Sometimes, Innovation Is As Easy As Taking A Step Back
I recently finished reading former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara’s new book, Doing Justice: A Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law. Attorney Bharara does an outstanding job explaining the role of the prosecutor in the criminal justice system and how much of what he has to say about that applies equally to civil society.
In the chapter "Continuity and Change: Justice Through Innovation," Attorney Bharara used the application of wiretaps to insider trading cases to demonstrate innovation in the criminal justice system. Interesting for sure, but the example that really caught my attention was his discussion of the innovation that was the upside-down ketchup bottle. Certainly not rocket science, but helpful to those of us who get ketchup everywhere but on our hamburger. He went on to point out that all the examples of innovation he cites required no earth-shattering intellectual breakthroughs (apart from one his associate with a doctorate from UCLA worked on). Rather, they were the result of people taking a "step back"
to see how they could solve a difficult problem.
This got me thinking. How much time do first- and second-line managers spend taking a "step back" to see how they might solve a difficult problem or to just think about increased productivity through innovation? As Attorney Bharara notes, continued success requires both continuity and change. I suggest that, in the workplace, much time is spent on continuity, i.e. "getting the work out the door," but very little time is spent on change, i.e., "how best to get the work out the door."
In prior articles, I suggested that first- and second-line managers can be coached to implement transformation, understand the impact of financial decisions taken by leadership and create a sustainable competitive advantage. I now propose that they can be coached to become more innovative.
A coach has the time to think about innovation in this sense: They are not burdened with the day-to-day obligations of managers. Coaches can "take a step back" on behalf of the managers they coach to formulate questions designed to encourage innovative answers. They can engage managers in conversations that provoke a different way of looking at problems. This can be valuable to both managers and their companies. Developing even one innovation could have an outsized impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of the department for which the manager is responsible.
Speaking of outsized impact, I am reminded of a story about innovation that I heard years ago. It went something like this: A large company with numerous labor-intensive production lines was looking for a way to automate those lines to increase production without increasing cost. Consultants were given a week to study the typical line. They were to come up with their suggested path forward and present it to management at the end of the week. The best idea would get the work.
For four days, engineers "crawled" over the line, taking pictures, measurements, and doing all the other things engineers do when given this type of challenge. All but one, that is. One fellow simply watched the line for the first couple of days, spoke to several of the people on the line, and then left the plant. The other firms thought this fellow decided not to bid on the job. Both company executives and the other consulting firms were surprised when he showed up for the Friday meeting.
Armed with blueprints, slides and an array of prototypes, each firm "pitched" its idea with attendant costs, projected results and timelines for implementation. The lone fellow who had left the plant two days earlier sat quietly. He had no blueprints or any of the other materials so ardently presented by the other firms. When it was his turn, he asked management to follow him out to the production line.
Once there, he proceeded to relocate all the left-handed people working on the line to the left side of the conveyor belt. He did the same with the right-handed people who were all placed on the right side of the production line. He then asked that the line speed be increased to a rate higher than the best proposal of any of the other firms. The people on the line managed the increased line speed with no apparent difficulty. If anything, they seemed more at ease.
This consultant took the time to "take a step back" to solve a difficult problem. The results? Zero costs, zero capital required, and the downtime to implement this was none.
In all cases where the manager is coached to step back, the manager is just the "tip of the iceberg." Those reporting to the innovating manager have the ability to further refine ideas that result from "taking a step back." This is especially true when the manager’s direct reports have a hand in brainstorming and implementing the innovation. It is, indeed, a form of transformation, only this time it is bottom up, not top down.
The coach is not the creative force here. Rather, the manager has the advantage of having someone at their side who frames the issue in such a way that the manager (and the team, when appropriate) can formulate a targeted answer with all its attendant benefits.
