The old adage form follows function, or process follows content, still applies whether we are talking about innovating or operating. Yet these days it appears to be increasingly difficult for some to either know the difference between the two or remember this most basic principle.
Don’t get me wrong. Process—which often is used as a label for a sequence of steps, activities or procedures—is an important ingredient to getting things done well and in a timely manner. It is invaluable in coordinating diverse sets of arms, legs and minds, if not hearts. When process works well it is invisible; when it doesn’t work well, it becomes very visible. Without process, collaboration is more difficult. But when process gets in front of the content—that which is being attempted and why—activity and motion get easily confused with progress and productivity.
Over the past 30 years, I have heard many well-intentioned leaders say, “we need to be more innovative” or “we need to improve how we innovate.” A statement like this may be a true and necessary message; but on its own, it is insufficient and incomplete. Stating where innovations are needed (and why they are needed there) is also required for a coherent and complete act of leadership.
Yet all too often, company leadership—the CEO, CTO and others—are silent or inarticulate in this regard. Perhaps they are too focused on the best method to take the next hill. But even with the best methods executed well, if you are on the wrong hill, the execution and method are irrelevant. When leaders actually do articulate where innovations are needed and why, innovators within the company naturally respond vigorously and effectively.
Innovating is like parenting—a particular type of managing. In parenting, each child responds differently to discipline, love and teaching moments. While parenting principles may be transferable from one child to the next, the actual methods, practices and process itself is likely to vary, sometimes a great deal. The same is true with each and every innovation. By definition each innovation is unique, like children. If and when we insist on applying the same sequence in the same way we are likely to relearn that “trusting the process” is better understood figuratively, not literally.
Peter Drucker made the observation in his book Management decades ago that the process one team used in its success is never exactly or directly transferable to another. Drucker says each project team needs to work out its own process appropriate to the particularities (or content) of the project at hand. This is not to say that one team cannot learn from the experience of another, particularly at the level of principles. Nor is it inferring that no new product development Stage-Gate framework is needed to define a common vocabulary and starting roles and responsibilities. It is merely a caution to being process-driven rather than content- or results-driven.
Many organizations are becoming more than “make and sell” execution machines by taking on the increasingly necessary “sense and respond” capabilities normally associated with living organisms. As this continues, the art of clearly communicating where and why innovations are needed will only become more important and valuable. Stephan Haeckel from IBM’s Advanced Business Institute wrote an interesting thought piece back in 1999 called Adaptive Enterprise (Harvard Business School Press). Haeckel suggests that the traditional command and control leadership required by organizations that are all about making and selling, centered around “offers” to customers is increasingly being complimented by a new kind of “context and coordination” leadership, centered in “responses” to customers more than offers to them. This kind of organization requires from its leaders a clear, unambiguous, “roomy” and shared understanding of where the organization is headed and why.
For knowledge workers to be productive in creating new knowledge where it matters Ikujiro Nonaka, author of The Knowledge Creating Company, says knowing where the organization is headed and why is not optional. It is essential. It establishes context, and all value is context-based. Process may be important, but context and content trump process.
One of the startling “aha’s” that came from our Innovation Practitioners Network’s study of Toyota’s innovation management system is Toyota’s agnosticism regarding process. They appear to see the value in processes, tools and methods, but are eclectic in their mix of methods. Does Toyota have clearly stated principles and a firm sense of where the company is headed? Absolutely. But they do not have an overall canonized Toyota innovation process! The results speak for themselves.
Trust the process? Take it figuratively. But, by all means, trust the process.
This article was originally published in Innovating Perspectives in November 2009. For this and other back issues of our newsletter, please visit our website at innovationsthatwork.com or call (415) 460-1313.
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