Creativity & the System

As is widely known, kids are creative.

You were once a kid.  You were creative.

So what happened?  The simple answer is “You grew up.”  The more complex answer is that (1) You grew up and (2) You got a job.  And voila!—there went the creativity.  Poof!

You can’t do anything about growing up.  And chances are, you need a job.  So does this mean that you are doomed to a life with a fundamental lack of creativity?

No.

There are plenty of places where creative people abound.  Think about Apple.  Or MINI.  Clearly, creative companies in everything they do, from their products to all of the materials they create to promote and support them.

Yet the people who work at those companies are grownups.  They have jobs.  (One is named Jobs.)  And, non-trivially, they are interested in profits: It is creativity as a means to an end.

And there are plenty of other people at plenty of other companies just like them.  Well, maybe not plenty.  But certainly some.

So what’s the creative difference?

While not speaking specifically of the aforementioned companies, Doug Hall, founder and proprietor of the Eureka! Ranch (www.eurekaranch.com), provocateur, serial inventor, and all-around innovation zealot, has an answer.  It is not his answer per se, as it comes from the late W. Edwards Deming.

Hall asserts that people who aren’t manifestly creative are afraid.  That’s right: Afraid.

As in Deming’s point 8 in his list of 14: “Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.”

People who are afraid aren’t particularly creative.

So how does this change?  In a word: Management.

But not the management that exists at most companies.  Because, Hall explains, in most companies, the type of management, and the System that it gives rise to and sustains, are precisely the kinds of things that aren’t beneficial to creativity, or, more to the point, innovation.  Innovation that, in his words, gives rise to a product or service that is “meaningfully unique.”  He points out, “If you’re not meaningfully unique, you’d better be cheap.”  Nowadays, trying to be cheap is all the more difficult, because that generally means that you’re producing a commodity, and producers of commodities don’t have much in the way of margins. . .which suggests that they don’t have much in the way of a future.

There are several problems with the System.  One that Hall thinks is particularly vexing is that of the Stage Gate system that many companies deploy, thinking that this procedure of activities, or stages, and decision points, or gates, is fundamentally a command-and-control system that he goes so far as to describe as “corporate communism,” wherein “omnipotent forces can declare what’s going to happen.”  This, not surprisingly, “drives all the joy and fun out of the process, and efforts are spent on gaming the system.”  He suggests that there is a correlation between the rise of stage gate deployment and the decline of successful new products.

Another problem: “The System is designed to prevent failure.”  Which you might think is a good thing.  Hall doesn’t.  Because in its effort to mitigate failure, it leads to compromise.  Compromise leads to mediocrity.  And mediocrity leads to failure.  Remember: It is Hall’s contention that the successful products are those that offer a meaningful benefit to consumers, and it is likely that mediocrity isn’t on their shopping list.  “Customers don’t leave where they are and move to a new product unless they’re offered a meaningful difference,” Hall says.

Of course, all too many in management positions are worried about maintaining their management positions, and so they try to maintain the status quo.  Hall has little patience for these people, as he insists, “If your purpose in life is to sit there and avoid risk at all cost, then get out of the damn job.”  He points out that with increased levels of competition from around the world, “You can’t tred water.  It used to be that you could sit in the GM supply chain and do OK.  You can’t do that.  You’re either going up—or you’re going down.”

Hall and his organization have developed a methodology for working with companies that is fundamentally based on the approach that Deming promoted: Plan.  Do.  Study.  Act.  Halls says that this needs to be performed in rapid cycles, on an on-going basis.  “What we need to do is what I call ‘Fail fast, fail cheap.’”  It is a matter of doing things quickly and inexpensively on the way to developing meaningful innovations.

The leaders in the organization do things like identifying the potential “death threats” to the company, and then communicate them to the people in the organization who will work on the initiatives (Deming’s point #9: “Break down barriers between departments.  People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service”).  The people are empowered.  They aren’t “controlled” in the classical sense.  To be sure, there is a method, but it is one that doesn’t cause people to fear failure.

In fact, failure is to be expected.  Hall says, “I’ve written and tested 15,000 ideas.  I’ve written more bad ideas than anyone on earth.  I’ve also written more good ideas.  It’s a package deal.  That’s the way it works.  And, no, I don’t get better.”

Testing is part of the sequence (Plan.  Do.  Check.  Act.).  Hall thinks that things should be prototyped, but in a rather non-conventional way.  He says that he separates prototypes into “looks like” and “works like.”  Rather than having one object that looks like and works like the product, which he says takes too long and is too expensive, he works with a graphic rendering for the “looks like” and an “ugly model” for the “works like.”  Remember: he is insists that you “fail fast, fail cheap,” and this approach does it.  “You run simple concept tests,” he says.

Here’s one uncomfortable (for many) thought.  Hall says: “It is about the courage to do something that’s really weird.”  Want to be successful?  To be creative?  Well, being adult, mature, and reasonable probably isn’t going to do it.

Here’s the thing in a nutshell from Doug Hall: “Are you having fun?  Are you excited about it?  LIFE IS MEANT TO BE FUN!”