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Dan Hartman
Dan Hartman is the CEO of the Small Business Solutions Center, an agency in Wichita specializing in helping businesses start, grow, and diversify. Dan earned an MBA from the University of California and has over 35 years of business experience. Offering assistance across the spectrum for small businesses, from money, legal and branding/marketing to simply organizing your stuff, the Small Business Solutions Center is poised to make a difference in your business and our community. The Center is located at 105 South Broadway, Suite 102, Wichita, Kansas. Phone contact is 316-771-7111, or you can contact them through their website at www.smallbusinesssolutionscenter.com.
Business
2007-02-01 16:23:00
One way to stop the ‘innovation killer’
ANSWER: “The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.” -Mark Twain It’s always amazed me how Mark Twain seemed to regularly hit the proverbial bull’s eye with his straight forward, simple country logic. Twain’s take on new ideas and success is as accurate today as the day it was first articulated. Why do we see many organizations rushing to hire outside consultants to form opinions one might think should easily be attained from within. I read almost everyday an article in a newspaper or some other publication generally berating the practice of hiring outside consultants. Often this practice is seen as wasteful spending…but, is it really? There are valid reasons for seeking outside opinions and advice on just about every topic imaginable. In practice, many creative organizations bring in outsiders who are not weighed down by the “way things have always been done”. Outsiders bring a fresh perspective, and therefore exercise what might be described as “zero-gravity” thinking – that is, clear thinking unbound by established practices, internal politics or other internal baggage. These fresh perspectives often push people to think outside the limits of their existing mindset. Zero-gravity thinking addresses directly the human side of innovation. It is based on the fact that every invention, every great idea and every breakthrough product or process is the brainchild of real people, or groups of people combining their thoughts and talents, stretching perceived boundaries, reaching beyond the realm of everyday thinking. What makes innovation so difficult to achieve in organizations: “Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” – Friedrich Nietzsche When innovating, human nature is an obstacle which must be overcome. Our thinking is constrained by the fact we accept offhandedly what others have said and what the “experts” say is possible or impossible. To innovate successfully, we need to put aside what is known and let our imaginations run free. We need to break away from what we know, what our organization believes and what the experts in our field accept are the established boundaries. Innovation can be defined as “the development and application of an original idea which results in a valuable improvement being made”. Some innovations are breakthroughs (radical departures from what was) while others are small improvements on existing ideas. Everyone loves the idea of being innovative because that can be highly profitable. If you or your organization can come up with a breakthrough idea, it can make a huge difference in the marketplace. Yet despite this appreciation of the benefits of being innovative, many organizations find it difficult to innovate. So, why is innovation so difficult? There are many reasons why innovation is difficult. Some may be the policies and management processes of an organization. Often it requires so much effort to navigate the in-house red tape to get a new idea recognized that it becomes discouraging to even try. Company policy may require new ideas to be backed up with facts and figures which nobody has any chance of generating. People naturally assume if an idea is good, everyone would already be doing that. Internal politics and turf wars can get in the way, and the tendency for organizations to have momentum – let’s just keep doing what we’ve always done In short, the answer is pretty simple. Organizations are made up of people. People resist change. Innovation requires change. Generally, one can be reasonably safe to assume factors, other than technical merits, have an inordinate influence on an organization's ability to be creative. These factors can be present, even when management is outwardly enthusiastic about being innovative. However, there are two fundamental inhibitors frequently found in organizations: 1. GroupThink – the tendency of a group of people to go along with the majority opinion rather than speaking their mind. In the business context, GroupThink stops people from stating their opinions openly and vocally. 2. ExpertThink – ExpertThink means to follow the leader and accept the conventional wisdom about ideas without question or challenge. This kind of thinking is predictable in organizations having a track record of notable success. When acting in combination, GroupThink and ExpertThink can cause extreme myopia, severely limiting our field of vision. Ironically, this effect is even more evident in organizations which have a sustained history of success than it is for a startup. The Solution - Zero G Thinking If what an organization already knows makes it hard to innovate, then the solution is to introduce into your team some Zero-G thinkers on a temporary basis so they can help everyone escape the maze of what is known thereby allowing some fresh, new and creative thinking to take place. Zero-G thinkers have three primary characteristics: 1. They have psychological distance from the rest of the team, meaning they don't care about the accepted “norms” within the group. Instead, Zero-G thinkers are perfectly happy to challenge the status quo. 2. They need to have broad interests and capabilities rather than deep specialization in just one narrow technical area. They know a little about a lot of different topics and are perfectly comfortable taking a concept which works well in one field and using it in an entirely different application. 3. They need to have broad basic expertise. These people won't add more of what is already known by the team. Instead, a Zero-G thinker will inspire the team members to explore their world from a different perspective. How To Make Zero Gravity Thinking Work In Practice When it comes to innovation, there is no one-size-fit-all set of rules. All you can do is build a good foundation and then innovate from there. The following are six key practices of Zero-G thinking: 1. Increase your detachment. Look at your business objective as if you were someone else... and then someone else... and then someone else entirely different. 2. Form unusual combinations. Bring together two or more different ideas which normally would not be combined. Train yourself to look for weird combinations which work when put into practice. 3. Change the way you think. Change the way you think about thinking. Instead of always trying to be doing something, spend a few minutes reflecting and allowing new ideas to get noticed. As Leonardo da Vinci wisely advised, “Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.” 4. Define in detail first. Spend some quality time actually defining the problem first before you make an intensive effort to try and solve it. 5. Understand your constraints. Understand what exactly constrains your thinking at the present time and come up with some practical ways to lift those constraints, even if only temporarily. 6. Encourage Zero-G thinking. For most people and organizations, Zero-G thinking won't come naturally. It's something you'll need to work at and nurture. Albert Einstein once declared, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” Don’t fall into the trap of putting convention above innovation. To do so may make you an unintentional innovation killer.
 
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