In China the average production worker’s wage is $100a month. In Pakistan it is half that. Competing on the basis of lower costs is not an option. Competing on the basis of quality may work for the next five years, but no longer. It is possible for anyone to buy the best machinery and hire the best experts on quality. So what are the options?
1. There is outsourcing, which is partial use of low-cost production areas.
2. There is protectionism, with tariffs around high-cost areas.
3. There is full automation of production, with no need for human workers - and considerable political trouble as jobs dry up.
4. There are added value and creativity in an effort to keep permanently ahead on offered value
Creativity is becoming so important that the EU needs to appoint a Commissioner of Creativity to develop this aspect. In my experience, corporations have a lot of difficulty with creativity. They fully acknowledge the importance of innovation, but have difficulty in paying more than lip-service to the matter. It is easier to talk about creativity than to do anything.
Executives are promoted because they are good at ‘continuity’. This means continuing to run things as they are being run. There may be an emphasis on cost-cutting, or on quality improvements. But new ideas area distraction and a risk and a disruption. So let other people try out the new ideas, and when they have been shown to work, you copy them with a ‘me-too’. It is hard to fault this strategy. Why do we need continuity?
1. For problem-solving: when we have no solution, or we want to find a better solution.
2. To develop opportunities and to make better use of existing assets.
3. To keep up with competition and even move ahead.
4. To respond to changes in the world around.
There is actually a mathematical need for creativity in any system in which information comes in over time and there is a need to make the best use of available information. The sequence of arrival of information can lock us into concepts and methods which are far from the best.
TALENT OR SKILL
Creativity is believed to be a mysterious talent which some people have and others can only envy. This is traditional nonsense. Creativity, in the form of lateral thinking, is a formal skill which anyone can acquire.
Creativity is nothing more than the behaviour of information in self-organising systems (like the human brain) which form asymmetric patterns.
FORMAL STRUCTURE
Hoping that creativity will happen by chance is weak. Exhorting people to be more creative is weak. Expecting chance events to trigger creativity is even weaker.
There is benefit in a formal structure that puts more emphasis and focus on deliberate creative effort. That is the basis for the Idear teams - Idea, Design, Explore, Application, Realise.
Most organisations expect ideas to come from their R&D departments. This is a bad mistake. The thinking of scientists is towards discovery and finding out ‘what is’. Design is all about creating ‘what can be’. Research can be asked to make feasible or to improve the technological aspects of an idea, but research is not good at designing ideas in the first place. That is not what scientists are about. There are many existing technologies which can be incorporated in powerful new ideas without the need for any more research. That is a design function, not a research function.
Research and idea design are separate functions. They may sometimes overlap, but they should exist as separate functions. Every organisation should have one or more Idear teams. There could be one for every division or product line. An Idear team can be made up of dedicated members who do nothing else. An Idear team may be made up of executives who do have other roles, but have membership of the Idear team as an extra function.
What is most important is that the teams be run with discipline and formality. There is an expectation that they will design new ideas. It is not a matter of a group of people brainstorming occasionally. Furthermore, the design of the idea should include methods of testing the idea and methods of implementing the idea. The potential value of the idea needs to be made clear.
Creativity is not just ‘change for the sake of change’. I have called this type of creativity ‘crazytivity’. True creativity has to show value. Creativity may mean new values, new products and new services. Creativity may also mean doing things in a simpler way. Creativity may mean new methods and channels of distribution.
It may be argued that putting a formal structure in place is not going to increase the ‘inspiration’ aspect of creativity. Perhaps not, but it will increase the flow of new ideas. One afternoon in South Africa a group of workshops organised by Caroline Ferguson generated 21,000 ideas using just one of the formal techniques of lateral thinking. I doubt if inspiration would have been so productive.
Talent, inspiration and lip-service to creativity may still carry on and make whatever contribution they can. The difference is that there is no need to rely entirely on such sources of innovation. The creation and implementation of Idear teams provides a productive source for new ideas in any organisation.
SUMMARY
Idear teams are all about ideas. Ideas are ways of doing things. Ideas are about putting things together to deliver value. Ideas may create new ideas. Ideas are a key element in progress. Ideas are a key element in survival and in success and competition.
Design is the way new ideas are produced. It is not a matter of scientific discovery, but of designing how things can be put together to create value. Design is very different from analysis. Analysis seeks to find out what is there. Design produces something which is not yet there. There is thus a fundamental difference in thinking. Design also includes the skill of creativity.
Exploring means looking around to see the potential. Where can this idea be applied? How can this idea deliver value in different areas or circumstances? Exploring is indeed a form of discovery, but it means looking widely, not more intensively in the same direction. It means examining possibilities as much as determining the truth.
Application is key. A great idea with no application is not much use. A lesser idea with a wide application is superior. Creative people often do not put enough emphasis on the application of an idea. So there is a needed emphasis on application if the idea is to have real value.
Realise means making something ‘real’. Realise means putting something into action. Realise means achieving reality. This is all part of the design of a new idea. It is not a matter of having an idea and then looking around to see how the idea can be realised.
All these aspects come together in the formal structure of IDEAR TEAMS.
