Many organizations leave the imagination to their planning units. Strategic planners are hardly the only people who think in futures tense, however.
Indeed, some might argue that they are wed to a highly inflexible, linear model of the future that leads inexorably to one future, and one future only.
This is why many RAND researchers believe in saturating organiza- tions with information. Most of its researchers long ago abandoned the notion that imagination is the special gift of senior leaders in favor of a much more pliable model that allows creativity to flow from all levels of the orga- nization at all stages of the innovation process. Innovation turns out to be much less predictable than strategic planners once believed, a conclusion noted by RAND researchers in studies of everything from environmental technology and information systems to mining, surgical procedures, the media arts, and weapons systems.
This is certainly what Leland Joe found in his study of high- performing combat units. As he suggests, “there is no cookbook for creat- ing a high performance unit.” However, there are shared characteristics of success. Not only must leadership be involved in obtaining and analyzing information, the unit “must be trained as a team and perform as a team.”
This means recognizing and sharing relevant information, cross-training team members so they understand the needs of the entire unit, and creat- ing an open environment in which units have great freedom in determin- ing what they need to know. Given the fog and friction of war, combat units must be able to adapt quickly.
This is also what R AND has learned from its recent study of the housing industry. Its study team suggests that the relatively low rate of inno- vation in the industry involves a variety of factors—“boom and bust cycles lead to low investment in employees and training to prepare them for inno- vation,” “the fragmented nature of the industry slows information sharing and innovation acceptance,” and the industry’s “highly competitive nature may deter industry participants from adopting innovations because they want to minimize risks.” In addition, home building takes place in the open and with multiple subcontractors, meaning that innovators may be unable to benefit from their innovations long enough to recoup their investments.
The question is how to spark innovation in what has become a risk- averse industry. Although the team does not discount the benefits of new patent protections and more federal funding on smart materials, its research suggests that the industry would benefit most from a deluge of information and incentives. Because innovation may or may not be affected by research funding, for example, the housing industry may need stronger incentives for innovation and greater access to information.
Take land developers as a first example. “The principal business of land developers is to buy undeveloped land, to prepare it for resale, and then to
New technology
New device
New system
New operational concept New doctrine
New reality Market pressures drive creativity at each step in the process
Some of the innovations occur out of order
sell it,” the team reports. Because money has value, speed is of the essence, which affects the innovation process in a number of ways. Developers not only need time to learn about an innovation, they also need time to con- vince government regulators, investors, and community stakeholders that the idea holds merit. Unless the knowledge base contains the needed infor- mation, the innovation will not take hold.
Take home buyers as a second example. Buyers look for many things in a home, the team writes, “but innovation is typically less important than are location, aesthetics, value, the chance for appreciation, and the quality of the neighborhood and surrounding schools.” Home buyers may like the energy efficiency, durability, and low maintenance cost that innovation might bring, but will not pay the premium unless they can see a proven value added. Again, unless the knowledge base contains that proof, the inno- vation will be hard to sell.
The point is that saturating the housing industry with information at all stages and all levels of the housing process might lead to very different options for enhancing innovation, while targeting traditional activities such as research and development key incentives.
Imagination does not occur in a vacuum, however. It involves an appropriate mix of incentives, market pressure or demand, and a bit of luck.
Although innovation almost always involves serendipity, revolutions involve a process that can be both observed and anticipated. Indeed, according to Richard Hundley’s study, most revolutions in military affairs such as the blitzkrieg require a cascade of innovation to succeed. (See my modification of Hundley’s briefing chart on a multiple-innovation model of revolutions in military affairs.)
Managing Revolutions
The study also suggests that revolutions in military affairs are often adopted and fully exploited by a nation other than the one that invented the new technology. The original inventors were either unable to convert new technology into an actual device (nuclear aircraft engines were too heavy to use), a new device into a viable system (electromagnetic guns were too hot to fire), a new system into operational practice (machine guns were use- less until trench warfare), a new practice into new doctrine (tanks were orig- inally viewed as another form of transportation, not the leading edge of an infantry attack), or a new doctrine into a new reality (the British and French were too arrogant to believe that tanks were fast enough to end run the Maginot line). The market belongs to the organizations that can put all the linkages together, imagining how one innovation leads to another, and so on down the chain.
Successful movement through the chain involves a series of triggers.
As Hundley recommends:
• You must have a fertile set of enabling technologies.
• You must have unmet military challenges.
• You must focus on a definite “thing,” meaning a device together with a concept for deployment.
• You must ultimately challenge someone’s core competency.
• You must have a receptive organizational climate that (1) fosters a continually refined vision of how war may change, and (2) encourages vigorous debate regarding the future of the organization.
• You must have support from the top, including senior officers with traditional credentials willing to sponsor new ways of doing things, as well as new pathways for junior officers who are willing to practice and experiment.
• You must have mechanisms for experimentation to discover, learn, test, and demonstrate.
• And you must have some way of responding positively to the results of successful experiments.
Established organizations face two great challenges in the list. First, they must be willing to reward inventors and rule breakers. As Hundley notes, history is replete with examples of inferior military powers that used a revolution in military affairs to overpower a superior adversary. Alas, his- tory provides few examples of the superior military power that upsets it own core competency—the only exception known to Hundley was the U.S.
Navy’s decision to embrace aircraft carriers, even though doing so rendered its battleships highly vulnerable and virtually useless.
Second, organizations must be ready to embrace revolutions started elsewhere, which requires a readiness to learn and adapt. “It takes a brave organization to make a part of itself obsolete,” Hundley writes. “Histori- cally, this has been rare in the military world.” It has been equally rare in the business and nonprofit worlds as well.