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Who Are the Innovators?

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Recently I have been reflecting with Imran Ali about the nature of innovation in the city (of Leeds in this case) and how it might be developed.  The assumption being that more and better innovation will be an unalloyed good in a fast changing, dynamic, complex yet very finite environment.

Most of the discussion has focussed on some obvious innovation levers that we believe could yield some relatively quick and easy wins, such as:

  • encouraging more innovation across traditional boundaries of department or role
  • seeking applications of technology for social innovation
  • thinking as idealists rather than realists – exploring the art of the possible not just the pragmatic
  • providing ‘investment ready’ development programmes
  • engaging non traditional sources of funding in the innovation process and so on.

But the implicit assumption all of these approaches to innovation is of an innovative elite.  A creative class with the brains, the money (or access to it) and the networks to figure out how to make things significantly better for the rest of us.  Scientists, technologists, financiers, policy makers, politicians, environmentalists, campaigners, entrepreneurs (social and not so social) and academics are all encouraged, incentivised and trained to ‘unleash’ their creativity and innovation.

But how many in the city form part of that elite?  The hallowed few from whom progress is expected to emanate or who feel it is their duty to change the workings of the world. A few thousand perhaps in a city of 800 000.  I suspect it is less than 1% of those living in the city.

I believe that innovation, creativity and change in pursuit of progress, are essential human qualities that will find means of expression.  Regardless.

  • How does the potential of ‘innovation’ play out for the rest?
  • How do the processes of creativity and change in search of progress manifest for them?

Well, I suspect there is another slug of the population who are deeply engaged in creativity and change in relation to developing their  practice, in the more or less explicit hope, that they may be able to join the elite.  Training, learning, networking and thinking of ways to get their hands on the innovation levers.  Would-be entrepreneurs, politicians, students, scientists and bureaucrats who are working their way upwards and onwards.  Some, of course will join the elite. But most, by definition, will not.  And they will join another group of potential innovators.

These are the ones who do not wish to change the world/city/community.  Perhaps they have given up on the challenge. Perhaps they never engaged with it.  But the essential creative drive remains and will be expressed.  It may play out through personal lifestyle choices.  Living the environmental life perhaps, gardening,  reducing the golf handicap, pursuing cultural enlightenment, renovating houses/cars etc.  Progress is defined in more or less personal terms.  It is perhaps the pursuit of happiness rather social change.   Work becomes a job rather than a way to make a mark on the world.  Creative courage is reserved primarily for ‘out of hours’ activities.

And then there is another group who never really established a foothold in ‘the system’.  Those for whom a steady salary providing some level of ‘disposable’ income was never really ‘on the cards’.  Vocational and professional routes for creative expression never opened up for them.   From this group I suspect the systems demands not innovation and creativity but just passive compliance.  Do as your told, smarten up tour appearance, brush up your CV and look for a job.  Or at least pretend you are looking for a job.  But the drive to innovation will out.  Creativity will be expressed.

So when we are looking to support innovation in the city where is the great untapped potential?

  • Does it lie in providing more and better support and training to the elite?
  • Or should we try to mobilise middle England, Big Society style, to rally tot he cause?
  • Or should we perhaps change the terms of engagement with those at the margins of the system?  To shift from a coercive approach to a coaching one?

Anyone for ‘Innovation Coaches’ in Leeds?

18 tips for Better Partnership Working

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I have just completed a 2 day workshop with a great group of partnership managers.  Here is what I learned!

  1. Get really clear and comfortable about your self interest. Your personal  reaction to the opportunities and possibilities offered in your role.
  2. Communicate this powerfully in language that the recipient will understand and value.
  3. Develop your professional self interest – the overlap between your individual/personal and professional/organisational response to what REALLY matters.
  4. Build your power to influence what really matters through investing in person to person relationships. Invest in a series of 121s. Share what really matters to you. Be clear on how they will perceive you.
  5. Use the allies/opponents/adversaries/fencesitters/bedfellows model to help you structure this.
  6. Become power hungry (why wouldn’t you want power to make what you believe in happen? Don’t leave power for the bad guys of this world to grab!)
  7. Building a powerful coalition around your ideas inside the business is as important as building one externally.
  8. Know your reputation – find ways to find what people REALLY think of you and your agenda – but are too polite to say!
  9. Don’t be busy fools. Work on the most powerful relationships. That is the relationships that give you the most power – this has little or nothing to do with the ‘authority’ power of the other party. Think leverage. Think goals.
  10. Think ‘enlightened self interest‘  and here.
  11. Ring fence thinking time – 2 lots of 90 minutes a week – to develop your agenda – rather than respond to the needs and agendas of others. This will increase your sense of control and reduce your levels of stress – as well as making you much more effective and creative. GUARANTEED.
  12. Agree on the ends.   Be different, challenging, creative and risky when it comes to the means. You don’t always have to play by the rules. Think Mandela.
  13. If you play by the rules of bureaucracy it will find ways of stifling change.
  14. Don’t let years of socialisation in being helpful and humble result in you being a selfless partner. Nobody wants to partner with Uriah Heep – but they may just take everything you have.
  15. Resist the safety of bureaucracy – maintenance, safety, dependency (external locus of control).
  16. Pursue the entrepreneurial way – greatness, courage and autonomy (internal locus of control).
  17. Don’t waste too much time and energy on the difficult people. Invest it in those who share your self interest – life is just better that way.
  18. Always take your own chalk and be cautious in your selection of cues….(this is not a mystical metaphor – just a statement of fact).

Anything I have missed?

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Carl Jung

Web 2.0 – What’s the Fuss About?

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Great piece by McKinsey that does a top job of explaining why Web 2.0 is getting so much attention.

In essence – its quick, cheap, extends your reach and provides you with insight and feedback.  It can definitely give you an edge.

It is not all up-side – there are issues of time management and the digital divide – but that’s life!  Nothing’s perfect.

I have been blogging for a couple of years now as well as twittering (a lot) Facebooking (a little), using wikis for collaborative writing and product development and forums for community building.  My interest started a bout 10 years ago when we took on a post grad student studying knowledge management for a year.  That got me into the theory of and practice of knowledge management – especially communities of interest and practice and the facilitation of large groups – both online and face to face.

Read the McKinsey piece here.

Also happy to share what I know.

If you want more than the occasional blog post from me you can follow on twitter at www.twitter.com/mikechitty

More Customer Service Craziness?

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Mobile phones and insurance policies.

I like NEITHER.  Yet renewal time comes around and we dutifully spend hours on web sites to ‘compare the market’ and get great prices.

So this morning, after a mammoth web-surfing session I rang KWIK FIT Insurance Services to tell that we were not renewing our existing policy because we had found a better price and insurance coverage elsewhere.  I was put on hold while they transferred my call to someone who could ‘cancel down’ their renewal quote.

In fact I was transferred to someone who was trained to stop me placing my business elsewhere.  He asked me why I hadn’t rung them for a quote as they can offer better deals over the phone than they do over the net!

Not what I wanted to hear!

Mobile phone companies are the same.  They only offer you their best deals once you have already decided to place you business elsewhere!

Bad psychology and bad business!

So – in spite of all the recommendations to use web-based comparison sites to get the best deals and safe money – the best bet is to use those sites to find the best deal you can – and then ring up call centres and haggle to see who will beat the deal!

Hardly model customer service though is it?

So much for progress.

If you read my HP rant then you maybe interested to hear how it finally got resolved!   Eventually they told me they would issue me with a letter to authorise the seller to replace the machine. Yippee!  Then two days letter I got a call from an engineer telling me he was outside my house wanting to repair the machine!  I am the other side of the city about to go into a meeting.  No-one has mentioned this change of plan to me – or that the engineer was coming!!

Eventually without any further dealings with call centres I was able to get the engineer access to the machine and he replaced the motherboard.  Should be back in busniess soon!

Conscripts, mercenaries, and volunteers

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Willing volunteers outperform conscripts and mercenaries every time. They are more innovative and creative as well more diligent and disciplined.

Volunteers have bought into a mission and a purpose rather then been bought into it.

Much of the private sector is struggling with how to turn salaried staff from conscripts and mercenaries into volunteers. Finding ways to engage them in the work of the organisation. To provide them with fulfilling and rewarding work.

Much of the public and third sector seems to be taking almost exactly the opposite path. It finds ways to turn passionate and caring volunteers (people who have bought into the mission) into conscripts and mercenaries. This is achieved by:

  • making them servants of the system rather than servants of their customers
  • imposing performance management systems that often fail to recognise quality service delivery
  • entering into inflexible and output related contracts for service delivery that shrink opportunities for innovation and improvement
  • managing them as if they are units of production rather than as caring and compassionate people full of insights into how to improve performance.

It is a strange paradox that many private sector clients are making genuine efforts at developing employee engagement in pursuit of profits while so many third sector and public sector organisations are developing processes and systems that alienate employees and volunteers in pursuit of efficiency.