I was recently in a discussion that (once again) revealed to me the restrictions that organizations can impose on innovation. I firmly believe they don’t always deliberately impose these restrictions. Most willingly say how much they want to be innovative. However the year over year build-up of processes, policies and procedures can encrust that willingness.
I am an innovator. I like ideas and have no problem admitting that sometimes I lack in the details, implementation and maintenance department. My wiring. Wanted you to know this up front before you continue reading. BUT please don’t take my personal context as a pretext for side-lining the following commentary. I have lived inside a non-profit for 28 years in an international, national and local leadership role. I’ve seen it’s multiple sides. Read on and make your own assessment.
In their initial genesis as an organization, most were formed around a vision that was innovative and relevant at the time. Useful guidelines were created to govern and direct their efforts. But as they grew within those borders, needs & opportunities changed around them. Adjustments were made and good things may have occurred – however the world that now exists is vastly different. The current structures don’t resemble the nimble nature of the initial movement that spawned the organization.
Often organizations will re-emphasize their original vision in updated terms; a well-intentioned attempt to address their innovative character. Sticking with the vision is noble (on the surface). Yet this is often merely a means of resisting the kind of organizational change necessary to be truly innovative. Frankly, change is hard and costly. While there may be a desire to foster new ventures, organizations can be caught by (or the change resistors will cling TO) their constitution, policy & ‘vision’. They become content with ‘tweaking’ at the edges.
Tweaking is not innovation.
How can organizations retain an ability to be nimble, as they once were? Is that possible? Perhaps the ‘nimble organization’ is simply an oxymoron?
I work with a few creative thinkers who in my assessment are caught in organizational structures expressively desirous of innovation but boxed in by their own constitution. I am not saying that organizations can or should even be all things to all people in all circumstances. That would drain away their unique serve. But as an organization (and especially as its leaders) is it good to be content with the status quo?
So, is there a better way? I don’t know – yet. Perhaps though, one solution is for these organizations to deliberately employ and tolerate the ‘shit-disturbers’. Yes, I know, I should find a better moniker. But the imagery is unparalleled. Every organization needs someone to raise a stink and make things uncomfortable. So much so that it that gets everyone’s attention. Organizations best serve themselves by ensuring there is a voice of dissonance among the agreeable. In religious terms this is a ‘prophetic’ voice that calls out the truth of a situation and demands response. These people are not the whiners and complainers. There are enough of those around in every organization. Fire them. Rather, I am talking about the ones who say:
· Is this the best we can do?
· Is there not another way we can do this?
· Are these really our limitations?
· Who says we cannot do this? Is that enough reason to say ‘no’?
I don’t feel a need for you to agree with me. But I am motivated to spark a real debate about change. Status quo isn’t cutting it in many cases.
Here’s a question to ponder if you are an organizational leader or intrapeneur:
What could you be if you were not so content?
You're echoing the themes of one of my favorite books, The Innovator's Dilemma, by Clayton Christensen:
ReplyDelete“This book is about the failure of companies to stay atop their industries when they confront certain types of market and technological change.”
Sustaining technologies/innovations provide incremental improvement to an existing system or product. Disruptive innovations often under perform both from a cost and efficiency standpoint initially, but tap into different values and ultimately a different customer base (in fact they often don’t appeal to the existing customer base at all, which is why they are not pursued), are refined and then exceed the existing systems and products in their own key areas, stealing their customers and killing them off. Compelling examples are given from the disk drive industry and steel mill industry. Other examples of disruptive innovation are digital photography, online brokerages, unmanned war aircraft.
In the church world for example, seeker driven churches are a sustaining innovation, and house churches are a disruptive innovation- though given early church history, they might not be so much an innovation as a reinvention. but in our context they are a potential disruptive innovation.
In the vast majority of cases, existing successful companies do not and in fact cannot produce disruptive innovation. “With few exceptions, the only instances in which mainstream firms have successfully established a timely position in a disruptive technology were those in which the firm’s managers set up an autonomous organization charged with building a new and independent business around the disruptive technology.”
Another issue is that existing market leaders often overshoot what is required or even desired by the customer in terms of performance, leaving space for lower end companies to come in and offer “good enough” products and services more cheaply.
Back to the non-profit/church world, I am meeting an increasing number of people who have a hard time with the resources required to run some organizations/churches. Often this is tied to the costs of facility construction and maintenance.
I think the North American church, as we know it, could be vulnerable to a model (not necessarily house churches) that doesn't rely on a centralized owned facility, that through this and other significant differences serves a community of believers, and a larger community, in a more efficient and possibly even more effective way than the average church.
Daren - thanks for the comments. I find it interesting the parallels regarding change & innovation processes that exist between the church/non-profit world and business. Although many in the church are reticent to be compared with the business world, the common denominator is that each world is made up of human beings, who when in a group have the same herd tendencies. Once you are settled, it's a challenge to get unsettled enough to even act on a viscerally felt dream or vision, or respond to a significant market shift or opportunity. I have met many pastors over the years, who 15-20 years into their church ministry have said to me (and I quote) "Is this all there is? Is this what I signed up for?" In their voices and stories I hear a visceral yearning for something more; a deeper knowledge that what they are experiencing is not what could be. When I ask them what they would need to do to get to the place they envision, it often involves disruptive change. THAT'S where things break down. Fear of losing their job (because the risk of the change is too high) leads them to a place of justifying the status quo. Makes me so sad knowing there are many with a vision, so few with courage to act. So tied to the security of salary, they have lost faith in the One who called them to serve Him to provide all that is needed for them to truly lead.
ReplyDeleteI love your insight/phrase: "the North American church could be VULNERABLE to a model..." That's both a recognition of what both of us acknowledge is a result of organizational inertia and an acknowledgment that God is moving in the hearts of His people to continually refresh the expression of the Gospel and the community of Christ that is to be the embodiment of it.