My past few columns have touched on some dimensions of the tension and conflict that surround the practice of innovation. This dynamic of conflict exists at many levels: within working groups, firms, industries, nations, and trading blocks. It will increase.
Influence peddling is common, so incumbent firms blatantly use "clout" to tilt the playing field. Patent laws or trade treaties can create a broad economic advantage for groups, or narrow loop-holes can be inserted to benefit specific insiders. For example, a law was recently passed to extend the term of a single patent for one company [1].
Within industries, innovation threatens incumbents that are committed to monopoly or oligopoly business models. Firms that lack both clout and innovation ability must either get some or adopt "cheaper-faster" models and start downsizing.
Within firms, the mavericks who keep changing things frustrate people who seek control, predictability, and efficiency. Innovators mostly just want to be left alone to "do their thing." Indeed, the notion of a Skunk Works has always involved separation, and the guidelines for how to run one have always read like a 1960s manual for revolution.
Conversely, those on the other side, the stasists, are the organizational people. They seek stability. Some have personal agendas, but most honestly see the organization as the solution. They don't want to legitimize the disrupters by argument or negotiation. It's easier to imprison their adversaries in standard processes than to get their agreement.
In the past, this tension was seldom brought to the surface, and almost never at the corporate policy level. That is changing. Allover the world, increasing numbers of visionary leaders and writers are saying that humankind lives in a time of unprecedented, disruptive, chaotic discontinuity. Each does this in his or her own way, and all suggest action [2].
Why does this matter? Why you, who are already, overloaded? Why now? It matters because prosperity will accrue to the nations, companies, and people who make the right choices.
The conflicts between incumbents and insurgents, between innovation-based firms and production-based firms, is becoming the defining issue of our times. The Cold War has literally been replaced by the Patent War [3]. The New Economy is reality. In the old economy, wealth was created by increased mass of the units produced, but in the New Economy, a produced product/service (e.g., a software package) creates wealth by an increased number of users.
The time to act is now because firms that innovate well have enormous advantage. It really is harder to innovate today at most established firms. I've run a business helping clients with strategic innovation since 1988, and I see a trend of increasing project resets and cancellations.
I had a major engagement for a great client cancelled in midstream because a single bureaucrat in their accounts payable department changed policy. He just stopped issuing the checks! My client was quite angry and finally paid me for all the work done, but we couldn't finish. It was like being forced to stop halfway through a heart surgery. Such blockages are costly to firms and demoralizing to innovators. Still, a greater problem is strategic blunders. Consider that firms have spent billions of dollars in recent years on initiatives like reengineering and TQM.
That money was largely wasted, and it is whiplash time [4]. Such methods assume that it is easy to codify knowledge and that organizations operate in a predictable environment. They help you do standard things faster and cheaper. They prevent you from doing innovative things that are spontaneous, improvised, and driven by tacit knowledge. These are, unfortunately, exactly the things that firms must do to succeed in the New Economy.
"Why you?" is the hardest question, but that is what leadership is about. You must decide if it is better to leave or lead change. One thing is for sure: Don't try to change your company alone, especially if you have a high position. Innovation is a corporate responsibility, not just an engineering issue.
You can contact John through The Trudel Group, 33470 Chinook Place, Scappoose, OR 97056; +1503 543 6361; jtrudel@gstis.net; http://www.trudelgroup.com.
Endnotes
[1] M.Spears, "Patent game's bad throw," Upside, Feb.2000, p.204. The bill in question was the "Claritin Relief Act of 1999," and http://thomas .loc.gov/ has a copy of the bill.
[2] Recommended books include: C.M. Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1997: W. Greider, One World, Ready or Not, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997; T.G. Lewis, The Friction Free Economy, New York: HarperBusiness, 1997; and G.R. Ungson and J.D. Trudel, Engines of Prosperity, London: Imperial College Press, 1998.
[3] See http://www.trudelgroup.com/pwars.htm for articles and references.
[4] J.S. Brown and P. Duguid, "Balancing act: how to capture knowledge without killing it," Harvard Business Review, May-Jun. 2000, pp. 73-80.