Innovation Theatre Destroys Value – So What’s the Remedy? part 1

 

Ever attended a Sprint or Stratex deep dive that looks good on the surface, but everybody knows, ‘This has no value.’?  ‘Innovation Theatre’ is closely related to what Czech novelist, Milan Kundera, called ‘kitsch’. Phony, tasteless, or overly sentimental, kitsch embraces cliché & superficial emotions, while lacking depth and authenticity.  In dysfunctional organizations, kitsch manifests as the feeling “Isn’t it great that we’re so [fill in the blanks]”.  As in Kundera’s 1960’s Czechoslovakia, everybody knows it’s phony, but nobody dares say anything.

Authenticity

Whether you’re trying to protect the core with OpEx/Lean, or ignite new growth with digital methods, Innovation Theatre is a clear & present danger, which not only fails to create value – it destroys value. So, what’s the remedy?

Recognizing Kitsch

How does Senior Leader Team & Board recognize Innovation Theatre & corporate kitsch in general? Recognizing it in OpEx-related activities is fairly straightforward. Ask yourself: ‘Would the CFO recognize any value here?’

Recognizing kitsch when you’re trying to create something entirely new is harder because of the Innovator’s Dilemma.  Entirely new offerings fail the CFO test because all the standard measures of value (Revenue, ROI, market share and so on) are zero.  This means we need a different way of measuring (Innovation Accounting), which I’ll take up in later articles.

Remedies to Innovation Theatre - Authenticity

Authenticity is the simplest & most daunting remedy.  Personal authenticity means I who know who I am, what I believe in, where I come from, and where I’m going.  Corporate authenticity means the senior leader team can answer these questions on behalf of the company in clear & compelling way.

In such organizations, OpEx & Innovation sprints & playbacks (not to mention senior leader & Board meetings) are focused, factual, serious and often light-hearted (because you don’t have to fake it). The mantra of such organizations is some variation of ‘Target, actual, please explain’, a powerful phrase which embodies the following mental models:

·       We take targets & commitments seriously.

·       We don’t lie about what’s actually happening; we accept reality full on

·       We deal with problems directly & openly.

·       This is a ‘No blah blah blah’ zone.

Authenticity is rooted in a deep commitment to the common good, to the ‘triple bottom line’, if you will. In the words of a respected mentor, ‘Something for the community, something for the team member, and something for the company’.

Authenticity also entails answering the following question is a frank & honest way: ‘What’s in it for you?’ Failing to do so is a form of kitsch. People hear the rhetoric about continuous improvement & breakthrough innovation and wonder, “Are we going to innovate our way out of a job?”.

Role of Leaders

Leaders, therefore, must embody authenticity rooted in simple decency and respect for people. For this reason, in the age of AI, authenticity is the gamechanger, catalyst & killer app. And as the public tires of AI slop, authenticity will grow in importance & value

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis         E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org

#Innovationleadership #Authenticity #AuthenticLeadership #InnovationTheatre &phonyimprovement #corporatekitsch

Stratex Blockers – Innovation Theatre

Ever attended a Sprint or Stratex deep dive that looks great on the surface – lots of high fives & smiling faces – but leaves you with a nagging feeling that ‘nothing will come of this’? 

Welcome to ‘Innovation Theatre’. Whether you’re trying to protect the core with OpEx/Lean, or ignite new growth with Digital, this pernicious syndrome is a clear & present danger, which not only fails to create value – it destroys value.

Innovation Theatre is closely related to what the great Czech novelist, Milan Kundera, called ‘kitsch’. Gaudy, tasteless, or overly sentimental, kitsch embraces cliché and superficial emotions. Kitsch can be seen as a form of escapism, providing comfort through familiarity while lacking depth and authenticity.  In dysfunctional organizations, kitsch manifests as the feeling “isn’t it great that we’re so innovative/supportive/engaged/aligned…” (fill in the blanks).  As in Kundera’s 1960’s Czechoslovakia, everybody knows the system is phony, but nobody dares say anything.

How do we recognize Innovation Theatre? What causes it & what are the remedies? What’s the role of the Board and Senior Leader Team in recognizing and banishing kitsch? What are the blockers to doing so? 

I’ll be addressing these and other questions in the weeks to come. 

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis         E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org

 

 

Innovation & Stratex Blocker #1

What’s the most formidable Innovation & strategy execution blocker? I’ve posed this question to senior leaders around the world. The consensus answer is…

What is a Silo?

A silo is a tower or pit used on a farm to store grain. The metaphor has evolved to mean a group of people who work independently of other people and other teams. A silo speaks its own language & culture, has its own goals methods, often disconnected from rest of the organization.

Are silos always bad? Not necessarily, in fact silos can help create & share profound knowledge. Silos can help build esprit de corps & mutual support in difficult fields including technology, engineering, design, medicine, and law.

The dark side manifests when the silo becomes cut off. Silos are flow-killers, disabling the lifeblood of innovation: flow of information, support, knowledge, and learning. When you have multiple disconnected silos lead times explode, and nothing gets built. The pejorative urban planning & development acronym BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) reflects the disabling power of silos.

Why Silos?

Silos form when a group of people develop their own language and way of working, usually based on shared training. My late father-in-law, the great Dr. Robert Guselle, who ran the biggest clinic in Ontario, often discussed medical silos and their deleterious effect on patient outcomes. Patients got stuck in a patient journey, and the longer they stayed, the more likely they were to get sicker. ‘Come in with one thing, leave with something else.’

When I asked Bob what causes medical silos, he said. “We spend eight or ten years together in this isolated tube called medical school. We work insane hours under extreme stress that few outside the medicine can begin to understand. We develop our own language, way of thinking & way of being. We're a tribe & we don’t trust other tribes.”

Medical silos have become much, much deeper. In 1950, when Dr. Guselle graduated Oncology comprised Surgery, and basic radiation- & chemotherapy. Nowadays, even sub-specialties have evolved into deep complex silos. Cancer surgery, for example, itself comprises multiple silos including MIS, robot-assisted, laser surgery, cryosurgery, and electrosurgery. The same phenomenon has occurred in other professions.

The great music producer & entrepreneur, Jimmy Iovine, says ‘Kids come out of school not knowing how to work or even how to talk to other specialties’ (see Rick Rubin’s Tetragrammaton podcast).

How Do We Dissolve and/or Connect Silos? Stay tuned.

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis         E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org

Stratex Blockers – Where Are We Going?

 Who are we, and what do we believe in? Where are we going, and how will we get there? Such are the core questions of Purpose. How well we answer such questions – as people & organizations – determines clarity of Purpose – or lack thereof. So how do we answer them?

To define your Purpose is to look up toward a better future. Doing so is uplifting in that it pulls you out of your current quagmire and forces you to consider the entire chessboard, design space, or gestalt, if you will. Everything is connected and if you look closely enough, individual parts form meaningful patterns, which often are the key to strategy.

Who are we and what do we believe in?

Answering such questions requires an intuitive understanding of your history, formative experiences, victories & defeats, and their why & wherefore. A useful subordinate question is: Where do we come from? This is difficult for young companies and especially so for startups, which explains why such organizations often have dreadful, abusive cultures. Often the leaders of such companies cannot imagine anything different because there are no signs, no precedents. There is no Dave Hewlett or Bill Packard, no Charles Kimberly or John Clark history to guide them. And no sages to whisper, ‘What would Dave & Bill have done?’

I’ve been lucky enough to work for some years with a fine international Insurance & Wealth Management firm that has a deep connection to its 150-year history – a history of achievement, stability, and community service. The corridors leading the Board room display foundational images, and the portraits of senior leaders beginning with the founder. The message is unmistakable – This is where we come from, who we are and what we believe in. Needless to say, helping answer such questions is an essential element of my practice.

Where are we going and how do we get there?

Here are helpful subordinate questions, courtesy of Roger Martin: ‘Where will we play & how will we win?’ The first part of this entails defining what markets, what offerings, what part the of the value chain and such. The second part entails defining a compelling ‘winning logic’ that everybody from the C-suite to the front line understands and can explain.

The Stick Model of Value is a useful framework for telling your story. Will we win by creating more Value & thereby increasing the customer’s Willing to Pay? Or by continuously reducing our cost by engaging all team members in waste reduction, so that we sell more? Or permutations thereof?

A high-end recreational vehicle supplier I know has defined their winning logic as follows: ‘Speed – Cost – Innovation: 1) We’ll be faster at design & deployment than our low-cost offshore competitors by…, 2) We’ll reduce of cost of labor through Lean/OpEx methods to less than 20% of total cost so that it’s irrelevant, and 3) We’ll have the best Tech & innovation in our industry by…’

Result? On familiarizing himself with the books, the new CFO said to me, “This place is a cash machine.’  The company also has a rich sense of where they come from & a history of decency & fair play. As a result, people stay, get better & better at their work, and contribute. Win-win.

Last thing, can you outsource all this to AI?

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis         E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org