If Aristotle was alive today, he would not be completely proud of how we understood his world's view. According to him, there are two parts to it. In one part of the world, things cannot be other than they are, and in the other, things can be other than they are. As a society, we mastered the first part by using science as per his advice. But failing in the other part of the world by using the same scientific rigor he was advising against.
Not so Excel-ent world
As management became science and analysis obsessed, excel becomes an indispensable tool. Management's biggest ally. That same ally is also blinding the management about the future. Crunching data about the past to define the future has enormous limitations. The future can only be an extrapolation of the past. And things will always be as they are or what your excel file shows you. Perhaps 2-3% better.
For many living in such a world would be ideal, excel will run the business, and everything would be easy. If only this could be true. But it wasn't for Nokia when they had more than 50% of global market share. Their excel file couldn't tell them that the iPhone is going to be the next big thing. It wasn't also true for many automotive brands in 2008 when Tesla launched its first car - Roadster. By 2020 the same company became the most valuable automotive brand in the world. Now everyone is doing the catch-up game and always comparing themselves with Tesla. All that while their excel files find it hard to accept the harsh reality that couldn't have happened.
The problem with management's decision-making today is evident. It relies more on looking at the past rather than imagining the future. It hugely undervalues imagination. Hence, we don't see many new ideas coming but simple maintenance of the status quo.
Yet the world is rapidly changing. The world we see today is more volatile and unpredictable than ever before. With a dominant excel mindset, companies find it very hard to adapt.
COVID is the latest example that we can take.
Suddenly everyone got obsessed with two things - change management and innovation. But things don't happen overnight. You cannot change the culture by making people listen to an online course. Or ask them to think outside of the box to come up with innovative ideas. Something that they haven't done even once in their lifetime. Many corporate cultures are built on strict hierarchy and fear. Management by committees and everyone getting along is the way to go. The opposable arguments are rarely heard, the same as innovative thinking. Turning this into an open and innovative culture overnight is close to impossible.
As long as COVID or any external force is the sole reason for the change, nothing will happen. Companies need to change before the need for change arises.
Whiteboard, whiteboard on the wall...
In almost every company, you will find whiteboards in the meeting rooms. Once in a while, some words have been written on them. But there is nothing that leads to imagining new possibilities. Or making things other then they are.
Companies will say... this is something more related to the advertising industry, for the creative bunch. Somehow when people think about innovation, they think about the creativity and advertising industry as there is an intrinsic relation between creativity and innovation. But things are not going well on the advertising industry side too. Once a bastion of creativity and innovation is now the automation factory. Too much science and analysis got in the way to creativity. Perhaps this is the language that companies understand better. The same company that looks at its past to define its future asks the creative industry to do the same.
Maybe we can all learn from big management consultancies. They are the ones who are the masters in crunching data and looking at the past. But they have done something else besides this. They imagined new possibilities by acquiring leading innovation agencies. Fahrenheit 212 - CapGemini, Fjord - Accenture, Doblin - Deloitte. This gives them an edge in helping their clients from both ends of the spectrum, past, and future.
Potential solution - 50:50
The truth is not either-or, but the balance of both ends. Unless we equal excel & whiteboard, exponential growth will be a black swan event.
Don't believe that creating separate innovation labs within companies is the best solution as it is tough to integrate the lab's ideas into the working culture. Also, don't think that sending people to Silicon Valley to see what is happening and report is the way to go either.
Innovation and whiteboarding need to be a practice as excel & crunching data is. Both should be equally present within the working culture.
One of the solutions is to introduce new roles within the company. Innovation cannot be an outside thing. Someone needs to instill the whiteboarding within the decision-making process. And help in reframing the business problems and unlock the new possibilities.
We can also start to think about what we do as an excellent opportunity to innovate. No matter how small or big the task is.
Things can be other then they are as long as we learn how to operate at an intersection of knowledge (excel) & imagination (whiteboard).
In my humble opinion this is what the world of business needs today.
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