Synchronicity always causes me to pause and reflect.

For example: I was browsing Bryan and Joyce's (2007) book 'Mobilizing Minds' when I came across a section titled 'Unproductive Complexity'. I had just written an e-mail, in response to a question. In my response e-mail I had talked about how it seems to me people frequently take simple things and make them or view them as complex...that is, 'making mountains out of molehills'. We were discussing a 3rd party's communication with us and it seemed to me that party was really over-complicating the matter at hand.

Shortly after, I was reading the Mobilizing Minds section titled Unproductive Complexity, which began as follows: ‘For a while in the 1990s, we thought that digital technology would enable us to overcome our communication challenges.' Facts and figures were provided by the authors. And, they stated the following: 'In a 2005 survey conducted by the McKinsey Quarterly, of senior and top executives, 60 percent said their company's size and complexity have made it somewhat difficult, or much more difficult, to capture opportunities than it was just 5 years ago.'

This struck me with synchronicity.

As I read on...'The problem is that today companies rely on a model designed for the 20th century, one that depends on vertical, top-down hierarchical authority. The problem is that in the 21st century, the key to creating value is not just in providing top-down direction, but also in enabling and motivating self-directed, thinking-intensive professionals and managers to work with one another horizontally across the firm.'

The book referred to big companies, success-limiting silo organizational structures, band-aid matrix overlays, and troubles due to hierarchy.

***

It seems to me the problem of complexity should be approached in an as-simple-as-possible way.

Considering…'The problem is that in the 21st century, the key to creating value is not just in providing top-down direction, but also in enabling and motivating self-directed, thinking-intensive professionals and managers to work with one another horizontally across the firm.'…

At first reading, the advice of that quoted sentence seems to be on the right track.

I don't think it is new or provocative advice. It is different wording but the various messages in that advice have been stated by others and they were as pertinent 25 years ago as they are now, in the 21st century.

We do need to set adding value as the key goal of business. We do need top-down direction for order and control as we achieve that goal. And, we do want to have as many self-directed, thinking-intensive professionals and managers as we can. And, of course, we want them working together in harmony to achieve corporate goals. All of that makes sense.

Put in other words...

Our organizations need effective hierarchy and we need to employ talented, self-starters who work together effectively, add value, and achieve desired goals.

How do we do that?

***

A Question to Consider:

Can we handle the complex better by concentrating on the simple?

***

Considering the excerpt, '... enabling and motivating self-directed, thinking-intensive professionals and managers to work with one another horizontally across the firm'…

While we probably agree that piece of theory is directionally correct, how do we put it into practice?

We could assume people ‘get it’ and so they will naturally be able to take action to make ‘it’ happen. That could be a very dangerous assumption. It could be very dangerous for big, well-established organizations. It could be even more dangerous for smaller, more-entrepreneurial organizations.

That set of words contains considerable complexity, for example:

• enabling and motivating
• self-directed, thinking-intensive professionals and managers
• work with one another horizontally across the firm

These things strike me as complex because they raise many questions, for example:

• Can one person motivate another person?
• If a person is self-directed, thinking-intensive, and professional then does that person need external motivation?
• How do people successfully 'work with one another horizontally across the firm'?

***

Some thoughts on how we could help people work more effectively with one another...

• have a simple, clear, and concise Corporate Vision
• have a simple, clear, and concise Corporate Mission
• have Corporate Values and define them in simple, clear, and concise words
• display those Corporate Vision, Mission, and Values at high-traffic areas of the office
• regularly, both internally and externally, have conversations about those Corporate Vision, Mission, and Values
• state Corporate Goals in simple, clear, concise, and SMART words, repeat them frequently at Business Unit, Department, one-on-one, and other meetings
• state Business-Unit Goals in simple, clear, concise, and SMART words, repeat them frequently and explain how those Business-Unit Goals align with the Corporate Goals
• state Department Goals in simple, clear, concise, and SMART words, repeat them frequently and explain how those Department Goals align with the Business-Unit Goals and with the Corporate Goals
• provide Role Descriptions in simple, clear, and concise words
• state Individual-Employee Goals in simple, clear, concise, and SMART words and explain how the Individual-Employee Goals align with the Department Goals, with the Business-Unit Goals, and with the Corporate Goals
• at the Corporate, Business-Unit, Department, and Individual-Employee “levels”, review performance regularly, under defined process, using simple, clear, and concise words.
• help Individual Employees understand how their roles and their performance impact on others, directly and indirectly, throughout and outside the company.

In addition to these basic things,

Create ways to help people understand how they and others fit in.

Perhaps, start by looking at your business as a jigsaw puzzle. That jigsaw puzzle can be created by using 10 pieces, 100 pieces, 1,000 pieces or 10,000 pieces or more. 10 pieces could represent the number of pieces you could use to describe your Corporate picture. It’s a big picture, so you could choose to use many more than 10 puzzle pieces, but don’t. Choose to use 10 big puzzle pieces. While some will argue “That kind of puzzle would be worse than childish: a big colourful 10-piece puzzle would be something one would give to an infant.”

That is true.

It is also true that communication and branding experts spend careers seeking the essence, the concise, the clear, and the simple message in an effort to truly connect with other people. While, communication and branding experts are doing that sales experts are teaching about 30-Second Elevator Commercials.

It seems to me these people are seeking simple. 

If 10 puzzle pieces is the right number for Corporate-level picture/puzzles then perhaps 100 pieces would be required to complete a Corporate puzzle that contains Business-Unit details. If the company doesn’t have Business Units then perhaps 100 pieces would be required to create the picture containing some Department details. That is: if we need 10 puzzle pieces to adequately show the Corporate picture then we will need at least that many pieces to describe each Business Unit and each Department. So, when we add the Business Units together or when we add the Departments together or when we add both of those we will have something like 100 puzzle pieces…that’s the order of magnitude. Or, as an alternative, maybe having more detail is important…maybe we need 1,000 pieces. Regardless, as we construct the more-detailed picture/puzzle we have two choices.

1. we can keep the size of the puzzle pieces the same and so the whole picture/puzzle gets a lot bigger or
2. we can shrink the size of the pieces so the whole picture/puzzle remains more-or-less the same size

The picture/puzzle metaphor takes on another leap in order of magnitude when we move from Business-Unit-level detail to Individual-Employee detail. Instead of thinking in terms of a 10 piece or a 100 piece or even a 1,000 piece picture/puzzle, we need to think in terms of a 10,000 piece or a 100,000 piece picture puzzle. And, as the details and complexity expand, we have two choices:

Choice #1: we can look at the entire picture while losing the ability to look at the tiny individual pieces or

Choice #2: we can look at some of the tiny individual pieces while losing the ability to see the entire picture.

If we step back and think about it, we are likely OK with that 2-choice limitation…as long as we can alter our choice whenever we wish.

We know Choice #1 is the most-desired answer in certain situations while Choice #2 is the most-desired answer in other situations.

The problem is – in practice, we get mixed up. We regularly make the wrong choice.

***

Missing the forest for the trees.

From the Individual Employee’s perspective...

That old metaphor has some meaning in this picture/puzzle metaphor. If we choose to freeze the size of the puzzle pieces so we can see the details then our business picture/puzzle is huge. The picture is so huge we cannot see most of it let alone all of it…so we miss the forest for the trees. Conversely, if we freeze the size of the picture/puzzle so we can keep the big picture in focus then the pieces become so tiny we have no ability to see and understand them. What’s worse, as Individual Employees we lose the ability to understand how our personal pieces fit in our company’s picture/puzzle. When this happens there are many negative implications such as: our orientation is at risk; our connection is at risk; our focus is at risk; our ability to know corporate culture is at risk; our ability to work in harmony is at risk; our ability to add value is at risk, etc.

To excel as Individual Employees we need to understand our pieces of the puzzle and we need to see the big picture. We need to do both. But, we need to construct our picture/puzzles with care.

We need to plan the picture/puzzles.

To excel as Individual Employees we need to understand certain other Individual Employee`s puzzle pieces and how those pieces fit together with our own and how they fit in the big picture. At the detail level, likely of most importance, we need to understand how our pieces mesh with our boss` pieces.

To excel as Individual Employees we need to accept we will never be able to see or understand all the pieces in the puzzle. Even if that were possible, it would be inefficient and ineffective. So, we must trust those numerous other pieces are either in their proper places or moving toward that direction.

***

Getting back to that quote from Mobilizing Minds…

'The problem is that in the 21st century, the key to creating value is not just in providing top-down direction, but also in enabling and motivating self-directed, thinking-intensive professionals and managers to work with one another horizontally across the firm.'

How do the people and the various pieces they bring to our business picture/puzzle do top-down direction, enable others, and work with one another horizontally across the firm? [Note: I have intentionally left out the motivating pieces - that’s a whole other puzzle.]

It seems to me the answer is we must encourage our people to 'seek simple' and not to 'express complex'.

Every Individual Employee should understand and be able to describe his/her business’ Corporate picture in simple terms…the Vision Statement, the Mission Statement, the Corporate Values, the Corporate Goals, etc.

Every Individual Employee should understand and be able to describe his/her Business-Unit picture [if applicable] and Department picture…in simple terms…starting with Department Goals.

Every Individual Employee should understand and be able to describe all the other Business-Units [if applicable] and Departments in the Corporate picture. And, every Individual Employee should understand and be able to describe how his/her Department fits in the Corporate picture and how his/her Department is related to other Departments. The same applies to Individual-Employee roles vis-à-vis the roles of certain other Individual Employees. We must always keep the big picture in focus…zooming out regularly to make sure we don’t lose it. And, at the same time, for certain selected areas of the picture/puzzle we must be able to zoom in so we can see the details of our individual connections.

Obviously, a person’s ability to understand and express his/her knowledge of the big-picture and his/her unique ‘individual picture’ will depend on many factors. For example, on average new employees will be less capable of understanding and expressing these pictures than more-experienced employees.

Regardless, the Corporate Culture should encourage proficiency.

To promote picture clarity between Departments and between Individual Employees, we need to discuss the work, the impact of the work, and the flow of the work…from work donors, to work doers, to value recipients.

So, we need to catalogue and understand work-process and work-flow systems.

Work needs to be systematized, to the extent that is possible and reasonable. When we discuss work-process and work-flow systems we need to do it in concise, clear, and simple ways. Discussions need to be frequent, and they need to be repeated. To show the logic trail for work-flow know-how we need to start with Corporate Goals. Then we need to zoom in on Department Goals and inter-Department Goals. We need to zoom in even farther to show how Individual Employee Roles are connected…work-flow impact, work-flow cause and effect.

As we plan and construct the pictures of our business we need to be seeking simple.

Then, when we do the zooming in to our detail pictures and the zooming out to the corporate big picture – as we do our daily jobs well – we will be finding the value that seeking simple ensures.

In one of my dictionaries, a Gage Canadian Dictionary, the word 'innovation' is defined as:

1. A change made in the established way of doing things
2. The making of changes; act of bringing in new things or new ways of doing things: He is strongly opposed to innovation of any kind.

At the front cover of his book 'Innovation', Tom Gorman uses the following Peter Drucker quote:

"Innovation is the specific instrument...that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth."

At Chapter 1, Gorman uses the title, 'Innovation = Problem Solving'. And, in a caption that appears to be a dictionary excerpt, Gorman provides the following definition:

in • no • va • tion

1. A new product, service, process, or approach to a problem
2. A new way of thinking about something
3. The act of innovating, as in "Innovation occurs in every culture"

I know from recent experience, the discussion of innovation can very quickly get deeply philosophical. Here are some questions, which capture some of the differences in the ways people think about innovation:

• Must innovation, by definition, be a physical/tangible thing? 
• Must innovation, by definition, be linked to change?
• Should innovation, by definition, be linked to problem solving?
• What's the difference between creativity and innovation?

Perhaps, creativity describes new things that can be enjoyed for their own sake rather than for any change they may bring about? If that is the case then change may be an important facet of the definition of innovation but of little or no importance when considering a definition of creativity?

In other words - perhaps we should acknowledge utility is less tangible for creativity and more tangible for innovation?

Perhaps, for creativity utility can be so nebulous it should not even be a facet of definition?

Are creativity and innovation mutually exclusive? Or, is one a subset of the other? If so then which one is the broader thing...which is closer to concept?

***

Business and Innovation:

Overall, I'm wondering if one of the largest rifts between our thoughts about innovation is around technology. Must a business innovation contain some aspect of technology or can a business innovation exist independent of technology?

For business purposes, would it make sense to define innovation as 'a thing or action that solves a business problem'?

Maybe we should state innovation - a thing or action - must have the effect of creating a change...or, should we be more specific and state innovation must create a change of commercial value?

The 'change' part of that sort of definition is consistent with my Gage Canadian Dictionary. And change is simple and it is a broad enough thing (say, a concept) so it should not generate any confusion or controversy. However, the 'adding commercial value' part isn't so simple...it is a qualification but it is a subjective one. My Gage Canadian Dictionary does not express the nature of change it expresses in its definition of innovation. While we may want to assume Gage Canadian Dictionary intends the change to be positive rather than negative or of value rather than valueless, that isn't stated in my Gage Canadian Dictionary. In fact, the sample italicized in my dictionary definition - "He is strongly opposed to innovation of any kind" - provides a clear message that some people are opposed to innovation...presumably, that's the case because those people do not see innovation as either positive or value-adding. Or, perhaps the opposition is simply a resistance to change.

For business, could we start by considering the following type of definition:

          Business Innovation (def'n):

          A thing done or provided to add value by solving a customer's problem or satisfying a customer's need.

Embedded in this definition are:

1. A business innovation must be tangible...a thought or an idea isn't enough to be considered a business innovation. Only when that thought or idea is converted into physical reality - a product, a service of action, etc - can it be considered an innovation. 
2. An innovation in business begins with a customer need or problem...all business innovations should be traced to a specific, identified customer need or problem. 
3. An innovation in business will cause and be a change. That change will be measured in terms of value added from the customer's perspective...as a specific, identified customer need is satisfied or as a specific, identified customer problem is solved. 
4. So, to qualify as a business innovation the thing must be customer-centric. 
5. A business innovation need not be tied to technology. Technological innovations in business would be a subset of business innovations. 
6. Potential questions about 'direct' and 'indirect' value, as seen from the customer's perspective, questions about the ability to discover with precision customer's needs, and questions about the ability to measure the value added from the customer's perspective, etc. (Such is the essence and challenge of Marketing).

***

If we can agree on a definition of Innovation then we will have a solid footing upon which we can build as we answer other important questions, such as:

• how do we want to define the relationship between innovation and entrepreneurship?
• how do we want to nurture and promote business-innovation processes in our workplaces?
• how do we place ourselves in our customers' shoes and with precision understand their needs and problems then deliver measurable value through innovation?