Argue with Success

“Success is the enemy of innovation.” Peter Chernin, chairman and chief executive of the Fox Group, said this a couple of years ago. Whether he originated it or not, the tone of his voice when he said it convinced me that he understood its truth first hand.  

Its truth is what makes innovation efforts in an “only-child” entrepreneurial start-up so very different from those efforts in a “multi-sibling” enterprise, or when the former grows into the latter. Without strong parenting, the older, better established “siblings” often protect their own interests to the detriment of the younger sibling. In families, it’s called sibling rivalry; in corporations, it’s called competition for resources.

While this rivalry for resources may take many forms, there is also another reason why success can become the enemy of innovation. Operations, which is defined as any part of the enterprise that generates cash from customers, comes to rely upon the disciplines of focus, alignment and tight coordination. These disciplines are essential for improving efficiencies and maintaining profitability. However, these very same practices are not conducive to the open dissent and debate required to discover and pursue new market opportunities and new value propositions. 

By definition, novelty is an essential characteristic of any innovation: incremental, radical, disruptive or otherwise. Because of its very nature, novelty has to be understood, played with and debated so that the value there within is understood. What is new requires an introduction; and effective introductions, paradoxically, work when they make the new more familiar. Often there is some positioning, or framework for making the new seem, well, not so new that it scares off the potential user or customer. Getting the introduction right can be as important as the innovation itself.

A poor introduction—based upon an incomplete or misunderstood value proposition—can make or break the innovation’s future. This is precisely what happened when Kimberly-Clark back in the 1980s attempted to introduce Avert™ as an anti-virus facial tissue. Though it was a facial tissue in form; in function, Avert—recognized as one of the most innovative new products in the year it was tested—belonged not on the shelf next to facial tissues, but next to cold remedies. 

In their book, Innovation: The Missing Dimension, authors Richard Lester and Michael Piore differentiate between analytical and interpretive kinds of innovation sub-processes. Their premise is that an all too common mistake in our innovations efforts arises when we apply analytical practices too soon and don’t do enough interpretive work early in the process. The impatience of operating entities is one reason; discomfort with the open dissent necessary for the exercise of interpretive skills is another.

When we avoid anything outside our comfort zone, the seeds of “group-think” get planted and one of the first things to go is a climate of open dissent. Focus and alignment become more important than purpose and vocation and the successful company begins to lose its feel for the signs and still small voices of its next entrepreneurial opportunity. Examples are easy to come by: the traditional airline carriers and GM, Ford and Chrysler (not long ago we called them the big three.)

In a recent New Yorker essay, James Surowiecki quoted Yale Professor of Management Jeffrey Sonnenfeld as saying that a successful board of directors needs a “culture of open dissent.” This could apply as well to the leadership and management of our innovation efforts—our innovation boards. A climate of open dissent is “where members are free to criticize the CEO or each other, and there is no artificial attempt to impose consensus on the group.”

Surowiecki writes, “This is hard to achieve, because dissenting opinions often get interpreted as personal attacks. Social scientists like to say that good decision-making groups engage in ‘task conflict,’ fighting over the best solution to particular problems, while bad ones engage in ‘relationship conflict,” interpreting differences of opinion as differences of character.

But, as Tony Simmons and Randall Peterson of Cornell University mention in their study of seventy top management teams, groups that engage in task conflict also often suffer from relationship conflict. In other words, it seems you can be collegial and friendly and make bad decisions, or you can be locked in a room with people who can’t stand each other and make better decisions!

“Simmons and Peterson identified a surprisingly simple way out of this dilemma: trust.  They found that groups whose members trusted one another’s competence and integrity were more likely to engage in task conflict without succumbing to relationship conflict. Paradoxically the more people trust one another, the more willing they are to fight with each other.”

We hear the same message from Matthew May’s book, The Elegant Solution, on Toyota’s formula for managing innovation, points to the way Toyota attempts to institutionalize this climate of open dissent. “Hierarchy stifles innovation, and we need open and honest disagreement about every idea. [Because] every idea counts!”

This article was originally published in Innovating Perspectives in November 2006. For this and other back issues of our newsletter, please visit our website at innovationsthatwork.com or call (415) 387-1270.