Real Artists Ship

How is it that every article and book I read about innovation is so un-innovative? You'd think that, with a subject like that, authors would attempt a modicum of creativity themselves. But instead we get the same old chestnuts: innovations happens when there's a critical mass of unbelievably brilliant, rich men brainstorming away without any limitation to their thinking.

Once again, in this month's New Yorker innovation edition, there's the tired old story of how Nathan Myhrvold took his Microsoft millions and ploughed it into what Malcolm Gladwell calls a 'breakthrough factory'. Mostly he tells of wealthy men flying thousands of miles to get together and compare intellects. Five hundred patents a year get filed and everyone feels very clever.

But while filing patents is expensive, ideas are cheap. Of course, when you bring together a room full of competitive, confident, brainy guys you get ideas -- what else could you get? The hard thing in business isn't having ideas but knowing what to do with them. Figuring out how to bring goods and services to market efficiently, at prices people can afford, conforming to standards of reliability and usability that customers will tolerate -- that's the tough stuff.

Oops - did I mention customers? How surprising, in the context of innovation. Because whichever innovation guru you care to read, you won't find references to customers. No, the innovation world still apparently believes that wisdom lies with the guys on top (yes, it usually is guys) and the pathetic minion at the end of the food chain -- the customer -- isn't worth a mention. The innovation world, in other words, is fundamentally elitist and, to me, seems remarkably old-fashioned.

What I'd rather see these big brains tackle is harder: how to get from your workforce the levels of creativity and innovation that they are capable of. I don't need a room of California brain boxes to get new ideas; I regularly convene groups of twenty people -- at any level of an organization -- who, in a matter of hours, can compile a list of twenty products or services that are perfectly viable, executable and desirable. This isn't my brilliance -- it's theirs.

That this can happen so easily serves perfectly to illustrate Percy Barnevik's estimate that most companies use no more than about ten percent of their workforce's intellectual capacity. It's an incredible waste -- and the world is desperately in need of leadership innovation prepared to unleash the creativity that most companies stifle. Figure that one out and you'll have a chain reaction of innovative ideas: one that is sustainable and rewarding, not a once-a-year gathering in fancy places.

And if you think innovative talent lies untapped inside the workforce -- that is as nothing compares to the creativity that could come from customer if companies only knew how to talk to them. Instead, mostly what we all experience is what Shoshana Zuboff calls a "chasm of rage and despair" that separates seller from buyer. Instead of talking, innovation meisters might consider listening.

I'm sure Nathan and his buddies have a lot of fun swapping scientific papers and pretending to be polymaths. And I'm sincerely impressed that they can master cancer, dinosaurs and nuclear energy without pausing for breath. It makes me wonder, really, why the world is in such a mess when we have such brilliant thinkers among us. Maybe it's because doing is actually harder than imagining. Or as Steve Jobs said: Real Artists Ship.

Comments

[rucognizant]

Yes I responded earliier this morning to the article about the new copyright bill they are wanting to pass in the Senate.
The entire article & comments, are gone 4 hours later?
Basically it places the ownership of the artist creator, into the hands of these, BIG BOYS"! BY making the artist take time to file & pay a fee It removes the protection we now get from putting a copyright sign on our work!
They whine that too many works of art can't see the light of day because the "creator" is lost.
HELLO.! there are hundreds of website showing artist's work. You need something? Find someone who's work you like & COMMISSION them to do something for you.You know like the Pope commissioned Michaelangelo to paint the Sistine chapel. t puts creative work on a very unequal footing I have eschewed married life in order to devote more time to my art. A woman with a "husband income" is more likely to be able to afford copyright fees...but is she as good, having to devote a significant portion of her creative time to the marriage/family life!??
Bad bill!

[mamacat]

I agree, great article.

Before I retired, I learned and used a very, very valuable lesson. When dealing with a customer, within or without the companies I worked for, listen to them! The things that can happen when we listen to and respect our "customers" are amazing. The customer often is shocked to find someone willing to listen and act upon what they have to say.

On the other hand, I truly believe that the corporate mind-set too often tries to impose its world view on the customer, with the result that the customer feels no desire to deal with the corporation any more than absolutely necessary. This last statement may seem counterintuitive, but remember, most people working in a corporation are not trying to satisfy their customers, but rather, are trying to satisfy the expectations of their supervisors. These two goals are often mutually exclusive.

[HeresJohnny]

Great article. I think the need to maintain power relations within organizations leads to a lot of the stifled creativity. This is especially so in organizations that have marginal people in the upper levels- they are so afraid of being outshone that they create conditions to prevent the kind of innovation that could undermine their own positions. This article really got me thinking, and I can't say that about many of the things I read.

[itolduso]

Too much of the business world's energy seems to be devoted to making 'great noise' rather than great products. Noise creates pressure-people will buy anything just to shut the noise out. It's not just the commercials on t.v. that have gotten louder-everywhere we turn-garish colors and bold print scream from billboards and flyers-our shops have morphed into oversized warehouses filled with row after row of cheap, shoddy 'must-haves' wrapped in molded plastic stamped with "BUY ME NOW-HURRY- DON"T MISS OUT!" . Walk into any home in America and you will probably find a 'singing fish'-but you will rarely find an original artwork. We no longer look -have forgotten we have a choice, no longer recognize or care about quality or craftsmanship-we just keep buying from those that make the most noise. It's sad