Half full – optimism or complacency?

Change is relentless and the impact of change has no pity for those who are its victims. It has always been so and history is full of the miseries of those caught up in periods of significant social, political or economic transformation. We appear to suffer collectively from an innate urge to improve our lot on the one hand and a paradoxical attachment to the status quo on the other. One of the illogical consequences of this inner tension is a strange and often unsupportable belief that ‘things’ were better in the past.

Given the many strands of change that appear to be weaving themselves into our destiny, is this generation heading unerringly for victimhood? These strands of change include globalisation, urbanisation, technological development, de-industrialisation of the developed world, industrialisation of the developing world, climate change, greater competition for natural resources, shifts of political and economic power. Will they provide the means for emerging power hubs to dominate and control the world population at large? Possibly but not necessarily so. While recognising that there are too many places in the world where the cost of change is still paid in blood and destruction, there are enough signs of creative stamina and resilience to persist in hope. We must grab hold of those aspects of the strands of change that liberate, inspire and enable individuals to participate fully in the societies and economies within which they live, pulling them into place as a global web of mutual interdependence. OK, so that is just some high-flown rhetoric but it is also possible to do …… only not in a blog.

This is not to say that writing does not help. The work of science fiction writers and futurologists has been invaluable in stimulating our thinking by framing possible futures; individuals such as Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Terry Pratchett, Raymond Kurzweil and Peter Schwartz come to mind as leaders in this regard and no doubt there are many others whose names should be added to this list. I expect that I will come back to this mishmash of a subject area and try to make more sense of it for myself.

The glass is half full; I am an optimist and enjoy the bounty with which I have been blessed but I am also aware that a glass supped from will in time be empty and that it is already time to give some thought to replenishment.

Command, control and complexity

IBM’s 2010 CEO study has just been released. I discovered this on reading Irving Wladawsky-Berger’s blog (here), a reliable source of information, interest and insight. Irving Wladawsky-Berger provides a concise summary of the report which can be downloaded in a number of languages from this IBM site (here). The central message of the study is that CEO’s regard complexity as the primary issue facing them at the moment and identify three key behaviours that will enable them to ‘standout’ in a complex world: embodying creative leadership, reinventing customer relationships and building operational dexterity. The choice of words provides an easy target for those of us outside the corporate hothouse environment; however, to cavil at them would be a mistake. While the words may appear tired and uninspiring, the study provides interesting data on the thinking of many in leadership positions around the world. The study is more a survey of current attitudes and thinking than a synthesis of solutions but it is none the less useful for that. It shouldn’t take long to scan through it …, so do have a look.

What is surprising is that the proponents of complexity science have not been more vocal. Many have been labouring in this field for the past 20 years or more, so why are they not expounding on the relevance of their scholarship? A quick visit to the web sites of a few centres of complexity research reveal lots of interesting activity as you will see if you visit the sites representing groups at Oxford University (here), the Santa Fe Institute (here) and the London School of Economics (here). Perhaps it is not surprising that the focus of this work is quite academic; a follow up scan of what some consultants are doing in the ‘complexity space’ reveals a blend of the well packaged and the abstract. The well packaged stuff is very specific but is easily dismissed by those (almost inevitably the great majority) to whom it is not relevant; the more abstract treatment is generic but appears often to be so diffuse as to be hard for anyone to apply.

There appears to be a gap for which I hope a number of practitioners are heading. If so, there will soon be a wealth of interesting and stimulating material to challenge the thinking of leaders in industry, commerce and all the other areas of public and private enterprise.

Let us hope that they look into one concept from earlier days of the complexity community which goes by the description of ‘simple rules’ and is very attractive to anyone who takes comfort in an established relationship between cause and effect. Then if trying to establish a reliable relationship between cause and effect at the macro scale is doomed to failure, perhaps such a relationship can be established at the micro scale. All that then remains is to agglomerate all the predictable micro effects into a macro effect (or more likely, one of a number of possible macro effects) and the basis for making a decision re-emerges. Well, perhaps not every time but starting with simple rules that can be tested is arguably a better way of managing risk for most of us than ‘taking a punt’ on complexity at the macro level.

Bring back hanging out

This is written on the back of the longest recreational break I have had since I left school in the 1960’s. It all began with a week on a canal boat, which was followed by a friend’s 60^th birthday party, then two weddings on the Pacific coast of North America a fortnight apart and, after a further week, a cousin’s 40^th wedding anniversary. There was even a sort of symmetry about it all – two celebrations for oldies flanking two celebrations for the up and coming generation with a subconscious subtext that relates to passing on a baton of some sort. We, of the post war, baby boomer generation may not have resolved the political, economic and social issues of our times but we have been able to watch our children emerge into a social network of family and friends. In a sense they seem to be better at it than we were, certainly more active as this particular community of cousins has established a lively ‘in your Facebook’ relationship.

Why is this important? Here follows a digression rather than a direct answer. Though each of these celebrations involved an event on a particular day, they were each the focus of concerted involvement of family and friends for days before and after the event. Circumstances, principally being on holiday, allowed us to be involved in these pre- and after-shock happenings which ranged from a visit to the manicurist (for some reason blokes didn’t get to do this) through meals, cycle rides, walks to simply hanging out together.

Now hanging out is a term that I associate with teenagers with nothing better to do, so the experience of ‘whole family hanging out’, as conceptualised by American friends was a novelty to me. It needed to be approached with all sorts of British caution and reserve -‘we don’t want to intrude’, ‘they will need family time’ and so on. We were a little slow to allow our friends to know their own minds and to accept their invitation as an invitation.

Why was the experience something of a revelation to me? Perhaps because in recent years I have been far more willing and able to allocate time to a purpose than purpose to a time. By that I mean that the purposes I espoused were largely limited and specific, with some measurable outcome in prospect. This is not to say that I am not aware of the larger purposes in life and that I do not pay lip service to them; however, my behaviour strongly suggests that I prioritise the specific: reading a book, cutting the grass, even writing a blog. This is strange when the outcome I count as most rewarding is that each of our children not only has an established network of friends but that they are firmly established in their community of cousins.

Returning to the question, why is this important? a couple of words that reflect past experience in the pharmaceutical industry come to mind: verification and validation. Verification confirms my identity, that I am who I am and verification has the greatest authority when it is provided by the family from which I come. As a parent it is reassuring to know that your children’s identity will be verified for them long after I am gone by as wide a community as is possible. Verification is important to us all but is often overlooked. Validation on the other hand is more immediately recognised as a need; it affirms our value and can come from any community of friends or family.

Communities are created by building relationships; relationships are built over time and it seems to me that hanging out is all about allocating the purpose of building relationships to a time, whether it be an hour or an afternoon or a week. If this is something we did in our teens, my message to myself is, “Bring back hanging out”.

Nice, forgiving, tough and clear – all at the same time

Imagine a situation  where two people are arrested on suspicion of a crime. They are interrogated separately so there is no communication between the prisoners who have two choices; to defect (that is,  inform on the other suspect) or to cooperate (with the other suspect, not the police) by saying nothing. I have seen various descriptions of the various outcomes; if they both remain silent, they both go free or suffer a minimal penalty, if they both defect, they both suffer a major punishment while if one defects and the other cooperates, the cooperator suffers the major punishment but the defector goes free and may even reap some reward. This scenario is called the Prisoner’s Dilemma and is, I think, well known in the ‘Game Theory’ world; I believe that it also received much interest in the ’60s and ’70s in the context of the Cold War arms race.  If the situation only arises once, the rational decision is to defect but if the situation arises repeatedly a different optimum emerges.

In the 1970s an academic at Michigan called Robert Axelrod set up a tournament  in which the entrants were required to submit  computer program to play the part of one of the prisoners. The programs were paired of against each other, in the way of a cup competition; each round consisted of 200 cycles of the scenario. The program that won was submitted by an academic from the University of Toronto called Anatoly Rapoport who adopted a very simple strategy called ‘TIT FOR TAT’. TIT FOR TAT cooperated in round one and  then chose to do exactly what the other prisoner had done in the previous round for every round thereafter. This outcome surprised Axelrod and he ran a second tournament sometime later where the challenge was to beat ‘TIT FOR TAT’; not one of 62 entrants succeeded.

‘TIT FOR TAT’ can be characterised as:

• ‘Nice’ in that it never defects first
• ‘Forgiving’ in that it rewards cooperative behaviour
• ‘Tough’ in that it punishes uncooperative behaviour
• ‘Clear’ in that opposing programs (the other prisoner) can work out the pattern pretty easily.

So what is the relevance to business? Perhaps it is in the pertinent questions that are raised about effective behaviours in competitive situations? Who are the prisoners and who the authority structure that can ‘reward’ or ‘punish’? Is business a prisoner in the competitive marketplace and when does cooperation become anti-competitive? Or are business colleagues all prisoners within the business world? What role does performance management have in encouraging or discouraging behaviours? Does it foster nice, forgiving, tough and clear behaviours if these are seen as desirable?

Since Axelrod’s competitions, I believe that there has been considerable development in modelling of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Eric Beinhocker describes an evolution of ‘TIT FOR TAT’ embodied in a strategy called Fair. This addresses the situation where both prisoners adopt ‘TIT FOR TAT’ and there is the potential for ‘lock in’ to either mutual cooperation or mutual defecting. Axelrod began to look at strategies for situations where the game history suggested that the other prisoner could be bluffed. Lots of interesting stuff and good reading material for those who are so inclined. The Prisoner’s Dilemma is quite well covered in the literature and there is a good general description in a book called ‘The Origin of Wealth’ by Eric Beinhocker, already mentioned ( see pages 221 to 233) and in ‘Complexity’ by Mitchell Waldrop (pages 262 to 265).

The Prisoner’s Dilemma is an example of a ‘non zero sum’ phenomenon; the net loss of freedom if both cooperate is minimal while the net loss of freedom if one or other defects or if both defect is an order of magnitude greater.

Cooperation then gives the best overall outcome for two prisoners but it is unlikely that the majority of cooperations within business will operate on a one to one basis. Inevitably our cooperations are many to many and these can probably be represented usefully as a series of networks with multiple nodes. It is important for the business then to understand how networks operate in order to ensure that our knowledge and competency networks are cooperative, robust and resilient. There is quite a body of academic research in this area which is relevant at many levels within business and the research is important in order to extract  simple rules from complex phenomena (for instance, be nice, be forgiving, be tough, be clear).

Leading people, managing relationships

Recently I came across a list of behaviours which the writer claimed would help me to be effective and productive. At first glance it was quite a surprising collection of characteristics. In the first instance, the writer assumed that the readers would have a belief in what they were doing, that they were aligned with the way in which their organisation was going. His next recommendation was that people should behave with integrity; the ends do not justify the means and, as has been demonstrated in many spheres of life recently, a wrong act can unravel a right outcome. But integrity does not justify innocence or naivete and so people should strive for understanding; in some ways this can seem to be quite a burdensome responsibility and it does not seem to allow for the ‘I was only taking orders’ line of excuse. The understanding should be built with honesty and the integrity should be informed by the understanding. What understanding provides is knowledge and with knowledge comes power which the next behaviour, self control is presumably meant to temper.

I think here the distinction is between using our knowledge to outperform our fellows, which is acceptable and using it to humiliate them, which is not. The writer then seems to underline his point by requiring patience. Are they not the same thing? Perhaps not; perhaps self control acts as a filter on our actions and patience acts to attenuate our thoughts and our emotions; so it is not only how we act that is important but how we think and feel. What patience does is anchor the self control and put it into the context of relationships and what is emerging is a picture of the model which the writer has of how we should behave in a community. We tend to think of patience and self control as being very passive behaviours but in this context they are actually very active behaviours because what the writer is advocating is the building of relationships. We are building the capacity to act when the time is right and to act decisively and with impact. What is clear by now is that the writer is expecting his audience to accept the responsibility he is offering and to act pretty autonomously.

The next behaviour he asks for is true commitment; whoops, where is the ‘get out’ clause? ‘Too late’ is his answer; if we are looking for authority and we want to exercise it responsibly, there is a cost and our full commitment is it. If we cannot give it, we should go back to the beginning and question the vision. Our commitment should be emotional, psychological and intellectual; it is an outworking of the integrity that we agreed to earlier. This commitment is to the cause but that is not enough, we need to be committed to our fellows whoever they may be and to behave well towards them. To those with whom we agree to be co-workers we owe a deeper level of commitment; interestingly, this was touched on today by Steve Farber, a leadership coach, in a conversation starter for Harvard Business Publishing where he was strongly advocating a commitment to mentoring. Read it if you dare to see the word ‘love’ in the context of a working relationship.

So where does this get us? A long way from the ‘work harder and work faster’ view of productivity; a long way even from the ‘work smarter’ view. It gets us to a point where relationships are seen as having an important bearing on our effectiveness and productivity. If that is the case, perhaps HR responsibilities should be transferred back to line.

Productivity and effectiveness

Productivity is elusive. Of course there are those who will argue that it can be measured, which is an undeniable fact in certain well defined circumstances. But if we assume that productivity is a measure of value created for a given amount of effort expended, the extent of the problem becomes apparent. One question is now two questions: how do you measure value and how do you measure effort? The situation can be simplified by equating value with money and effort with time, which simplification has served adequately in the industrial age, a period characterised by extensive mechanisation.

How does it fare in the post industrial era? In an era where value is created by logistics and networks such a simple measure begins to feel seriously inadequate. It seems there is a question of timing to be included in the measures of both value and effort and perhaps a more subjective assessment of quality should also be considered as more and more value is delivered in the form of a service. Already it is clear that any approach based on measuring overall performance is going to become complex and unwieldy so there may be benefit in considering an alternative measure, based on education and behaviours. Identify those behaviours in your colleagues that are likely to deliver good value to your customers and to you; educate your colleagues in those behaviours and then reward them for exhibiting the desired behaviours. You are likely to be rewarding behaviours such as honesty, understanding and commitment which does not seem a bad thing in itself and will do no harm to customer relations and loyalty.

If productivity spotlights the behaviours of individual colleagues, consideration of effectiveness returns attention to the bottom line.  The impact here will depend upon how well you have identified those behaviours that deliver value to your customers. The speed with which the right behaviours feed through to the bottom line will depend, among other considerations, upon the natural cycle of your business which might be measured in weeks or months or years. The longer the natural cycle of your business, the more forward looking you will need to be or the more adept at finding ways to accelerate the impact on your business.

As a caveat, it is important to add that there are occasions when it is expedient also to educate your customers with regard to your value proposition and I say this as a card carrying founder member of the Ryanair Frequent Flyers (though I should add that my membership expired in December 1989 and I am not sure how far the Frequent Flyers survived into the next decade).

The 3Rs of change

Even change changes. Why even Barack Obama’s official transition site has transitioned from change.gov to www.whitehouse.gov as a consequence of his winning the election. Groups from Luddites to NIMBYs have shown us how to resist change but it seems far more difficult to influence change in a positive direction; it is usually a voyage into the unknown. Here follow some ideas of patterns of behaviour for successfully negotiating change, called for the sake of argument the 3Rs of change. From the outset I will say I don’t think that any of these is an exact science, at least not in the dynamic world of rapid change.

There is no surprise with the first R which is for Reading. While this may involve words on paper or screen, it is certainly about reading the situation. What is the start point, can you visualise the desired end point, what are the obstacles, what will help or hinder you, who else is going to be in the change with you, how well equipped are you and how ready are you as an individual? Imagine yourself in a canoe and about to navigate difficult and unknown rapids; if you are wise you will get out of your boat and study the rapid before starting down it; identify the way the water is flowing, where the dangers and possible escape routes are and if in a group arrange to provide mutual support for each other en route. Reading change is an acquired skill, requiring knowledge and experience; I would argue that this skill is not given to everyone.

The second R is for Riding. Once you are committed, you are …. well, committed. You might as well enjoy the ride, if you can. There will be a flow and to continue with the whitewater analogy at any instant you will be busy dealing with the consequences of how you negotiated the features upstream, navigating the boat through the feature you are in and positioning yourself as well as possible to enter the downstream stretch. You are in what Boyd, an American fighter pilot ace called the OODA loop, that is Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. These are skills that you need to develop to Ride change successfully.

The third and final R is for Reckoning. Hopefully in your reading of the rapid you will have noticed an eddy or two where you can escape from the main flow in order to gather your breath and reassess the situation. Are you still on course to complete the rapid, is the group together, does anyone need help, have you learned anything that changes the route for the remainder of the rapid or what you will do when you get through it? You have gone through this change for a purpose; did you achieve it? One technique you can use for the Reckoning is the After Action Review; there is nothing magic in it at all but having a technique helps you to be rigorous.

So there you are. It looks simple but it isn’t. There is nothing new; it has all been said many times before in many different ways. But if this encourages anyone, it has been worth writing. Just because you have failed once does not mean you are not capable; you are only not capable if you are not capable of learning.

Notes:

1. If you have time and particularly if you have an interest in the Theory of Constraints, have a look at the OODA link; it takes you to a treasure trove of interesting material.
2. This link takes you to the USAID guide for planning, preparing and conducting After Action Reviews; follow the prinicple and adapt (simplify) the practice to meet your own needs.

Old insight, fresh perspective?

When Ralph Stacey looks at the complexity matrix (seen here being used by the medical profession) he drew up some years ago he could be forgiven for feeling a glow of satisfaction. For him it is perhaps ‘old hat’ but for many of the rest of us his matrix provides a helpful fresh perspective on the confusing economic, financial and political climate in which we find ourselves. His matrix suggests that in situations where we are far from agreement and far from certainty having recourse to rational decision making (and this I would qualify to mean linear rational thinking), political decision making or judgement based decision making will not necessarily be very effective. Brenda Zimmerman of York University, Toronto on whose analysis the above reference is based acknowledges that traditional management teaching has concentrated on decision making where (linear) reasoning, politics and judgement can be effective, which focus has left a gap in management teaching. This raises a couple of questions: how useful could the Stacey matrix be in the prevailing circumstances – which can well be described as far from certain and far from agreement? How aware are the current business leaders of this material, given that many of them will have completed their formal education before it was published?

In Stacey’s matrix this region (far from certainty and far from agreement) is divided into two zones, the zone of complexity and the zone of chaos. With reference to the zone of chaos, Zimmerman says, with no little understatement, this is a region ‘… that organizations should avoid as much as possible.’ So, looking on the bright side, let’s assume that we are in the zone of complexity. If traditional management tools are not necessarily effective in this region, what tools are there that we can use?

Some strategic thinkers are looking to see what complexity science can offer in the military sphere and this book by James Moffat serves well as a starting point: Complexity Science and Network Centric Warfare. In amongst the non linear maths there is a wealth of analytical thinking that lays down a foundation for the application of complexity science on which to build models of operations in what is described as the information age.

I don’t want to say more about complexity science here apart from commenting that its use in this context is to help break the mould of traditional command and control structures and to create the philosophical and intellectual framework for de-centralised command and control. Hold the idea of using complexity science in this way while we explore another line of thought.

A recent copy of the Economist includes a special report on the middle class, particularly in emerging markets (Burgeoning Burgeoisie, Economist, 14th February 2009 – to see the link may require a subscription). There is an interesting discussion on who or what are the middle classes but two particular correlations stand out; one between the middle class and economic growth and the other between the middle class and democracy. As the report recognises the former case is easier to make and even it is unlikely to continue without interruption through a recession. Daaron Acemoglu of the Massachussetts Institute of Technology is quoted as attributing the importance of the middle class to growth in the emerging markets to the fact that “… they are more committed than the elite to a mixed, competitive economy.” This is related in the Economist report to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; I suspect that account also needs to be taken of an economy of exclusivity alongside the economy of wealth.  The former is a zero sum economy while the latter is not; as an emerging middle class starts out with little to lose in either economy it does not have to balance a loss of exclusivity against any gains in wealth. This brings us back to complexity science because it provides one of the perspectives for understanding the dynamics of non zero sum economics as is very ably expounded by Eric Beinhocker in his book, The Origin of Wealth.

What puzzles me in the current climate is that with all the scholarship that has gone into complexity science over the past 20 years I am not hearing more reference to its use in responding to the current uncertainties. Perhaps I am listening at the wrong windows; I hope so because I find much to attract me in the philosophical underpinnings of complexity science and much that I would like to investigate as a means of addresssing the difficulties that present themselves to me.

James Moffat acknowledges the role of the Santa Fe Institute in the early development of this field of multidisciplinary research and the institute provides a treasure trove of relevant expertise and reference material. Ralph Stacey is professor at University of Hertfordshire and was recently interviewed here.

Technology landscapes

Are there times when the ground rules of our businesses seem to be changing around us yet we do not seem able to anticipate the nature of the change? Anything that can help us to understand the situation is useful and here is one model for you to consider.

Most of us are born with a set of capabilities and we spend much of our lives using those capabilities to interact with our fellows, sometimes collaboratively and sometimes competitively. Almost always we are seeking to use our capabilities to the best effect and mankind has a long tradition of discovering and developing tools to give us some sort of edge. Useful tools are widely and rapidly copied so we develop the capacity to produce the tools in greater numbers.Typically we will set up some sort of system for production, supply and distribution; historically these have often been fairly informal but as the pressure of demand has increased they have become more and more formal. Experience has shown that once capacity has been established and the consumer community becomes used to products or services they begin to demand the ability to customise them – the ability to meet this demand has led to the development of customisation . But there are instances where the consumer wants to exercise greater control of his or her own destiny and this has been shown to be possible where the necessary networks can be put in place to provide direct support to the consumer. There seems to be a progression; we use tools to add capability, then we apply a system to achieve capacity, then we develop logistical skills to meet the demand for choice and finally we use networks to gain control of the resource we have developed.

Basic landscape concept

Take for a simple example our ability to walk; how do we overcome the limitations of speed and range that our physical bodies impose? In the first instance, we began to exploit an animal which was physically capable of carrying us further and faster than we could walk or even run. Even so there are limitations as riding requires skill and is physically demanding. In due course a number of us opted for travel by carriage – but here economics steps in because by this time such an option was only open to the wealthy. The introduction of cabs in cities extended access and a gradual increase in demand led to the establishment of stage coaches that operated between urban centres.

Jump now to another, more recent development track. In the late 19th century the motor car came onto the scene. This promised great mobility to anyone who could afford one, subject to the availability of fuel and the reliability of the machine. It rapidly followed the evolutionary progress of the horse enabled movement, with motorised cabs and omnibuses quickly replacing their horse-drawn predecessors. What the motor car (or more properly the internal combustion engine) offered over the horse was the potential for series production and this over the course of the 20th century has reduced the cost of ownership so that car are available to almost any person in a developed economy who wants to own one.

Mobility/transport landscape

If there is a development track for the aids to movement there is also a development track for the production of such aids and for the complementary capabilities that make the widespread use of such aids possible – in the case of cars these include production lines, dealers, service stations, repair and service shops, roads, tyre depots, loans and insurance companies, etc.

What is interesting here is that in a developed industrial and urbanised economy, the universal ownership of a horse as a means to mobility never materialised – possibly because a network for supplying, feeding, maintaining (blacksmiths, vets, etc), housing and managing waste was not economically sustainable. However there is virtually universal access to car ownership in such economies and established a new basic skill level – we learn to drive almost as automatically as we learn to walk. I will add a couple of observations, for what they are worth. From a cultural perspective walking, owner ridden horses and owner driven cars all offer mobility whereas the omnibuses and cabs (and trains, planes, etc) offer transport – so they result in a very different user experience. Secondly, another interesting element of the landscapes is that established capabilities in one area may become a key enabler of the emergence of another – so mass production has become a key enabler of, for instance mass ownership of cars that gave individuals back control over their movements at a greater level; likewise the mass production of electronics has brought computing power and communications capability to individuals – and the model does not apply only to manufacture but also to service industries.

So why is this of any interest or of anything more than passing interest?

Where is your product? Where are your products? Are they mass produced? If so, are your customers about to demand choice, customisation? Are you able to respond to such a demand? Can you anticipate it and drive it to gain a competitive edge? What might it cost to do so? Is the time right? Are you providing a service that supports a product or products? If you changed the way that the service is offered, what might happen? Where are you on the capability, capacity, choice, control continuum? Is the infrastructure in place to support a move from one corner of the square to another? If you don’t know, how can you be sure what impact any changes you make to your business model will have?

Please let me know if you find the model useful or if you think it is worth improving, extending or both and would like to discuss ideas of how to do this.

Organisation, technology, culture and their impact on the implementation of innovation.

In the 1980’s leading research into the successful introduction of new technologies identified the need for mutual adaptation of technology and organisation. There needs to be explicit recognition of the major influence culture has in determining success.

Dorothy Leonard-Barton asserts  in a paper* that “The major point in this paper is that implementation is innovation.” She is a writer whose work I regard highly even if the way that she writes and the way that I read are not well aligned and I usually make heavy weather of her texts. The important thing is that in this instance perseverance is well rewarded. If I were to change her assertion, it would be to say that innovation is the implementation of invention.

This 20 year old paper is interesting in its continued relevance to the business world of today. Leonard-Barton studied 12 instances of the introduction of new technologies into the operations of large corporations in the 1980’s, with outcomes that ranged from ‘Highly successful’ through degrees of  moderate success and partial failure to ‘Total failure’. She states that ” … a technology almost never fits perfectly into the user environment” and this situation she describes as misalignment. However there is not a single misalignment but a combination of misalignments which create complexity and which must be addressed by what she calls ‘mutual adaptation’. This involves “… reinvention of the technology and the simultaneous adaptation of the organization.” There follows a discussion assessing:

1. the significance and impact of misalignments at different strata of the organisation
2. the nature of adaptation cycles, both large and small; their impact on the business and the implications of committing to them

Some examples of adaptation options are presented and Leonard-Barton concludes that a degree of ‘mutual adaptation’ is an essential part of successful implementation. She also comments in her conclusions that “… research on survival in highly competitive industries suggests that the surviving companies are those that are open to advances in process technology – even if the price of that openness is expensive technical experimentation and costly organizational shifts.” There is no reason to think that the situation is any different now; indeed, I would argue that this broad conclusion can be applied much more widely to innovations in any aspect of  business.

One dimension in the process of implementation that is implicit in her discussion  is the influence of culture. At several places in the paper, the behaviour of individuals and groups and the effect those behaviours have on outcomes is described.  Behaviour is not a factor of technology or organisation so while it has been observed it has not been considered as a variable in this study. If you accept, for the sake of argument, that behaviour is driven by culture then the interfaces between organisation, technology and culture must all be taken into consideration and included in the process of adaptation if probability of success in the implementation of change is to be maximised. I will come back to the relationship between culture and behaviour in future posts.

* “Implementation as mutual adaptation of technology and organization”, Dorothy Leonard-Barton; Research Policy 17, 1988, pp251-267; Elsevier