Xiaohao's Knowledge on Innovation: Fearless Organisation

Critical Factors of Innovative Organisations No. 4

Recently, I have gotten myself into a debate with Jason on whether innovation is a natural thing.

I believe we are naturally innovative. History holds the proofs. However, I am not at all too sure that innovativeness is so predisposed and predestined when the collective noun of ‘we’ is replaced with ‘you’, ‘I’, ‘she’ or ‘he’ (and maybe ‘it’). Our ability to innovate is influenced by cultural differences. The space each of us chooses to be in will determine our propensity to convert ideas into innovations, innovations into breakthroughs, and innovations into value.

There is no fear for being creative. It is very personal, natural, and it happens daily. The outcome of creativity are ideas. Often, these ideas just have a fleeting moment and they are gone into the cabinets at the back of our brains. They are totally forgotten but easily recalled and made readily available for consideration when the circumstances and opportunities arises. Outwardly, we commit nothing to them and invest nothing on them. So there is no social pressure to perform.

Fear becomes real when we want to act on an idea and make it tangible; to turn an idea into an innovation and cause it to breakthrough a problem. We, as individuals, fear looking foolish when everyone else is against the idea. We fear being compared to those successful ‘Hall of Fame’ individuals. We fear overworking and missing our family. We fear the sanctions of lower bonuses and salary increments due to poor delivery. We fear the stigma of failure imposed by our peers. We fear the pressure for coming up with the next big thing, since we have upped the competition. We fear someone else is going to share or steal our glory and pushes us behind the limelight. Finally, after considering all these fears, status quo wins and the idea joins the vast alumni of ideas in those mental cabinets of each us.

‘But are these real?’ I asked Jason, after hearing all his fears.

‘Yes! Of course!’ he said.

I repeated the question once more and I received the same answer.

I asked, ‘So, what happened to the idea about the new product now?’

He replied, ‘Forget about it. The situation in the company is just not right for my idea. I don’t want to 'die' unnaturally here.’

I laughed and repeated the question again, ‘But are your fears real? I mean, have they happened?’

His replied, ‘Yes. I seen it happened before. The idea was timely but management was not receptive to it and everyone else played dumb. The person who risked speaking up left the company; disappointed.’

‘But have these happened to you?’ I continued with my line of questioning.

‘No. Not yet. But it will. Look at what happened to George. He proposed the reorganisation of the sales force but the targets for the past 4 months continued to fall and he was booted out after a pay cut. I don’t want that to happen to me. I have kids to feed, a car, and house loans to service,’ He retorted.

‘But have these happened to you?’ I was relentless.

‘No! But……,’ was his reply.

‘Stop!’ I almost shouted and I asked again, ‘Have these happened to you?’

‘No…..,’ Jason trailing off. This time there were no examples and justifications following his reply.

There are two kinds of fear – the real one and the false one. You are fearful of drowning because you are in the pool now and you are drinking water, or fearful of being bitten by a dog because it is growling at you now. These are real fears because these incidents are happening to you now. However, not everything happens in this sequence.

Let me explain. Jason, who is new in the dating game, is interested in Julie for a very long time but he is too scared to ask her out.

I asked, ‘Why don’t you ask her out?’

‘Because I heard she only dates with good looking guys and I am not. I don’t want to be rejected,’ he said.

‘But you have not asked and she has not rejected you yet! Don’t you at least want to try?’ I implored.

‘No. I don’t want to look foolish,’ which was Jason’s reply.

I said, ‘You fear of the rejection even before she says no,’ and I explained what false fear is about.

In a false fear situation, fear comes before the incident, and we are perceptible and receptible to any information that confirms that the incident will happen. Jason reads Julie and has a hunch that she will turn him down. To avoid looking foolish, he has not asked Julie out. He continues to justify his inaction base on the hunch, and creates an endless loop of self-deception.

Now, let’s look at the earlier conversation about the idea for the new product. Does it look similar to the ‘dating Julie’ example? Many of us operate in the space of ‘self-deceptive fears’ and delude ourselves into not doing any good and great things because of them.

The way business is organised today often perpetuates these 'self-deceptive fears' amongst it workforce, and in doing so, deprive it the energy and vitality to innovate. These call for a relook at and rework of the organisation’s purpose, values, rules, processes, systems and structures so that its people could bravely innovate for their organisations.

This is what a fearless organisation is about. Watch this video - A Vision of Fearless Organisation: