Mysticism, Management, and Cultures of Innovation

I like people who see the world differently.  They are more entertaining, and they are also more helpful -- nudging my brain in novel ways.  One of my most different-seeing friends is a wonderful artist by the name of Joel Swanson.  (http://www.joelswanson.net/)  

At a gallery opening of some of his recent work, Joel highlighted a few wonderfully insightful statements by Sol Lewitt from his book Art-Language, written back in 1969.  While they were originally focused on the creative process of artists, I think they apply well to the high-ambiguity/high-creative process of innovation in general.  I’ll restate them, then I’ll try to explain how I think we can apply them outside the world of art.

1. Rational judgments repeat rational judgments.  
2. When words such as “painting” and “sculpture” are used, they connote a whole tradition and imply a consequent acceptance of this tradition, thus placing limitations on the artist, who would be reluctant to make art that goes beyond these limitations.
3. Irrational judgments lead to new experience.
4. Mystics leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.

It is fitting I think to make a post on mysticism and innovation in a week in which Apple’s market value exceeds Exxon’s as #1 on the planet.  Fitting because there is no logic that could have reached the conclusion to build the mac or itunes/ipod or the ipad or the iphone. You can call it “hunch” or “intuition” or “gut feel” or “inspiration” or “sixth sense” or whatever.  But, you could not have defined or categorized or sized any of these things before they existed.  We simply did not have the words or the analogies or the baseline statistics.  It took a “mystic” leap to see the world differently.

Unfortunately, your company’s culture probably requires all of these definitions and categorizations and estimates BEFORE people will take an idea seriously.  Uh oh.  This could explain why so much “innovation” in many enterprises is little more than a retread or repackaging of the same old stuff.

All of which leads me to the $64,000 question: how does a leader cultivate the right conditions for the emergence of groundbreaking, creative ideas?  I’m no expert, so I’ll just toss out six suggestions for starters.

1. Don’t get into labels and numbers too early in an idea’s life.  Forcing categories and labels and quantification too early will prune all the really new thoughts from the room, because the really new thoughts defy the pre-existing linguistic constructs, categories, numbers, standards, etc.  Our reality shapes our words and categories INITIALLY, but after that the words and categories become the master -- shaping and constraining our ongoing perceptions of a changing reality.
2. RE-think and play with categories and measures....often.  Accept, even encourage it.  OF COURSE, you have to maintain balance here: some applications (KPI/SEC/etc) require stability in categories and measures.  BUT, that’s no reason that you can’t experiment elsewhere with looking at reality differently.  It’s not EITHER/OR.
3. Focus on the person’s CONCEPT of the world/ biz/ product/ process/ competition/ whatever -- not just the numbers or even the conclusions.  Some really great kernels are lurking in powerpoint presentations with ill-advised conclusions or with erroneous arithmetic.  Step back and ask yourself: how is Bob seeing the world, to have focused on this or that in such and such a way?  You don’t have to agree with his conclusions to profit from changing your perspective.
4. Let the grass roots grow under ideas.  When big-wigs adopt an idea formally, all of the suggestions above become REALLY hard to do.
5. Reward conceptualization.  Preserve the conceptualization contribution as distinct from the implementation, because otherwise the implementers get all the glory.
6. Reduce information friction with a collaborative intelligence platform.  Even the best original idea benefits from the refinement and extension of other perspectives.  But, this can happen only if the two potential collaborators can connect.  Use a collaboration platform to maximize the chance of connections b/w a few people who grok the same concept and can extend/ remix/ bend/ share/ extend/ implement it.