Proven Knowledge: Filtering Creative Ideas through the Sieve of Knowledge and Experience Separates Out Workable Innovations
by Dennis Romig

 

The following is adapted from Chapter 10 of Dennis Romig’s book, Side by Side Leadership, Bard Press, 2001.

In his book Creativity, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi named Jacob Rabinow one of the eighty most creative individuals in the last half of the twentieth century (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, 98). Rabinow received 230 U.S. patents on a wide range of mechanical and electrical devices, including an automatic clock regulator that was used in all American autos, an automatic letter sorter that was adopted by the U.S. Post Office, the “best match” principle used in optical and magnetic character-reading machines, and the straight-line phonograph. Here’s how Rabinow described the way he brainstormed and selected ideas to develop:

You must think of a lot of music, a lot of ideas, a lot of poetry, a lot of whatever. And if you’re good, you must be able to throw out the junk immediately without even saying it. In other words, you get many ideas appearing and you discard them because you’re well trained and you say, “that’s junk” . . . And that doesn’t mean everyone can vote on it; they don’t know enough (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, 49-50).

Rabinow knew the importance of knowledge and experience in winnowing out the best ideas. In selecting the most valuable ideas for their company, teams and their leaders depend on the same kind of expertise. Teams are great at brainstorming up a huge reservoir of innovative options, but it takes knowledgeable individuals to guide the team in picking the best alternatives.

Psychologist Edwin Locke discovered that when leaders set specific, reach-out targets for simple work tasks, productivity dramatically increases. Complex work like planning a new factory or designing a new product cannot be performed effectively by simply setting the bar high and working hard. It requires selecting effective strategies based on the best available knowledge (Wood, Mento, and Locke, 1987, 416-425).

Take, for example, an automobile glass factory Ford Motor Company built in the 1980s. After losing money on it for several years, Ford brought in an outside expert. The expert calculated the plant’s highest ideal production capability — then proved that the plant could never show a profit because it had been designed too small. The plant had to be closed, with devastating consequences for everyone involved.

In one computer-chip company, engineers and operators tried out some creative ideas to increase quality and productivity, but the effort failed. Their manager had, at their request, purchased special equipment, but it was constantly breaking down and could not be repaired. The problem? The manager had bought unreliable equipment from the lowest bidder. He did not have the knowledge or experience to understand that the best and most expensive equipment would have paid for itself within a month.

Taking Calculated Risks

Chaparral Steel is one of the world’s most productive steel makers. In the early 1990s, when the average cycle time to produce a rolled ton of steel in the United States, Japan, and Germany was 5.3, 5.6, and 5.7 employee-hours, respectively, Chaparral’s average was an astounding 1.5. In achieving this productivity record, CEO Gordon Forward led the company in some calculated risk taking. Forward says, “We look at risk differently from other people. We always ask, What is the risk of doing nothing? We don’t bet the company, but if we’re not taking some calculated risks, we stop growing, and we may die.” (Leonard, (1995, 15)

Chaparral’s leaders question planned improvement ideas, sometimes with an eye not to reducing risk but to increasing it: no risk, no breakthrough. According to Professor Dorothy Leonard of Harvard, they use risk taking to create new knowledge: “Chaparral managers avoid risk-less projects because a ‘sure thing’ holds no promise of competitive advantage, no opportunity to out-learn competitors.” (Leonard, 1995, 15)

Chaparral made knowledge seeking part of its culture. When a major problem arose, representatives from different functions called a team meeting to discuss the issue. Team members then had forty-eight hours to get ideas and opinions from the world’s top experts. After two days, they reconvened to share what they had learned and to apply the new information toward a solution.

The Risk of Thinking

Calculated risk taking can be divided into two parts: risk in thinking and risk in implementing the ideas. Taking risks in thinking is especially vital in cases of emotional crisis or a threat to the company’s survival. This is when a leader must stay calm, uninhibit everyone’s thinking, and encourage new ideas. The leader should create a safe, uncritical work environment and ask for wild ideas without regard to time, cost, custom, or practicality.

Meeting threats to survival or making major advances requires coming up with ideas that don’t fit the pattern of other people’s thoughts — that is, thinking “outside the box.” It means looking for the possible in the seemingly impossible, seeing things in new ways, questioning assumptions, encouraging innovative thinking. All of these things carry the risk of failure. But not to take this risk carries a bigger risk — the near certainty that your company will fail or a more creative competitor will leave you behind.

True breakthrough thinking means considering the impossible. The people of Edison’s time thought electric lights impossible. Alexander Graham Bell also did the impossible when he developed electric wires and a mechanical apparatus that allowed people to converse at a distance. The Wright brothers flew despite their naysayers.

Yet some leaders are afraid of creative thinking. They mistakenly assume that their workers will rush out of the brainstorming meeting and tear the company apart by irresponsibly implementing some of the wilder ideas. This just doesn’t happen; it can’t happen if a leader ensures that, before implementation, ideas are filtered through the sieve of knowledge and experience.

The Risk of Doing

When the time comes to take action, having as much information as possible reduces the risk by making it easier to predict the results accurately. Data should be collected and analyzed from as many sources as feasible, both inside and outside the organization. One company, needing to scale back the number of its product lines, used internal sales and profit data to help decide which to keep. But the marketing manager also collected outside data on customers’ spending on competing products. Analysis of this information showed that the company’s newest, highest-risk product had the potential to generate ten times more money than any other product.

Because the creative flow of ideas usually stops as soon as the critique begins, evaluation should occur either at the end of the primary brainstorming session or after. Once all the creative options are identified, teams and leaders should draw on the best knowledge available to evaluate innovative ideas and strategies.

An excellent way to compare ideas is a pro/con analysis, which usually leads to better decisions than an unstructured discussion. Together the leader and team members can apply their knowledge to the options to identify the positive and negative aspects of each. Which has the most benefits? Which has the fewest drawbacks? Sometimes the best option is clear. At other times, it becomes apparent that more information is needed; when this happens, the leader should recruit volunteers to obtain the missing knowledge.

General Electric found a way to get people thinking outside the box, but tempered the risk of implementing the ideas and saved millions of dollars as a result. In a process called “Work-out,” employees were invited to a meeting in which, over several days, they were encouraged to help improve the company’s policies and procedures by identifying wasteful practices and, in general, raising questions about the way everything was done. The employees surpassed expectations; they proposed totally eliminating some of the more restrictive policies and procedures. All recommendations were studied in the light of available knowledge and filtered through pro/con analysis before any changes were adopted.

Pilot Testing

Information is an essential ingredient in minimizing risk. Leaders and teams should, however, avoid “analysis paralysis” — the compulsion to keep collecting and analyzing data rather than making a decision. I’ve seen management teams, thinking the risks and costs too high, delay for months a decision to train work groups in structured team skills. Fortunately, there’s an alternative to full and immediate implementation of breakthrough ideas: the pilot test.

Iowa State University communication professor Everett Rogers reviewed 4,000 studies on how risky innovations actually get put into action (Rogers, 1995). The best method, he found, was to try them out on a small scale. A pilot test can gauge the chances of success while minimizing the risk inherent in full-scale implementation. It yields real data on both the advantages and the disadvantages. It creates new knowledge for the leader, the team, and the organization.

Iowa State agriculture professors invented a new seed corn hybrid that grew taller and produced better yields; but how to get farmers to plant it? They cultivated small test plots on land near the farmers’ fields. Farmers driving by could see for themselves how much taller and greener the hybrid plants grew and, when they grew curious and got out of their trucks for a closer inspection, how much healthier and more abundant the new plants and ears of corn looked.

One manager of an electric parts manufacturer was unsure about implementing structured team skills, so he selected one team for a pilot program. The team’s productivity rose 20 percent within two months. Suddenly, all the managers wanted their teams trained.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers manage greater risks than most companies; their risk management practices are models for any leader. They conduct pilot trials consisting of rigorously controlled experiments, usually with outside or third-party oversight to avoid even unconscious bias. The companies adhere to the principle of pilot testing but surround the trials with experimental controls.

Despite the image conjured up by the word itself, a breakthrough is usually not a sudden, world-changing leap, but the sum of many small steps. Indeed, true creativity is often a series of tiny pilot tests. A study at the Chicago Art Institute comparing the most creative artists with those less inspired showed results that at first seem counterintuitive: mediocre artists started out with a plan and stuck to it; the best artists made many false starts and tried many experiments in getting to their desired result.

Pilot experiments and small adjustments are a good way to avoid both over analysis and big mistakes. Pilot studies promote breakthrough thinking by making it easier and less risky. You don’t have to have all the answers before you start. You can move toward your goal, correct missteps before they become catastrophes, and build momentum toward rapid improvement.

When a Risk Fails

One test of a Side by Side leader is handling missteps. Failure to achieve a single goal does not make a failure of a person, team, or organization. What baseball player led the league in strikeouts? The same one who set the record for knocking it over the fence: Babe Ruth. Who missed the most game-winning baskets at the buzzer? Michael Jordan, the same superstar who sank the most game-winning baskets. Winners are the ones who try the most, risk the most, and learn the most from failure.

The risk in trying out new ideas is that sometimes it doesn’t lead to success. However, it always leads to new knowledge — as Thomas Edison was fond of pointing out to his critics. Asked how he felt about a long series of failed experiments in pursuit of an important discovery, he replied, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

In businesses and other organizations, losing a calculated risk is not failure if the leader and the team gain new knowledge that can be used to achieve success the next time around. Frank Campbell, vice president of operations at Raytheon Montek in Salt Lake City, encouraged factory worker teams trained in structured team skills to take calculated risks. The teams consistently achieved 20 to 30 percent performance improvements, and everyone was content.

Eventually, one of the calculated risks resulted in a $20,000 loss. Uh-oh, people thought, Frank’s gonna kill someone. But Frank stayed calm. He asked, quietly, “What did we learn from this?” There was a collective sigh of relief. The mistake had been turned into a knowledge asset.

Side by Side Tips

Learn and grow from all risks you take — especially the ones that fail. And remember to do the following:

 

References:

            Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1996), Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York:
        Harper Perennial, 98.

Wood, Robert E., Anthony J. Mento, and Edwin A Locke (1987), “Task complexity as a moderator of goal effects:
        A meta-analysis.” Journal of Applied Psychology 72(3).

Leonard, Dorothy (1995), Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation.
        Boston:Harper Business School Press.

Rogers, Everett (1995), Diffusion of Innovations (4th ed.). New York: Free Press.

About the Author

Dr. Dennis Romig received his Ph.D. in educational psychology and management from the University of Texas.  Previously he obtained a master’s degree in counseling psychology and a bachelors’ degree in basic science (chemistry and biology). He achieved all three degrees in six years.  Dr. Roming is president of Performance Resources, Inc., an international training and consulting firm headquartered in Austin, Texas.  He provides leadership training and coaching to CEOs and other executives at their companies or at the Side by Side Leadership Academy in Austin.  He leads a group of highly successful trainers and consultants who facilitate outstanding results throughout the world.  An award-winning author, Dr. Romig won the best paper award at the International Work Teams Conference in 1995.  His previous book, Breakthrough Teamwork, received the highest rating at Amazon.com. He serves on several boards, including the board of directors of MetroNational Corporation in Houston.

©Dennis Romig 2001

Back to E-Journal