Process of Innovation

by Charles Ehin

For two decades I have been investigating the fundamental interplay of how individual and group behaviors relate to the capacity of an organization or a social network to innovate.

By examining anthropology and paleontology, I discovered that our hunter-gatherer ancestors had managed quite well for much of the roughly 200,000-year existence of our species without the use of any rigid hierarchical social structures.

Next I delved into sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, and then molecular biology, social neuroscience and complex adaptive systems. In general, what has become clear is that biological entities, including humans, cannot and should not be overly controlled, because they are emergent and constantly evolving complex adaptive systems.

For innovation to thrive, people need to be immersed in flexible social environments. It therefore should come as no surprise that traditional management concepts seldom work any longer, especially when it comes to knowledge workers. This is due mainly to the continued use of cause-and-effect constructs. But people are not machines. They are organic self-organizing entities.

If we want to expand the innovative capacities of our organizations, we need to pay closer attention to human nature. Reinventing traditional methodologies will not help us advance any further. The new science of the brain and DNA is helping to rewrite not only the origins, but also the innate behavior of humans. That’s where management should also focus.

Knowledge workers, as opposed to “industrial age” employees, are an investment rather than an expense because they carry their own means of production — their smarts — with them. They need to be treated as partners, not as hired hands. As partners, knowledge workers are more likely to share their tacit knowledge with their colleagues. Therefore, for tacit knowledge to properly emerge, people must first be surrounded by a supportive environment.

We need to develop organizations that continually nurture the collaborative best from all members because tacit knowledge cannot be “managed out” of people. It must be allowed to emerge from mutually beneficial relationships. The more people are given a voice and implicit control in managing a venture, the more the informal networks that are present in every entity will begin to more openly support organizational goals.

Under the right conditions, the informal components will begin to overlap more and more with the formal elements of an organization. This point of overlap is where an organization’s formal and informal systems have reached “a meeting of the minds” regarding fundamental organizational goals and processes.

I have labeled this place of common agreement the “organizational sweet spot.” It is a natural outgrowth of day-to-day interactions or self-organization by those that represent both management and the informal networks of a given venture. The larger the overlapping area, the more engaged and productive people are.

When traditional approaches fail to bring success, more pragmatic approaches must be created. Multiple perspectives consistently lead to more insightful solutions than by simply putting new faces on old, failed concepts. Ultimately, it’s all about knowing how to support the expansion of organizational sweet spots.

Charles Ehin is a management and innovation expert. He is emeritus professor of management at Westminster College in Salt Lake City where he also served as the dean of the Gore School of Business. He is the author of The Organizational Sweet Spot: Engaging the Innovative Dynamics of Your Social Networks (Springer, 2009), among other titles. Contact him at kalev1@msn.com or visit www.UnManagement.com.