obvious

In our eagerness to look below the surface or under the radar to identify inhibitors to high performance, we risk overlooking the obvious.

I admit there is a part of me that is drawn to looking where no one else seems to want to look -- curious about what's not being said, not being heard, not being looked at.


The Politics of Creativity is very much about equipping leaders to make visible the invisible, uncover "undiscussables", examine the "sacred", or explore beyond in order to identify inhibitors to high performance.

However, when discussing culture and high performance with R&D leaders here in the Twin Cities last week, I realize now we emphasized our own bias towards uncovering those aspects of culture which are not obvious, not visible.

There are indeed very tangible and self-evident examples of cultural norms and behaviors. For example, do the men in your organization keep a neck tie behind the door to put on when going to the executive suite? If I asked you to describe some of the differences between the culture of Google and that of IBM you probably would be able to do so without much difficulty. Some of the differences are obvious.

I don't want to be guilty of missing the obvious while seeking to help others uncover organizational blindspots.

Culture and High Performance

Today I am working with anticipation and even some excitement on a presentation for a meeting at Cargill later this week with some twenty top leaders of RD&E from the greater Minneapolis/St.Paul area. We have just concluded with them Phase I of an empirical study on culture and high performance in RD&E functions. Our working hypothesis is that culture is the most under-utilized lever for creating sustainable high performance in RD&E.

While much of our learning to date is qualitative, we did ask all participants in the study to complete eight normative statements. The large majority of respondents agreed that “Culture is the main source of sustainable high performance in RD&E.” In contrast, however, there was a broad distribution in response to the statement, “My RD&E organization focuses on culture as a means of creating competitive advantage.” The scaled responses of participants indicate that many RD&E leaders do not focus on culture per se (though those surveyed overwhelmingly agree that it is a main source of sustainable competitive advantage).

We observe the following frequent disposition of RD&E leaders regarding culture:

• a belief that culture is a lagging phenomenon, not something that one works on directly
• an attitude that RD&E is too deeply embedded in the larger organization to address culture
• lack of confidence and/or skills to work cultural elements
• blind spots about the impact of culture to motivate and sustain high performance

Regardless of one's beliefs about culture, there are perceptions that it is nigh unto impossible to change the culture from the position of leadership in RD&E. AND, then there are those who are doing it!

We'll be expanding this study to the Bay Area in California in the fall. And writing a "white paper". Let's us know if you'd like to learn more.

Art and Logic

from The Power of Story by Tom Peters

Sometimes a picture speaks a thousand words. Are we evolving to the place where art and logic indeed can play in the same space? Is there really any alternative?

James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, writes in The Double Helix: "Science as I hope this work will demonstrate, rarely proceeds with the logic laymen attribute to it."

Is it possible that is true of business models and planning processes as well?

Daniel Pink argues in A Whole New Mind: "The MFA is the new MBA". Perhaps there is some common ground here for research scientists and their business partners??

Keepers of the Culture

“Culture-keepers tend to be in the underground.”

That was the comment of a senior scientist in the biotech industry as we concluded an interview with him this afternoon. We are in the midst of our first round of interviews with senior leaders in R&D concerning the relationship of culture, high performance, and leadership practices. What especially caught my attention today was this leader’s unsolicited use of the phrase “underground”. And that those who compromise the underground are the “culture-keepers”.

“Culture-keepers” may engender thoughts of preservation, conservation, and stasis. Or they might be understood as the reservoir of largely untapped resources, buried beneath layers of bureaucracy and a myriad of processes - sort of like the connective tissue that keeps everything intact despite stress and strains. Either way, culture keepers are the bearers of implicit knowledge that is transferred from generation to generation.

One of the core premises of the Politics of Creativity is that there is indeed an underground of relationships, practices, and even scientific knowledge that generally fails to hit the screen of management. One of the reasons this happens, as the leader we interviewed today added, is that senior managers are rotated through the R&D function every few years. While management may initiate structural changes or launch other initiatives to optimize innovation and productivity, the culture is seldom affected, unless there is an intentional, trustworthy attempt to engage this “underground”.

This is not about gimmicky programs or subversive tactics but rather about more authentic engagement with people who matter because they are the guts of the R&D lab. Valuable political skills can be honed which acknowledge the reality of the power structure(s) of the business while honoring the wisdom buried in the organization. But before even thinking about engaging the "underground" one needs to acknowledge that it exists. What prevents or encourages management from doing so? That's the question I didn't explore in the interview today. Next time!

Improvisation and Relationships

Last week I had the opportunity to hear Rob Cross deliver the results of a social network analysis to the top 100 R&D leaders in a client organization. He highlighted, among other things, the importance of managing overload points as well as leveraging the periphery of the informal networks revealed by the mapping. This prompted me to juxtapose our work with relationship capital.

We define relationship capital as the sum total of interfaces, interactions, and interventions among and between people. It includes the tacit, often unrecognized behaviors and patterns of interaction that define and differentiate an organization’s performance. The practice of the Politics of Creativity helps leaders more effectively invest in relationship capital.

An essay in the McKinsey Quarterly entitled "Competitive Advantage from Better Interactions" helpfully describes how tacit interactions more and more define how employees must relate to one another. (The authors’ research was based on a study of some 8,000 companies.) One of their conclusions: "Tacit interactions reduce the importance of structure and elevate the importance of people and collaboration. …Tacit work is improvisational and difficult to define in advance, for it follows the problem being solved and the nature of the opportunity at hand."

I actually spent a day not too long ago at an improvisational workshop with Stevie Rae. While it may seem like a big stretch from an improv routine to a research lab, there were many aspects of the workshop that informed our work with "relationship capital". For example, Stevie Rae reminded us again and again, "At the end of the day, the audience won't remember your words but whether they liked playing with you." '

When, if ever, have you last asked yourself the question "What feeling or emotion do I want others to leave this conversation or presentation with, not simply what information?" This is a specific way for one to invest more in relationship capital. Too simplistic? Too soft? Pay attention and see what happens.

There is mounting evidence that such tacit dimensions differentiate those who successfully generate trust and establish an environment where creativity and innovation flourish. All the information and data in the world is no substitute for some of the most rudimentary principles of building relationships that are more than connections on a network map.

An Underground of Missed Opportunity

Last Friday I spoke at Medtronic's Global Technology Forum on the “Politics of Creativity”. I began by commenting how just beneath the surface of organizational “business as usual” there lies an “underground” of missed opportunity. I asked the audience, "Where does one go to find out what’s really happening?" The practice of the Politics of Creativity is about looking at the inhibitors to creativity and innovation that lie just beneath the surface of most organizations.

Chris Argyris of Harvard Business School documents extensively in his book, Overcoming Organizational Defenses how “underground dynamics” arise. What I was not anticipating on Friday was a question from the audience asking, “What advice do you have for us if we are the underground?” The audience was heavily populated with young, robust thinkers, scientists and engineers as well as business liasons, asking great questions about sometimes elusive matters (e.g. "How DO I sustain the creativity I had when I came to the company two years ago?")

Underground dynamics are more about unspoken and often unrecognized maneuvers and manipulations to gain advantage than about a specific group of people. As Argyris points out, there are underground dynamics even in the Board Room. So perhaps I confused the audience by asking "where do you go to find out what's really happening"?

In any case, I responded to the question by sharing my conviction that a small group with vision and passion can indeed make a tremendous difference in where a large organization is moving. Over lunch I cited how in the mid 90s a small group in the Finance Dept at Nestle USA was largely responsible for what became a company-wide initiative called "Leadership over the Top," a program for leadership growth and renewal which was sustained for more than five years. I remain in contact with some of those individuals to this day.

In yesterday's New York Times Noam Cohen writes a featured article entitled, "The Wiki-Way to the Nomination". He describes how Barack Obama's victory as the Democratic nominee is very much a result of "Facebook politics" and compares his success to a "classic internet startup". He then quotes Obama: "We just had some incredibly creative young people who got involved and what I think we did was give them a lot of latitude to experiment and try new things and put some serious resources into it." New strategies and accompanying tactics for political influence are very evident in this year's political contests

I encourage you to read Cohen's article. He concludes by citing the paradox that one person can make all the difference in leveraging the "wisdom of crowds". Industry changing behavior is happening! Who would have imagined Radiohead or now Nine Inch Nails giving away their new hits on the Internet?

Gamesmanship in Process Implementation

Remember the childhood game, "Chutes and Ladders"? We've actually used the elements of this game with a group of 200 scientists and engineers to capture how they are using one and the same process in different sites and functions globally. Yes, "Chutes and Ladders"!

The task is not to discuss changing or improving the processes. The challenge is simply to identify and describe the ways in which technical leaders and their business partners around the world use different tactics or behaviors to operationalize one and the same process. This is more difficult that it may seem - simply describing actions and behaviors; the tendency again and again is to suggest what's wrong with the process or a particular protocol.

For example, the need for coordinated in-country strategies that interface well with the respective cultural as well as market realities of a particular region is one such "process". Working in break-out groups, each group documents the "ladders" which represent ways in which one could accelerate or "cut a few corners" as well as "chutes" which represent traps, pitfalls, or other liabilities which result in going backwards.

The outcome is not playing a game; rather a graphic representation is made visible of how leaders actually work one and the same process.

Knowing there are "chutes" and "ladders" in every organizational system reflects an understanding of "gamesmanship" that also exists, for better or worse. Knowing when it is O.K. to "break the rules" and when one ought to "follow the leader" is a kind of political skill. It can be cultivated if acknowledged. Both are necessary if innovation is to thrive.

Stretching for New Technology Strategy

Last week a client was reaching for new understanding of how to spark imagination and facilitate stretch among the leaders in his organization for a more robust global technology strategy. To think in a way that is leading edge while remaining committed to partnering with business functions can be something of a leadership dilemma for those who lead R&D functions. Often our outlook is simply too short-term and too parochial, despite our intent to reach aggressively into the future.

As I think about the challenge of stretching our thinking, creatively as well as strategically, I am acutely aware that rice has become too expensive for many who are dependent on it for survival. Last week a new exhibit opened for the summer here in Minneapolis at the Walker Art Center called Design for the Other 90%. In a local review of the exhibit, Andrew Blauvelt, the Walker design curator, comments, "Most design is geared to the wealthiest 10 percent of the population but the new idea is that the poor are the next billion customers."

Steep commodity prices may be only temporary. But examining the relationship between food and energy is but one example of the opportunity for new ways of thinking strategically in the domain of technology. G. Pascal Zachary writing in the NYTimes "The Brighter Side of Higher Prices" comments that "to be sure, engineering a new 'green revolution' that will yield, say, cheaper wheat and rice -- all the while meeting the concerns of various special interest groups -- will be much harder than designing a better music player."

The complexity of issues such as the relationship of global food supply and environmentally sound energy solutions should not deter us. "Strategy as a Wicked Problem" , by John C. Camillus in the last issue of Harvard Business Review (May, 2008) provides some very helpful guidance for strategists and others. He writes: "Wicked problems often crop up when organizations have to face constant change or unprecedented challenges. They occur in a social context; the greater the disagreement among stakeholders, the more wicked the problem. In fact, it's the social complexity of wicked problems that make them tough to manage. " Environmental degradation, terrorism, and poverty, Camillus cites, as classic examples of "wicked problems" (I shared a reprint of this article with our client.)

George Bernard Shaw, the Irish playwright, wrote: "This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized as a mighty one." What inspires others to imagine, to stretch, is usually not in our comfort zone. It is often not in our domain of expertise. It is simply "beyond us". But inspiration and strategy do intersect.

The Cost of Integrity

Several years ago, while discussing integrity and leadership with a client group in Seoul, Korea, a participant fluent in Mandarin asked if he could step to the flipchart and draw a Mandarin character. He drew the character for integrity which consists, he explained, of three parts: ten eyes, one heart, and a moving target.

We live and work these days in a land of moving targets. A person of integrity dare not be static or stuck in one place. Multiple perspectives, including that which has not even been imagined, are required - at least "ten eyes". The virtue of integrity is not a matter of truthfulness but rather openness - openness to all that is yet to be discovered. I need to pause and ask myself, "Do I really believe that?" I do believe it, but sometimes I am incredibly impatient with my own orthodoxies and well-established assumptions.

Scientists have historically been among the greatest "heretics". That makes advancing in the performance rankings really tough! The courage to be open and to be different often comes with a cost.

The heart is the source of courage. As leaders it is essential that we stay close to our hearts. How scientific is that?

Curiosity as a Leadership Competency

"Curiosity killed the cat," or so the old adage goes. Why does that phrase continue to come to mind when I think "curiosity"? Curiosity is a prerequisite for learning and an essential element of creativity. Yet there is much about the work environment of many organizations that kills curiosity.

A few months ago my daughter, Jennifer, and I presented a workshop for General Mills ITQ (Innovation, Technology and Quality) Conference on leaders becoming more effective "curiosity catalysts". (The mind map of our presentation done at the conference is below. ) One way we encouraged participants to promote curiosity is by leading effectively with questions. We discussed how the "malpractice of inquiry" stifles curiosity (and good, timely questions) again and again. An example of the "malpractice of inquiry" is when a manager asks a question and the answer has already been decided or so it seems to the group hearing the question.

MindMapping by Stephanie Crowley

Janet Rae-Dupree writing in last week's Sunday NYT ("Can you Become a Creature of New Habits?) comments: "We tend to believe that those who think the way we do are smarter than those who don't. That can be fatal in business...particulary with executives who surround themselves with like thinkers." Regarding curiosity, she references the work of Dawna Markova, author of The Open Mind: "The first thing we need for innovation is fascination with wonder, but we are taught instead to 'decide'...". "You cannot have innovation unless you are willing and able to move through the unknown and go from curiosity to wonder."

Just a couple of weeks ago I was visiting with Tim Cejka, President, ExxonMobil Exploration Company, in his office about the practice of "collective inquiry" in their organization. Their experience offers evidence that organizations can become creatures of new habits! "Collective Inquiry" is a meeting protocol now used by their leaders to signal explicitly a meeting designed to promote curiosity about technical issues that have enormous consequences. Learning is given priority over deciding in these meetings. Curiosity is expected and encouraged. The results have been tangible, including fewer dry wells drilled.

"Never lose a holy curiosity," wrote Albert Einstein. Effective leaders know the value of curiosity.

Talking Creatively about Culture

In a recent interview, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, commented, "Nobody works the way we do. The Google culture makes sense if you're in it, and no sense if you're not." In one brief comment, Schmidt captures a principle that leaders are slow to grasp: the culture of an RD&E organization has more potential for achieving and sustaining competitive advantage than any products, processes, or organizational structures. It is virtually impossible to replicate "culture".

Talking about culture can be a challenge. Why? Because the vernacular in many organizations does not include words and phrases that adequately describe its very uniqueness. Karin Knorr Cetina in her book, Epistemic Cultures, How the Sciences Make Knowledge, describes in her research how knowledge is generated distinctively in different organizational cultures. In particular, she explores the differences between a molecular biology lab and a high energy physics lab. For example, the latter she describes as "communitarian science", the former as "individual lab bench science". Her comparison of these two scientific communities offers many distinctions that prompt new ways of talking about culture, especially in technical organizations.

Week before last I had the opportunity to hear Scott Anthony and Mark Johnson of Innosight (Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School, is the co-founder) speak at the Masters Forum here in Minneapolis on the subject of innovative business models and disruptive innovation. They cited some of the cultural impediments to innovative business models (e.g. "rigid adherence to financial metrics, business rules and norms or fighting against mindset; the illogic of core competencies"). Much of the time leaders fail to address adequately the unique and distinctive characteristics of culture which, for example, define a Google, and that allow innovation to flourish. These cultural elements cannot be benchmarked because they cannot be readily replicated. But that is no reason not to try to describe them.

Sometimes analogies or metaphors help when our language seems limited. Is your organization more like a high energy physics lab or a molecular biology lab? Why? Is it like Google? Or maybe it is more like eBay? How would you describe the differences?